I thought the men's competition ended exactly as it should have, which is a bit refreshing. Although, the commentators thought Joubert had the title sewn up. I know less about the scoring system than they do though, so that's fine. I know Buttle didn't have a quad, but the jumps he did have were clean and impressive. Joubert, however, was not quite as impressed, according to thestar.com:
Sitting next to Buttle on the dais at the press conference that followed, Joubert – who won silver here – could barely contain his disdain for a rival who copped gold without even attempting a quadruple jump.
"I'm still disappointed because Jeffrey did the perfect combination but he didn't try the quadruple jump.
The scoring system has changed so much. It's better now to do simple and clean than to try something difficult.
"We need to give more points for the quads."
If hurt or angry by those remarks, Buttle didn't show it, though he countered with a pointed defence.
"Figure skating is everything. It's not just about the jumps. I definitely feel like I earned the title and I'm happy."
Now, don't forget that Joubert is so confident in his scoring potential that he chooses to put lyrics into his program, even though it is an automatic one point deduction. I think I prefer his skating to Buttle's, but the cockiness has got to go (although maybe that's part of his appeal? I don't know).
I was glad Johnny Weir was able to snag that bronze medal, it was his first world's medal and it also meant he assured the United States men would have three competitors at next year's competition in Los Angeles.
It was interesting during the televised interview with Peter Carruthers; he compared himself to Michelle Kwan at the 1998 Olympics, skating too cautiously to win. It definitely was a careful, if unambitious, skate, unlike Joubert's, and Weir only beat the next closest competitor, Japan's Dice-K of ice (Daisuke Takahashi), by a very small margin. I liked Johnny's free skate and really enjoyed the footwork at the end. However, he's going to have to add some more jumps at the end not only so he can get the bonus points but also so that his program is more balanced. We'll see what he does next year.
Speaking of Dice-K, I DID like the Cyber Swan short program, although the mix was very early 90s to me, so it made me laugh when the announcers called it cutting edge. However, I thought it worked well and his choreography was very entertaining and difficult. I actually also really enjoyed his Romeo and Juliet long program as well, too bad about all of the jumps.