Transcribed by Gina (@4ATwizzles), Tilda (@tequilda), Andrea (@starryyuzu), Evie (@doubleflutz) and Karly (@cyberswansp)
Yogeeta: You're in the Loop! We're here to discuss the ups, downs and sideways of the sport of Figure Skating and maybe give you +5 GOE along the way. Let's introduce this week's hosts!
Evie: Hi, I'm Evie and I made the bad decision to host this episode fully knowing I would be dead tired from attending Australian Nationals all this past week. I'm on Twitter @doubleflutz.
Yogeeta: Hi, I'm Yogeeta and this weekend has made me very sad but there were some highlights. I'm on Twitter @liliorum.
Niamh: Hello, I'm Niamh and I've spent the past weekend looking for Golden Spin updates which were very few and far between. You can find me on Twitter @rivrdance.
Evie: So, guys, the Grand Prix Final sure did happen, right?
Yogeeta: It happened.
Niamh: Can we forget it happened?
Evie: Honestly, it feels like we've run a marathon watching this whole Grand Prix Final. I'm just so tired from watching skating!
Yogeeta: Honestly, I watched so much of this laying in my own bed and yet I am so, so tired.
Niamh: Same! It's because it's double the usual competition because there are the Juniors as well.
Yogeeta: The Juniors were the shining light of the competition.
Niamh: Honestly...You're right. Juniors were the only thing that happened!
Evie: But before we get on to talking about the Juniors, of course, we have to talk about the Senior events which were...a little bit all over the place in every single discipline. I honestly think the whole event was just a bit messier than I expected going into it. Overwhelmingly I feel like the majority of skaters that were here did better during the qualifiers than they did at the final which the exception of a couple.
Niamh: Oh yeah, definitely. Yogeeta: 100%.
Evie: But before we get onto talking about each of the disciplines in detail like we usually do, we have to touch on the commentary on the Official ISU stream. This was the first time the Official ISU YouTube stream has had commentary for an event and it was done by Chris Howarth, formally of British Eurosport. It was... yikes to say the least.
Yogeeta: At the start of the year I was like “Oh everyone has free streams now, why am I paying $60 for NBC Gold?” And now I know why I'm paying $60 for NBC Gold - because we had commentary-free streams.
Evie: Most of the time I don't like watching skating with commentary, just because it distracts me so much. Ted [Barton] is the only commentator I can stand purely for the fact that he doesn;t talk during the performances, he leaves all his comments to the end, after they are done, during the replays and that's perfect, dream commentary for me. But Chris not only talked over the top of most of the programs but also a lot of his commentary was borderline disrespectful in some cases. Not only that but the fact he kept mispronouncing a lot of names. It wasn't even like he was mispronouncing the names of skaters unfamiliar to a majority of the audience, he was mispronouncing skaters' names who have been on the Senior circuit for years, people he has commentated on before and he was still making errors. In the case of the Pairs event we had Sui and Han and Chris was saying “Ah, yes, ‘Soo Wenjing’ and ‘Han Kong'” and I was just like “Oh God...” “Peng Chan” and “Yin Yan.”
Niamh: The names he is pronouncing wrong aren't even complicated ones. I could kind of understand some of the complicated Russian names.
Evie: But he was doing fine with those ones!
Niamh: Yeah! But event the simplist name like Boyang Jin?
Evie: “Boyang Yin.”
Niamh: How hard is it to say Jin?
Evie: And then you also had things like “Gillem” Cizeron. Most of these skaters have been competing on the Senior circuit for years; Sui and Han are two-time World champions, Guillaume and Gabby, they're four-time World champions. I've watched his commentary on British Eurosport for some of these teams before!
Niamh: I swear he's said some of these names fine before. I've never noticed him having this many issues in the past.
Yogeeta: You would think some someone would correct him when he is doing this repeatedly.
Niamh: I can understand during the Short Program and then someone correcting him before the Free.
Yogeeta: Also he's in the area where they are correctly pronouncing the names of the skaters.
Evie: There's no excuse at the end of the day. We haven't even gotten onto the fact that some of his commentary was either really overly harsh or ridiculously condescending. Especially in the Pairs Free, you'd hear his talking about Micheal Marinaro who had that really bad fall during the throw, and he was talking about how “The program was going really well” and “It's a shame that happened, it completely knocked the wind out of him and I feel so bad for him' and then in comparison, just a few minutes later and Sui and Han were on and Cong had a couple of mistakes, Chris' tone came across as way harsher, saying he was “All over the shop” and pointing out the grimace on his face when he was exiting the combination.
Niamh: Pointing out the grimace on his face. Well, obviously after he's had a few mistakes he's not going to be skating around the rink looking like that happiest boy in the World.
Yogeeta: I didn't experience this commentary but just hearing you guys talk about it, it sounds absolutely terrible.
Evie: Even in the Men's event when Dmitri Aliev had that really awful Free skate that was extremely rough - when he almost lost his balance on the ending pose Chris commented that “The ending really summed up that whole performance.” Okay! Mate, this guy just had one of the roughest Free skates of his career and that's what you're going to point out? It was honestly just a goddamn mess and I wish they just got Ted to do it. He was already there doing the Juniors!
Niamh: Why didn't they just have no commentary at all, it worked fine during the Grand Prix [qualifiers]?
Yogeeta: Think they were probably thinking “Oh, Ted's going to be there for the Juniors, we need someone to be there to do the Seniors. You can't have commentary for one set but not the other.”
Evie: They could have been looking to secure the casual public, I guess, or people who are unexperienced watching skating who might need commentary to understand elements and stuff which I get-
Niamh: Are many people from the general public watching skating on a YouTube stream?
Evie: I mean... It's what the ISU wants, that's the whole reason for them letting it be accessible in this way, to get it out there.
Yogeeta: I guess it's also for future audiences, like people after they watch the Olympics will come back and search for skating and they'll be able to find this with commentary and hopefully the commentary helps but it sounds like the commentary probably won't.
Niamh: The commentary didn't even go into the elements, he was like “Oh this has a review,” which is fine. But if the commentary is there to tell people who don't know the sport what's happening, tell people what the review if for rather than just saying “This is being reviewed” like-
Evie: Okay! Cool!
Yogeeta: For what?
Niamh: Yes! Why? Why is it being reviewed?
Yogeeta: You know, if the ISU needed a commentator for seniors they should've brought back Belinda Noonan, who was the commentator for the Olympics.
Niamh: Honestly...
Evie: But, yeah. At the end of the day, this commentary was just not on at all. It wasn't good, it wasn't delivering anything useful to the skating public. I hope that the ISU does not do this for the Championship events coming up, starting next month with Euros because...yikes.
-end segment-
START: Pairs
Evie: Let's start talking about the competition proper. Let's go and start off with the Pairs! So our podium here for Senior Pairs and the Grand Prix Final were, in gold, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China, Peng Chang and Jin Yang of China in silver, and Anastasia Mishina and Alexandr Galliamov with the bronze. So, this Pairs event, guys... Chaotic is a word to describe it!
Yogeeta: I think I went into this expecting different scores and a very different podium to what I got.
Niamh: That was the case for a lot of the events. Evie: Yeah!
Yogeeta: But I feel like for Pairs in particular. In the other Senior disciplines the people on the podium were who I expected to be on the podium just maybe not in the order I wanted them to be, while this one...I did not expect Mishina and Galliamov on this podium.
Evie: Yeah, especially trading in Mishina and Galliamov for Boikova and Kozlovskii I was definitely not expecting that just based on what we saw on the qualifiers, it was definitely quite a shock. And then surprise silver medalists Peng/Jin again, which is nice! I like this! But a lot of teams had either some uncharacteristic or unfortunate mistakes in one or both programs this week. It was just really disheartening to see how messy this event was in general but sometimes stuff like this happens.
Yogeeta: Better off here than at Worlds.
Evie: This is true. It's only the middle of the season, there's still the Championships to go, no one is looking to peak at the Grand Prix Final! So, Sui and Han won their first Senior Grand Prix Final!
Yogeeta: They've made it here so many time and always fell sort of gold. I'm so happy they finally got it, it's what they deserve. But the programs they put out were not the usual level we expect from Sui and Han.
Evie: Yeah, and they've been having more problems with the side-by-side jumps; Allen [Han Cong] had the really wonky landing on the triple toe which caused him to have bad mistakes on the next couple of jumps in that combination and it was a bit of a mess all around. I don't know what the hell is wrong with side-by-sides, why are side-by-sides always so cursed guys?
Yogeeta: We don't need side-by-sides, we don't need Sals, in particular.
Evie: I thought that during Cup Of China they had a couple of issues with their pairs spin in the Free and by NHK they managed to fix it, and now it's back to being a little bit unsteady because Allen was wobbling in the camel. I don't think he held enough positions to count for the level and so they got a level 3 and the V on it. They still won-
Yogeeta: But it wasn't the runaway victory that we thought they weren't going to get.
Evie: Well, they have basically a month off; they have all of January and a bit of February, if they go to Four Continents, to get ready and hopefully work on the issues that they've had. They're in the best shape we've seen them in a while, and at the moment they're injury-free so that's the best thing we can hope for. It's just a matter of ironing out the little errors that they've been having and hopefully, by the end of the season, they'll be able to produce the extremely high-level performances that we've seen from them in the past.
Yogeeta: Yeah, I have faith that they will figure out their issues and make everything work by Worlds. I have faith that most teams are going to do that.
Evie: Let's talk about Peng/Jin, who won the Free here!
Yogeeta: Oh my God. I support Peng and Jin yolo-ing to Silver two years in a row. They should continue this.
Niamh: Yes!
Yogeeta This trajectory is great!
Evie: Although they didn't have the greatest start to the whole competition, considering Jin Yang... He lost his luggage! It literally went on a trip around the World and he finally got it before the competition started, so that was a relief!
Niamh: This is some Javier Fernandez energy.
Evie: Honestly. And Cheng is apparently still injured, so that's not fun.
Yogeeta: Well, they have time to recover now. They're free until Four Continents.
Evie: They had a couple of issues here, in the Short they weren't clean but they came out and skating absolutely lights out for the Free. It was amazing to see them skate so well and that program is just...It's grown on me so much over the last couple of months and it's improved not just in the quality of the elements here but also I think their expression is a lot stronger, especially in the last half of it when the music gets really triumphant. Every time the bits right after the throw sal just have me crying. But 68 PCS in the Free? Uh, I do not agree with that at all.
Niamh: Judges...What are you doing...
Yogeeta: Alas, judges.
Evie: I mean, they always kind of get robbed, even when they skate clean - it happened all of last season, even at the Grand Prix Final, and it's happening again now. I'm not shocked but... I would have them at least in the low 70s for a performance like that. I just don't understand.
Yogeeta: Yeah, they are always so low-balled, but I think part of that here was that they were skating in the first group of the Pairs because they were 6th after the Short. So the fact that they came from 6th and placed in Silver is amazing. I'm always in awe of how much they've improved, every time I see them. I remember them back in the Olympic season and they were fun and quirky but I wasn't like “Oh my god, you guys are amazing, you will raise to the level of Sui and Han and be amazing and one of the best teams in the world.”
Evie: Well, they did have those issues at the Olympics, they didn't qualify for the Free in the individual event.
Yogeeta: Yeah but last season and this season they've completely blown me away. I'm super impressed that they've had four great programs in the past two seasons. They've definitely grown and understand how to use their personalities in the Short and the Free and tell stories and be engaging with the audience and they're just going to keep getting better.
Niamh: Yeah, and since they have two months now until Four Continents, it gives them time to rest and recover and come back even stronger than they were here.
Evie: We hope that! We hope that. Can we talk about Kirsten [Moore-Towers] and Micheal [Marinaro] and their fall...
Yogeeta: That looked like it hurt.
Evie: I don't think I've ever seen, out of a throw, the guy being the one that falls.
Yogeeta: I have never seen that happen. She had the perfect landing and somehow he was the one that fell.
Evie: They didn't have the best Short program either. They had the fall on the throw there as well and they had issues with the side-by-side. Overall, this whole competition was pretty shakey for them and they did really well in both of their earlier assignments! It's unfortunate they couldn't cap off their Grand Prix Final with a good skate here. I imagine this will be a really good incentive to spend the next couple of weeks before Canadian Nationals to really hammer down and train everything and make sure they're ready to skate lights-out at Nats.
Yogeeta: Yeah. Everything they're doing right now is going to be in preparation for Four Continents.
Niamh: Basically the story of that Free was: Throw your partner, but don't throw her that hard. Evie: We respect his commitment to throwing her hard.
Niamh: When you yeet your partner so hard you yeet yourself.
Yogeeta: Let's not teach that lesson to future Pairs. [laughter]
Evie: Okay, I think we have to go on to talk about the Russians here because I think we were all a little bit surprised by how each team fared. Because it was a bit all over the place.
Niamh: That's just kind of the theme of the entire competition though, let's talk about the Russians.
Yogeeta: Let's talk about the Russians.
Evie: So Mishina and Galliamov were our surprise bronze medalists. They were our only Russian team on the podium and they managed to place ahead because Boikova and Kozlovskii, unfortunately, had quite a lot of errors in the Free, which was not fun to see considering how well they skated in both of their assignments.
Yogeeta: Mishina and Galliamov, I'm impressed that they're able to, within all this chaos, be pretty consistent. And they rightfully deserved their bronze. I’m still not the biggest fan of their skating, I find them stiff and I think they're a little slow. I don't think these programs are a good fit for them.
Evie: I'm really quite shocked that they managed to place here, but they definitely deserved it with how well they skated on these past couple of days. I was so upset to see Sasha and Dima have such a rough outing here in the Free because they had the problems with the throws and with the death spiral. And we saw them skate basically clean programs every time in the Grand Prix series, and here - I don't know if it was just the pressure that got to them, because they were coming in with the expectation of "Oh they skated so well in both of their events, surely they're going to do as well if not better here." It could've just been a mind games thing that got to them at the end.
Yogeeta: I think this is just a stepping stone and a minor road block for them in the season. I don't have any worries, really, going into Russian Nationals that they're not going to win. I think this is one place where they might've had mental blocks, they know that it can happen now, and I think that they'll be able to surpass it. Because they're that kind of team, that takes their challenges head-on and tries to surpass them.
Evie: And then you have [Daria] Pavliuchenko and [Denis] Khodykin who finished in last, after the errors that they had in the Free, including a really scary fall from Daria right at the start of the program. Oh boy, I don't think I've seen a fall that dramatic in quite a while. She fully went flying in the air. She was going onto a really deep outside edge in the steps leading into the twist, and then just went "Woop!" Just fell right on the ice, and it was just - oh geez! It was a shock, to say the least.
Yogeeta: Yeah, it definitely affected the rest of their performance in that Free. Honestly it felt like such a freak thing, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that happen before. I've seen falls in steps, but nothing to that degree. That felt like she had fallen from a jump or a throw, not just skating.
Niamh: Yeah!
Evie: The way that her whole body just went flying up in the air before she went down. It definitely seemed to affect her.
Niamh: And she wasn't even going particularly fast.
Evie: Yeah! That's the thing!
Yogeeta: She was just really on a deep edge and I think she probably tripped over herself.
Evie: We've got to give her the commitment to using that deep an edge in her steps, but oh boy.
Yogeeta: But it was a beautiful edge before it happened, some ice dancers could learn from her. [laughter]
Evie: Yeah, all of the placements here at the Grand Prix Final, it's just really strange for the Russian teams. Russian Nats is coming up in just two weeks now, and it's going to be insane because we've got these three teams but we also have, obviously, [Evgenia] Tarasova and [Vladimir] Morozov who weren't here. We also have [Kseniia] Stolbova and [Andrei] Novoselov who were on the Grand Prix. And then potentially [Natalia] Zabiiako and [Alexander] Enbert? I'm not entirely sure what the status of their injury is, and if they're planning to come back for Russian Nationals, but they could potentially be in the mix too.
Yogeeta: I think, of the six teams, that'll be there... I think Boikova and Kozlovskii are probably our winners for Nationals, if everything goes as expected. But who knows, nothing ever goes as expected.
-end segment-
START: Men
Yogeeta: Okay, shall we move on to the Men? We had Nathan Chen of the US, Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, and Kevin Aymoz of France.
Evie: I don't even want to think about this Men's event, honestly. Because it's - oh God. It was a mess.
Niamh: Even just not talking - even forgetting the scoring happened...
Evie: Bring on the brain bleach, honestly, I would like to forget. I mean, Grand Prix Final for Men is always up and down, so not completely surprising that this event was a mess. But the scoring just in general...
Yogeeta: Oh boy. Shall we talk about scoring?
Niamh: I feel like we've been through this scoring debate before.
Evie: Yeah, but this time it's particularly egregious so we have to go into it. So let's talk about Nathan's, first his Short Program score, because he's had an 8 point increase in his score for the short from both Skate America and IDF, which were both in the 102’s, to 110 here. And I just - my brain can't justify that 8 point leap.
Yogeeta: Well I went back and looked at the components, and his components are basically the same in those two comps and here. So it's really the tech score that had a massive jump here.
Evie: It was the GOE, yeah. At SKAM and IDF he was getting a lot of 2s and 3s, and here he was getting a lot of 4s and 5s.
Yogeeta: He also made errors in both of those skates.
Evie: And here he was actually clean, so he obviously got the benefits from that, but it's just... an 8 point leap. It's a huge jump. Let's talk about Yuzu - his Free Skate score. Because I for one was - when it came out, I was sitting on my couch, completely slack-jawed, just staring out into the middle distance - I just didn't understand it.
Yogeeta: How do you land a five-quad Free and not break 200 points?
Niamh: I wasn't expecting anything massively high, because obviously he didn't have the Axels, and then the presentation and stuff wasn't the best because he was very obviously winded. But I was expecting at least 205.
Evie: Yeah, the fact that he did five quads. The only element that was called was the triple flip, and yeah he missed the Axel, and left quite a lot of points on the table, but still...
Yogeeta: He did five quads.
Evie: The technical content of his Free was pretty crazy, all things considered. I'm just absolutely baffled. But that's not even the worst thing in my opinion. Even though he was visibly winded in the Free Skate and he wasn't as polished as say, Skate Canada - that's probably my favorite performance of Origin that I've seen from him - a 93 in components? Umm...
Yogeeta: Regardless of how winded he is, it doesn't change the fact that his skating skills are top of his field. It doesn't stop that he has great transitions, it doesn't stop that the composition...
Niamh: When will judges realize that just because you give high PCS to one category, doesn't mean that you have to give high PCS to another category. And vice versa.
Evie: They will never realize that.
Yogeeta: Honestly, I would probably dock him points for interpretation and performance, but the other three categories should still be at their regular levels.
Evie: Nathan set some new world records here. He came close to the Short Program record, and eclipsed his own world records for the Free and total score here.
Yogeeta: Nate is a great skater. Let's start with this, his consistency is otherworldly. There is no one else out there who can jump the way that he does. But just because he can jump, doesn't mean you should be giving him 9s in components. He has a lot of things that he can work on. I'm not saying he hasn't worked on them, he has improved significantly from before the Olympics to now, but he can still improve his basic skating skills. His programs don't have as many transitions compared to Yuzuru and Kevin Aymoz. He definitely can still work on performance and interpretation and composition. These are all things that we know that he needs to improve on still. And the judges clearly don't agree with us.
Evie: And even just looking at something like his transitions, we saw at IDF that he was doing things like steps into his triple Axel. But it seems that he wasn't doing them here in the Short Program? He'd taken them out. Which I kind of get - fair enough, you want to be as clean as possible at such a big competition. But he was getting the same marks for transitions when he's very obviously removed them from his programs.
Niamh: Obviously he is working on these things because the jump he's had since even just the Olympics to now is impressive.
Evie: He hasn't skated a bad program since the Olympics, basically.
Niamh: But his skating skills and stuff since then have improved, a lot. That should show in the scores. But the judges aren't giving him any more room to improve because they're already giving him the marks. Even if he does - he is working to improve them, but he can't improve them whilst the judges are already giving him the marks because there's nowhere higher he can go!
Evie: To be fair, I don't think that that kind of thought process is affecting Nathan personally, just hearing from him in press conferences. Because it's very clear that he understands that there are areas in which he needs to improve his skating, and he's taking those steps to address them. The fact that he's going to Gadbois a couple of times every few months and going to train with Marie France there and improving his skating skills, which is really really admirable because that's something that was a weak point.
Yogeeta: But Nathan himself has said in the press-con that he's still behind Yuzuru components-wise. But he beat Yuzuru by two points in components in the Free.
Niamh: This wasn't Yuzuru's best Free Skate, components-wise, but there's no situation in which Nathan is ahead of Yuzuru in transitions and skating skills. I'm not going to get angry over the performance and interpretation because Yuzuru's performance isn't what we know he can do, and those parts are Nathan's strong points of his components. They're the parts of his components that I'm like, "Okay, I can see why the judges are giving him the marks for that," if that makes sense.
Evie: No one is saying that Nathan didn't deserve to win the Grand Prix Final, because he absolutely did. He skated two clean programs here when no one else in the field was able to do that or match his technical content. Yuzu and Nathan's scores in comparison to each other weren't the only ones that left me with questions. Looking at Boyang's 77 PCS in the Free versus Samarin's 83, both of them had a level of quality that was pretty similar in the Free. They both didn't skate particularly well, but they still had that disparity between components.
Yogeeta: Boyang and Samarin are pretty similar skaters in my book. They both excel at the jumps and have weaker components and skating skills. But consistently across this season, we've seen Samarin get higher components than Boyang and this has caused me very much confusion, because I don't see where they're coming from. Also here, Samarin outscored Boyang in both the Short and the Free, and I personally thought Boyang was better in the Short than Samarin. But 6 points in the Free in difference.... I don't know where they come from. Also, I think Boyang's Free Skate is a better-choreographed program for Boyang, versus Samarin's Free Skate for Samarin. It helps highlight what Boyang is good at while also giving him room to grow, which has been true of his Free Skates for the past few seasons. Which I think is an excellent approach, because they know that there's a lot of room for improvement around there. But I don't really see those openings in Samarin's programs.
Evie: I will say that I think, out of all of the showings we've seen from Samarin this season, his performance of that Free Skate was expression-wise was probably the best that we've seen. After he finished all of his jumps and stuff, he allowed himself to focus on emoting and really opened up and was outwardly expressing which was really really good to see because I have a really hard time connecting with his skating because most of the time it feels like he's just skating to the music rather than with the music. So I am really happy that he was making a bit of a stride here with performance and I hope that continues coming up in the next few competitions he's at.
Yogeeta: Let's move on from the scoring discourse and actually talk about some highlights from the men's event, obviously Yuzuru and his five quad Free.
Niamh: First of all. before we talk about his quads, may we discuss the quad Axel?
Evie: Do we have to?
Yogeeta: I'm so mad that he attempted to do quad Axel in practice and then at the press con he said he wasn't sure if he was doing quad Axel or the triple Axel-triple Axel sequence and that's why he messed up his combo.
Evie: Just little Yuzu things.
Niamh: Now I'm just imagining him doing a five quad program and yeeting out a quad Axel at the very end.
Yogeeta: Niamh, we don't need that.
Evie: That is my nightmare.
Niamh: Yuzuru, you have a history of doing hard jumps in practice and it not ending well.
Evie: And some of those falls that he had, the videos that I saw of practices – they looked really scary. Honestly my anxiety level throughout the whole Free Skate here was almost as bad as my anxiety during the Olympics, it was that bad. I don't know why I was so anxious but, you know.
Yogeeta: I wasn't anxious, I just wanted him to be happy with what he put out here and he was. But can we talk about his quad toe-triple toe, because what is going on?
Niamh: Where has it gone?
Evie: It's because of the quint, he's training the quint.
Yogeeta: I'm kind of surprised that he didn't actually attempt to tack on a jump to the end of his quad toe in the Short.
Niamh: I thought you were gonna I'm surprised he didn't tack on a quint.
Yogeeta: No!
Evie: But the quad Lutz guys, the quad Lutz is back.
Yogeeta: It's back and oh my God, it's gorgeous.
Niamh: It's back!
Evie: I still have a trauma about it, but it's back.
Yogeeta: You know I kind of trust it more than the quad Loop.
Evie: I mean, the quad Lutz still has 100% success rate.
Niamh: That too!
Yogeeta: Despite all the scoring discourse that's been going around for this competition, Yuzuru here seems really happy with what he's done. He fought a lot of demons this Grand Prix series.
Evie: He made it out of the Grand Prix with two functioning ankles.
Niamh: And he's planning on going to Japan Nats.
Yogeeta: He made it to the Grand Prix Final without any injury. He was able to bring back the Lutz and land it successfully. He landed the Loop here successfully, he did his first five quad layout - he's done so much for him personally at this Final. Even though he didn't win gold, he won a lot for himself.
Evie: Let's talk about Kevin. Kevin's angry Short Program.
Niamh: The minute the music went on he went from confused to mad, just the minute the music switched.
Evie: And understandably so, if that happened to me I would be so pissed. And then he went out and skated completely lights out, so amazing.
Yogeeta: I'm just so happy for Kevin, he's had such an amazing season.
Evie: Legitimately though, during his Free Skate, one he had another new costume for his Free, which I found extremely hilarious but it was so damn beautiful watching him skate that Free. And his reactions in the kiss and cry to his scores, oh my God.
Niamh: It's like moments in that kiss and cry that remind me why I still watch figure skating.
Yogeeta: He was so excited, and Kevin did not come into this season with plans to go to the GPF and now he's a GPF medalist and it just makes me so happy. And honestly he set himself up so well to win Europeans that I hope I'm not jinxing him by saying this.
Evie: Knock on wood, knock on wood.
Yogeeta: He's like the front runner for me right now because his consistency of all the European men this season has been the highest.
Evie: Let's talk about another European man quickly, who did not have the skates that he wanted out here at the GPF. Dima.
Niamh: Is he injured?
Evie: Honestly it felt like I time-traveled back to last year. Last season for Dima was absolutely horrible to watch him consistency have all the issues.
Yogeeta: And that was because he was injured last season.
Evie: I hope it wasn't just a flare-up of a past injury, it's really quite worrying to see him struggle that much in a Free.
Niamh: Especially because he has had a really great Grand Prix this year.
Evie: And a good Challenger Series too.
Niamh: I know I personally wasn't expecting him to make the Final just given his history. It feels like this season he was beginning to break away. I know he was injured last year but also some mental blocks, or psychological things that were maybe restricting him in the past. I hope this doesn't send him back into that where he can't seem to put together a skate.
Yogeeta: It was just really weird for me because it wasn't just the jumps, it was the spins he was messing up too. But he was noticeably winded and even when he ended the program.
Evie: He looked like he just had the wind knocked out of him at the end of it. He just had nothing left in the tank. I really hope this doesn't hurt his trajectory going into Russian Nationals because it's only just two weeks away now.
Yogeeta: I'm hoping this was just a weird mental block and he's not injured again.
Evie: Yeah.
-end segment-
START: Ice Dance
Evie: Let's go on to Ice Dance.
Niamh: In first, we have Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron from France, in second, we have Madison Chock and Evan Bates from the USA, and in third, we have Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue also from the USA.
Evie: This competition was definitely the messiest Ice Dance competition we've seen in a long while.
Niamh: Shock shock, we had a Gadbois podium.
Evie: Oh I know, completely shocking.
Niamh: Who expected that?
Yogeeta: I expected a version of this podium, but how we got to this podium was not how I expected to get here.
Niamh: It was not the journey I was expecting to go on.
Evie: But the Rhythm Dance was kind of a mess all around, we even saw Gabi was stumbling in the step sequence.
Niamh: She stumbled twice, didn't she?
Evie: Yeah, and no one got above a level 3 in the pattern type step sequence either. We even had Chock and Bates beating Sinitsina and Katsalapov in the Rhythm Dance. Even though S/K they won base value and PCS, but Chock and Bates just got the higher GOE and so won overall. It was so strange to see. The patterns here were kind of a mess, a few teams came pretty close to being clean but they all ended up being readjusted while the scores were being calculated. All three of the podium teams, they all missed the first key point in the pattern, which I agree with the calling there, all of the ladies were clearly stepping onto flats before going into the cross back step in that first key point. Honestly, I probably would've been a little bit harsher on the Finnstep levels - I know, shocking, me being harsher on pattern key points - but I don't think any of the guys out of the podium fulfilled that second key point in Finnstep, at least in my opinion. They were all pretty flat so I don't think I would've given it to them. You even saw Victoria who – Sinitsina and Katsalapov are very much Rhythm Dance skaters, their technical level really gives them that advantage in the Rhythm Dance but Vika missed both of her key points in Finnstep and then they only got a midline step sequence level 2 which is really uncharacteristic for them as a team. I don't know if it was just a fluke kind of accident or...they had errors in both programs which we haven't seen.
Yogeeta: In the Free they got a level 3 on their rotational lift, they got a level 2 combo spin, and then they got a fall in their choreo slide at the end. Evie and I spent way too long finding out why.
Evie: We spent like an hour looking at ISU documents this morning until – I was just rewatching it, I kept replaying the slide in slow motion, trying to figure out why the hell this got a deduction, and I only realized when I was like, "Ok no, I need to move on from this," because I spent like 45 minutes looking at this one slide.
Niamh: Too much of your time.
Evie: Exactly, I've been spending too much of my time looking at this one slide, I need to move on. I turned it off slow-mo on YouTube and I was letting it play out and I was watching the replays and on the different angle that the slow-motion replay camera provided, I noticed that Vika very clearly lost here balance during that slide and she put her weight on to the sliding knee in order to keep her upper body from falling.
Yogeeta: I wouldn't call that a fall.
Evie: No, but that's what the fall is in the handbook cause it's defined as a loss of control with the bodyweight being transferred to the ice and that is what happened.
Niamh: How did the judges see this in real-time when they don't see half of under rotations .
Evie: It was definitely a really harsh call and not one that I expected. It had really big stationary lift base energy to see that kind of call be given. Let's talk about our champions, our unsurprising champions, Papadakis and Cizeron. They were overall a bit more vulnerable than we've seen them in the last couple of competitions. The lead that they had in the Rhythm Dance was barely a lead. They skated near clean in their Free Dance, they got basically the same score in the Free here they did at NHK, they both got a 136. I'm not sure if it was just the pressure that got to them, they weren't at the Final last year so it was the comeback pressure, I guess?
Yogeeta: I just will equate it to the weird Italian energy that clearly was in this rink for every event.
Niamh: The weird Italian energy.
Evie: Honestly, the event was just angry we didn't get [Charlene] Guignard and [Marco] Fabbri and they were just like "No!"
Niamh: I am the event.
Evie: But despite all of this they still managed to get within a few tenths of a point to their world record in the Free. Their levels were really similar to their skates at IDF as well, in fact, there's only a .01 difference in base value between the two, but the difference between the scores here and the scores at IDF are nearly three points. I keep asking this but what sort of message is this sending to them that the same kind of crazy jump in their scoring happens every season, where they basically hit the PCS ceiling their third competition and it happens consistently.
Yogeeta: I'm just frustrated because I wholeheartedly agree that they deserve to win, they are the best Ice Dancers of this quad, but I continue to not understand how GOE works in Ice Dance, clearly, because I don't see what they're doing that makes it so much different from the other skaters that they deserve such a high margin of difference in the scoring.
Evie: I think that their mistakes in the Rhythm Dance especially, considering they literally broke the 90 point barrier at NHK and now coming back here and getting an 82, I'm curious to see how that's going to affect their mentality going into the second half of the season because there are other teams that are looking like they could potentially start to catch up if Papadakis and Cizeron aren't clean and the other teams are. Segueing into talking about Chock and Bates, their scoring is very much going towards an upward trend, I wouldn't be surprised if we see them hit 130 at their next competition if they're as clean as they were here, considering they got a 129 here, which is freaking insane.
Yogeeta: I don't like this program.
Evie: The Free? Yeah.
Yogeeta: But I kind of understand why the judges like this program, because it's very choreographed to them and it works for them and it's very well choreographed to the music. They're letting the program do a lot of the work for them, and it's helping them a lot with the scores even though I don't agree with the scores that they're getting.
Evie: And this was probably the best we've seen them perform their Free Dance overall, especially their elements were looking a lot smoother, their opening lifts were so easy looking, the combination of the two curve lifts they do in a row – that looked so effortless and nice. But heir twizzles out of the field here I would say they're probably the weakest just because they're nowhere near as fast as the other teams and you look at them in comparison to teams like Hubbell and Donohue, Papadakis and Cizeron, Stepanova and Bukin, they all have really fast, really precise twizzles and then Chock and Bates are visibly and noticeably slower in their rotations. Yet, they're still getting the same if not higher GOE on it which is...I don't understand at all. If we're talking about really harsh tech calling, we talk about Sinitsina and Katsalapov fall deduction, I am legitimately surprised that Chock and Bates don't get any sort of interruption deduction on their character step sequence because they do two full stops in it. There are limits to how many complete stops [you can include] in a program and I'm really really surprised that they don't get called on it because it’s very much getting close to that time limit.
Niamh: I don't like their ending position because of what it represents, but I have to admit it's a very cool ending position.
Evie: It is, but I always worry he's gonna drop her.
Niamh: Because if she falls, she's on her head.
Evie: But honestly if Chock and Bates win Nationals, which is probably what is going to happen-
Yogeeta: Like 95% likely.
Evie: And if they win Four Continents again, which there is a very good chance of that happening again, they could really easily start breaking 130 in the Free Dance and who knows with Nationals scoring and how that affects international scoring in the whole. They do obviously still have that weakness in the Rhythm Dance where their levels aren't quite as good as some of the other teams. It probably won't put them in contention for major titles like Worlds, but it seems like they're really trying to fit into that position as the world number two, and the judges seem to agree.
Niamh: If you asked me after the Olympics who was going to be the top US Ice Dance team, it would not have been Chock and Bates.
Evie: Let's talk about another US Ice Dance team, Hubbell and Donohue, who have done some major reworkings of their Free [Dance] since we last saw them because, obviously, they had such a long gap between Skate Canada and here. They needed to breath new life into this Free and they did. I think the changes they made to it were really quite good.
Yogeeta: Yeah, they added a couple of new lifts as well and I think that they were major improvements to the old lifts that they had in the program. I still don't like this program, I think that they could be doing a lot better - I feel like that's my opinion of all Ice Dance this season.
Evie: Listen, it's better than their "Romeo and Juliet." That is the bar for me, okay?
Yogeeta: The changes they've made here have really worked in their favor but, obviously, they made is for the Grand Prix Final so it's still rough around the edges.
Evie: Yeah, but the fact that they moved the serpentine step sequence right to the start of the program really works with the particular music cut that they've used, rather than having the character steps in there, which they had previously. It really just starts the program off with a bang and they're showcasing how speedy they are across the ice. It really conveys to the audience that "Yes, we're a really powerful team and we're using the intensity of this music to showcase that." I think overall the improvements they've made to this program have really been for the better and I'm actually quite looking forward to seeing this again at Nationals - just to see if they can take it further.
Yogeeta: I'm hoping that they'll be able to clean up some of the roughness of it for Nationals and see if a clean version of this program can actually compete with Chock and Bates at this point. It's quite curious to me that the US fed has decided that Chock and Bates' is now their top team and has been pushing for them this season. But I guess that's what happens after what happened at Four Continents last season.
Niamh: And there's still like a month before Nationals, so...
Evie: That's not the only Nationals match-up that's going to be really interesting in the coming months because we've got, obviously, Russian Nationals and we have Stepanova and Bukin versus Sinitsina and Katsalapov and, obviously, S/B won here over them which is just insane to think about.
Yogeeta: That was due to the fall with the choreographic slide which is still confusing. But they had the same base value here [in both programs], they both had room to improve in the levels. But I was actually quite surprised that they had the same base value because Sinitsina and Katsalapov are, to me, much more technical skaters over Stepanova and Bukin so they definitely have a lot of room for improvement and I know that, especially with this choreographic slide error, that they're going to fix that. So Stepanova and Bukin are going to have to bring out the best performance of their lives at Russian Nationals if they want to win because, despite the fact that S/K lost in their technical scores, they still won PCS. In Ice Dance, who wins PCS is really an indicator of who their feds are politicking for. So, really, Stepanova and Bukin step their game up significantly for Russian Nats.
Niamh: That's so mad to me that Stepanova and Bukin won the TES and lost PCS because they are more presentation[-based] skaters.
Evie: They should be winning Performance, Interpretation, and Composition-
Niamh: And give S/K Skating Skills. [Evie: Exactly] Just from looking at their programs, Stepanova and Bukin are much more [audience-friendly] skaters, if that makes sense.
Evie: It helps that their programs are also better than S/K's this season. But honestly, Stepanova and Bukin, the best thing that they can do in these next couple of weeks would be for them to drill the absolute hell out of their Rhythm Dance and ensure that they can get those levels because that's really their weakness. They are much more suited to skating a Free Dance than they are a Rhythm Dance and the Rhythm Dance is S/K's strength, at the end of the day. So they need to be able to match whatever lead S/K can get in the RD, so to make sure that they can stay in contention when the Free comes around. Nationals for Dance, for both Russian and the US, they're both going to be pretty crazy to watch. [Yogeeta: Yeah]
Niamh: Basically, the summary is please watch Nationals. Evie: Please watch Dance at Nationals!
Yogeeta: It's going to be great.
-end segment-
START: Ladies
Yogeeta: Alright, let's move on to Ladies, where we have an all-Russian podium.
Evie: The three A's!
Niamh: Who expected that?
Yogeeta: Alena Kostornaia in gold, Anna Shecherbakova in silver, and Alexandra Trusova in bronze.
Evie: [singing] The Russian Ladies taking over the podium, what a surprise. Yogeeta: Welcome to our mini Russian Nationals at the Grand Prix Final. [laughter]
Evie: It's pretty much as expected. I think the order of everyone shocked me a little bit because I was honestly expecting it to be Alena, Sasha and then Anna, but there we go, I guess.
Yogeeta: I am so impressed with Alena. She is setting herself up as the front-runner of the season and with her consistency and quality of her skating, she could win the rest of the season handily.
Evie: And Anna, as well, she has been so up and down in the last Junior season she had and now she's becoming a much more consistent and well-rounded skater. It's really nice to see those improvements that we can clearly see in her programs and, in general, her skating overall is looking a lot nicer than it has been recently. And then there's Sasha going balls to the wall with technical content - it's insane. What's interesting, though, in this Ladies event was - well, I guess not really interesting, more like expected - the fact that there were no edge calls at all in either program.
Yogeeta: None of them got called for their edges. Although we have a pretty large number of underrotation calls.
Evie: It seemed at some points that they were just doubling down on the underrotations to make up for the fact that they weren't calling edges.
Yogeeta: One day we'll have a consistent tech panel.
Evie: And on that day, the ISU can dance upon my grave. [Laughter] Let's talk a bit more in-depth about Alena, who set two new world records here, which is just insane. Honestly, I'm not completely sold on the scores she was given because, again, I think she should have been called on her Lutzes, just because they were flat, borderline inside. But that's a common theme we've had over the last competitions, where I am very happy that Alena is winning but please, can you call her on her Lutz? Because it is not great.
Yogeeta: Yeah, I really wish that they would call the edges because that's probably going to make-or-break putting a non-Russian on the podium like Rika in future competitions, who doesn't have edge issues. But yeah, Alena skated two clean programs - "clean" in quotations because they didn't call her flutzes. But other than a close call on her first triple Axel in the Free, everything was sunshine for her.
Evie: I'm really happy that she won PCS by a margin that I agree with in the Free, it's really nice to see that she's winning components.
Yogeeta: Well she didn't win PCS in the Short.
Evie: No, she didn't. But she did in the Free and that's what I'm happy about.
Yogeeta: Let's talk about Anna. I'm so pleasantly surprised with Anna. She's grown on me so much this season and I really like her Free Skate now. I think she's finally selling it, the performance she gave here was probably the best I've ever seen her perform anything and she looks like she's just having fun now. I remember last season that she was constantly looked in fear of her jumps, especially her Lutz.
Evie: Especially with the Free because it was such a heavy piece of music and the choreography was quite intense. I'm happy that she's allowed to have fun in this Free Skate.
Yogeeta: I know that some people are over her dress change but it makes her so happy to do it. I'm just like, "Live your best life."
Evie: Yeah, you can tell that she really likes it!
Yogeeta: She attempted a flip here though, a quad flip, and I'm just like, "Anna... Why?"
Evie: Well at least she rotated it! I really like this Free Skate, like you said, Yogs, it's also really grown on me over these last couple of competitions. I just really wish she would spend some time working on getting more speed out of her landings, especially the quads, because she basically grinds to a halt when she lands them and it detracts from the overall cohesion of the program and the composition. She can hold such lovely positions coming out of the jumps, I just wish that she did that with speed and a nice running edge, you know? But she won the Free, which I was not expecting.
Yogeeta: She did! And she had a really good Short too. Overall, this was a really good competition for her and it's the best competition she's had all season. So let's talk about Sasha.
Evie: Sasha, oh boy. Where to start with Sasha?
Niamh: Sasha scares me. She's so small but...
Evie: So powerful?
Niamh: Yeah! Where does it come from?
Yogeeta: It comes from her tenacity and her love for Tina - it's truly coming from her love of dogs. She's doing a triple Axel because her parents told her that they would get her a dog if she could land a triple Axel.
Evie: She attempted it in the Short and she fell on it and it was under, but she really commits to it. She went for it there.
Yogeeta: In the Free, she popped her quad Sal and fell on her quad toe. The quad toe really surprised me because she's usually pretty consistent with the quad toe. But that quad Sal... she has not landed it all season. She needs to just get rid of it.
Evie: You don't need it, Sasha! Your tech content is already so high! Niamh: She's nearly got the same tech content as Yuzuru!
Yogeeta: Let's talk about her quad flip, though.
Niamh: It's so good and so beautiful.
Evie: The height and the flow that she got out of it is just, oh boy. Obviously, it was a bit heavy on the pre-rotation, like a lot of her quads are, but this is the first time we're seeing her perform a quad flip in competition - the first time a lady has ever done one in competition successfully.
Yogeeta: I just truly appreciate Sasha and her tenacity to keep increasing the difficulty of her programs and to get every jump that she possibly can. But I wish she would direct some of that energy into her skating skills and performance.
Niamh: Yeah, her PCS are really holding her down. She had the highest TES in the Free, by nearly 3 points, even with the mistakes. But she was brought down to third because her PCS are literally the lowest in the field by like 3 points. There's obviously a point in doing all of these crazy jumps but her TES lead is just being brought back down by her PCS.
Evie: And the fact that Alena has been making leaps and strides in [the fact that] her PCS has been rising over the last couple of competitions but she's also got the triple Axel now.
Yogeeta: And she's a much more consistent skater than Sasha.
Evie: If Sasha could get a triple Axel consistent in the Short, I think it would be another story. But for now, it's definitely a case of...
Niamh: She needs to work on the components, [especially skating skills] because, even with the big jumps, she's not getting the results she wants.
Evie: And, honestly, I don't think that her programs this season are conducive to working on her PCS, especially on the performance, interpretation and composition side. Because they're not really giving her very many avenues to express herself in the program and the overall composition of both of her programs I'm not especially fond of and I don't think that they highlight her skating very well. I don't know, I think, overall, Alena has much better-constructed programs - probably the best out of all of the Eteri girls this season - so it's very much a case of that being the area that Sasha really needs to focus on going forward.
Yogeeta: I hope that she recognizes this after seeing how she did here and understands that, "Yes, I can have all the jumps in the world but I need to improve my skating skills and to actually spend some time [on them]." She'll still be competitive-
Niamh: Especially because you also have Anna who's also doing these quads and her PCS obviously isn't at the same level as Alena but-
Evie: They're getting close, though.
Niamh: Yeah, they're strides above Sasha's and Anna has the jumps as well.
Evie: Let's go on to talking about Rika and how she did here. Obviously, the quad train didn't stop with just the three A's. Rika did attempt a quad Sal in the Free and, unfortunately, she did fall on it but she went for it. I definitely applaud her guts for putting it in and going for it. It was a really nasty fall, though, and it definitely seemed to knock the wind out of her right at the start of the program. I'm kind of curious to see if she's going to try to test it out at Nationals. I wouldn't put it past her, especially considering her track record of skating at Nationals really well is quite high. So I'm interested to see how she does in maybe a slightly less stressful environment.
Niamh: I don't see a fall on the quad Sal affecting her chances at making teams if it happens at Nationals anyway. She's got nothing to lose at Nationals.
Evie: Especially given her consistency on every other element, I don't see that affecting her.
Yogeeta: I'm really impressed with how consistent Rika's gotten with her triple Axel because I remember her in her Junior seasons where that triple Axel-
Evie: It was just a constant... It was at the point where it was the assumed triple Axel fall at the start of the program.
Yogeeta: And then when it happened, she'd just fall apart for the rest of the program.
Evie: Yeah, but she's gotten over that mental block, which is incredible and we're seeing improvements in her mental game even now in the way that she's coping with errors in her programs. The way that she just manages to bounce back and manages to skate pretty much clean afterward is really impressive and I completely applaud her for the way that she's able to turn around a skate when she's had an error like that.
Yogeeta: And I can definitely see a completely clean Rika vying for a World medal.
Evie: Oh, definitely.
Yogeeta: I think that she knows what she has to do, especially after missing the podium last season, that she's going to work her hardest to get on it this season.
Evie: Although, I don't necessarily agree with, in the Free or in both programs even, Anna got higher PCS than Rika, so that was a choice.
Yogeeta: Choices were made.
Evie: I would maybe give Anna performance and transitions in the Free, but things like skating skills, Rika clearly has the upper hand in my opinion when it comes to that. Even though Anna has really nice basics, I think Rika's a little bit stronger in that regard. So yeah, I don't necessarily agree with Anna outscoring Rika in PCS.
Yogeeta: Let's give a quick shoutout to Bradie [Tennell], who came out here and did what she needed to do. She didn't come here in contention for a medal, but she did her best and skated two mostly clean programs, and I really applaud that.
Evie: Yeah, I'm really happy for her! I think that this is gonna give her some really good momentum going into Nats next month, which she really needs to get that kind of edge on her competitors there, and her programs this season have both really really grown on me, they're easily the best that she's ever had and I think that they show off her strengths really well, especially in her expression, and I'm really really happy for her. Bradie in general, I have adopted her this season, I guess.
Niamh: I hope being the US lady to qualify gives her the boost, because Mariah also had a really good Grand Prix placement-wise. But I hope her being the one to get to the final and having two good skates at the final givers her that-
Evie: That edge.
Yogeeta: So, unfortunately, we have to talk about Alina.
Evie: Oh, god.
Niamh: I just want to wrap her up in a burrito blanket.
Evie: Honestly, is Italy just a cursed place for Alina to compete in? Because Worlds 2018 happened, and now this.
Yogeeta: We don't speak of Worlds 2018. She had so much pressure on her shoulders. She was the last to skate, she skated after the three [A’s] had skated, and there was just so much pressure for her to keep doing well. Everything she did looked so rushed and uneven, I'm pretty concerned that maybe she had some injury or something, because it was pretty unlike her.
Evie: Yeah, she had so many errors in that free skate, lots of underrotations and falls. It was insane to see her struggle that much, and it made me feel so bad for her. I just really hope this wasn't aggravating an injury issue or anything and was really just a blip in the season, an uncharacteristic error-filled program. I really hope that this doesn't hurt her going into Nationals, because it's going to be even more pressure-filled than this event was, because obviously European and World qualification is on the line. It's gonna be even crazier because all of the Russian ladies that didn't make the Final are gonna be there, like Liza with her quad toe now, and we also have Zhenya [Evgenia Medvedeva].
Niamh: Zhenya, Sofia [Samodurova] I guess.
Evie: Yeah, there's just so - it's gonna be really intense for her and I hope she's gonna be able to match up to that pressure at Nationals, because last year she didn't have a good Nationals either. Honestly I'm just really worried for her.
Niamh: It's sad to see how she's, I don't want to say pushed out, because that sounds harsh, but just how even the judges, they aren't giving her the same benefit of the doubt that they used to.
Yogeeta: I was really surprised at how many underrotation calls that they actually just handed out to Alina, given that they didn't make any other calls for most of the other ladies.
Evie: Russian ladies just stress me out too much. It's not good for my blood pressure. Yogeeta: Yeah, Russian ladies at Nationals will stress you out even more.
Evie: Oh boy.
Niamh: What if I just don't watch.
Evie: Honestly, might be best for your mental health and well-being.
Niamh: Doesn't even help that I have no excuse because I'm off for Christmas, it's in my timezone...
-end segment-
START: Shout Out of the Week
Evie: Okay so, shoutout of the week for this week is, my personal shoutout, to Australian Nationals just for being really great! I have spent the last week, nearly every day, going to the rink to watch some great Aussie skating, supporting my local athletes, and I was very lucky to be able to go there as official media and so was able to interview quite a few people there - which was very very exciting and also extremely nerve-wracking for me, because I haven't done any interviews for ITL before and I was very worried about messing it up, but I didn't! Because honestly, all of the skaters that I met were just so lovely and so nice, and just made the whole process so easy for me. We have an interview with Kailani Craine, who is now the six-time Senior national champion of Australia. We also have one with James Min, who is now the current Australian silver medalist in Men, and we also have the newly crowned Ice Dance champions, Holly Harris and Jason Chan, who are my new kids that I love to death. So yes, you can go check them out on the website inthelopodcast.com. You can find all the interviews there.
Niamh: We also have a second shoutout, which is, we have merch! [Chorus of ta-da's] So, if you've ever felt the need to slap "In The Loop" or In The Loop quotes across every single one of your personal belongings, don't worry, we have you covered.
Evie: You can go check out Redbubble, I'll put a link in the episode description for it or you can find that link on the website as well. We've got a bunch of stuff up there already and there's gonna be more added. We've got lots of fun ideas for stuff. Go check it out, go get a "Stephane Lambiel would like a word with you" sticker, or "Everyone say thank you, Satton" pillow. We've got lots of things all designed by our wonderful graphic designer Gabb, who we all owe our lives to at this point.
-end segment-
START: Outro
Yogeeta: Thank you for listening, we hope to see you again for our next episode.
Niamh: And thank you to our transcribing and quality control team, Evie for always wonderfully editing all of our episodes, a round of applause for Evie!
Evie: Thank you, thank you! I will take this applause.
Niamh: And to the wonderful Gabb for all of our beautiful graphic design.
Evie: If you want to get in touch with us, if you wanna let us know some stuff, have some feedback, or just wanna say hi, please feel free to contact us via our website inthelopodcast.com, or on Twitter or Instagram. You can find our episodes on YouTube, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever podcasts are sold, you can find us there.
Niamh: Sold. [Laughs]
Evie: Sold for free. Let me clarify.
Niamh: Pop into your local record store for In The Loop records.
Evie: In The Loop on vinyl, available now.
Niamh: We also have Pop Funkos, coming next.
Yogeeta: If you enjoyed the show and want to help support the team, please consider making a donation to us on our ko-fi page, or buying merch.
Evie: Or buying merch!
Yogeeta: And we'd like to give a huge thank you to our listeners who contributed to our team thus far.
Niamh: You can also find all of the links to our social media pages and to our ko-fi on our website.
Evie: And if you're listening on iTunes, please consider leaving a rating and a review if you enjoyed the show! Thank you so much for listening, this has been Evie,
Niamh: Niamh,
Yogeeta: And Yogeeta! Thanks for listening. Bye!
Evie: See you soon, guys!