Around the Blogs

Two posts that deserve some highlighting:

Aaron at Axels, Loops, and Spins has devoted a post to questioning why Mao Asada's attempted triple axel combination, which was determined to not quite be a triple axel, received additional deductions.

Here's the part I don't get. Not only was the jump downgraded to a double...she received negative GOE's for it. So instead of...'wow, she almost pulled off another triple axel,' it was scored as 'that was a crappy double axel.' This doesn't make sense to me at all!

Seems to me that while the jump is downgraded, she should get positive grades because it was 1/4 turn (if that!) short of being a triple axel combo...come on! What she did was way better and more difficult than a double axel combo and she would have received more points had she simply done a double axel/double toe.

If you know why the judging went this way, head over there and comment because I'd like to understand better myself.

And Kelli from State of the Skate has a great post comparing this year's Grand Prix finalists to recent years. I encourage you to check it out.