Grand Prix Final in Rearview

Well that was some great competition. An explosive end to the Grand Prix competition, and a great stage-setter for Nationals and Worlds.

Not to mention it rocked my Fantasy scores. I'm back down to 116th!

For the sake of brevity, I'll just list my observations:

Elizaveta Tuktamysheva is a truck driver. She doesn't look like she'd be a good skater when you observe her getting on and off the ice, based on her posture and sort of mannish build, but once she starts going, she bowls you over. Her jumps are phenomenal. Could use some presentation work, but I'm pleased that she's not a bendy-flexy, skin and bones little girl and she's winning.

I love Ashley Wagner's Moulin Rouge freeskate. She nailed it at the Final and looked better perhaps than I've ever seen her skate. But unfortunately at her best, she's just not good enough to win. And I'm a little annoyed that she wasn't docked for clearly being on the wrong edge on her lutz...

I guess Yuzuru Hanyu is back to crushing the competition. He makes a quad salchow look like butter.

Javier Fernandez continues to get pooped on by the judges. His technical merit was rightly below Yuzuru Hanyu's, but in my opinion, he got majorly screwed in presentation. His performance was so energetic, his interpretation of the music so effortless and spot on...yet his scores were pretty significantly below Hanyu. Hanyu's great, don't get me wrong, but he's not as good as Fernandez, and I wish people would see that!

Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, holy wow. They were AWESOME. I loooove them. I'm so glad they are doing well. Meagan is solid muscle. She looks like she could nail one of those Ninja Warrior obstacle courses. Couldn't be any harder than landing a throw quad salchow? They're the first pair I've ever seen (or at least noticed) do side-by-side combo jumps. So. Many. Points.

And now, on to U.S. Nationals next month, which should be great fun to watch.