2005 World Championships

Men's Qualifying

Stefan Lindermann skated second and that is where he ended in the standings today.  He struggled with his jumps, with three of his jump elements where marked with negative GoEs, those being a solo triple Axel, a triple flip, and fall on a second triple Axel.  His opening quad toe loop - triple toe loop was well done, and that element was key to keeping him ahead of the rest of the pack.

Skating in the third warmup, Johnny Weir started strong but in the second half of the program he doubled a triple loop which was poorly done and singled a flip.  His program component marks were the second highest of the group, keeping him competitive with Plushenko in that area, but without a quad he cannot afford the kind of errors he made today.  He remains an outside chance for a medal if he skaters well in the remaining segments of the event.  Initially he was placed third in the group, but late in the evening the scores were revised due to a entry error in the score for Chengjiang Li.  After the revision, Weir was placed fourth.

Chengjiang Li of China attempted a difficult program, landing a quad toe - triple toe combination and triple Axel - triple toe combination.  He did not attempt a planned quad Salchow, however, and threw a triple instead.  His element scores were the third highest of the group, but his program component marks were only fifth highest of the group and held him back for a third place finish.  In the original scoring of the event, his last element, a spin, was given no credit.  Late in the evening the identification was revised to a level 1 sit spin which gave him an additional 1.3 points (1.2 for the base value and 0.1 for the GoE).

Representing Canada in this group was Emanual Sandhu.  The eccentric and erratic Sandhu placed seventh due to a host of problems with his jump elements.  His program component marks where competitive with the leaders, but his steps and spins were all called at level 1.  Based on this performance, the outlook for Sandhu at this competition seems grim.

Group B was the more interesting of the two groups today, with several medal contenders skating in this group as well as four of the five North American competitors.

Brian Joubert led off, skating his "1492 Conquest of Paradise" routine, which he used last season.  He stepped out of the first jump in his opening quad toe combination and the element was scored as a quad toe - double Salchow sequence.  This was a major setback since the planned quad toe - triple toe combination has a value of 13.0 when executed with a GoE of 0, and his sequence only earned 6.4 points. .  He did not attempt his second combination, and threw only a solo triple Axel.  In the end, he had credit for only one combination and a sequence.  He also fell on a solo triple Lutz.  His performance was heavy and lethargic.  Nonetheless, he still managed to score a respectable 132 points which was enough to keep him in the running for a medal.

Skating third in the first warmup was Takeshi Honda, who last competed at Worlds in 2003 where he won the bronze medal.  This season he placed seventh at both Skate Canada and NHK, and failed to make the final.

In his opening combination, Honda popped a quad toe loop and came crashing down on his left ankle.  He crumpled to the ice and had to be assisted off the ice by the medical staff.  Later in the day it was announce he had a severe sprain and had been placed in a cast.

In the second warmup group, Stephane Lambiel, who at 152.00 points scored as many as Even Plushenko would later in the day in Group A (151.90).

Skating to "King Arthur", he landed a quad toe - triple toe combination, a solo quad toe and a triple Axel.  Hid only element with a negative GoE was a solo triple flip, which was supposed to have been part of a combination.  His performance was fast, strong and well done.  Both of his sequences and two of his spins were only level 1, so there are a few more points to be squeezed out of this program.

Placing third in this group was Evan Lysacek, the bronze medalist at U.S. Nationals this year and the 2005 Four Continents championships.  After 4C Lysacek had boot problems, but got them resolved and skater decently here.  He had problems on three jump elements, two footing and stepping out of the second jump of his opening combination (3A3T), falling on a solo triple Axel, and poorly landing a triple loop.  At this point he seems reasonable well placed to content for the bronze medal, though he has plenty of company in that respect.  One of those is Canadian Jeffery Buttle.

Like Lysacek, Buttle also had problems in three of his jump elements, including a fall on an attempted triple Axel that was scored as a double.  His  program component marks, however, where third best in this group, which keeps him in the hunt for the bronze medal.

The U.S. skaters in this group was Timothy Goebel.  Goebel struggle throughout the 2003/04 season and this year he competed in only one Grand Prix event, placing second at NHK.  Skating last, his program was a mess for the first half.  He had negative GoEs for six of his jump elements, and fell twice.  In the second half, however, he fought back , at least in terms of presentation and control.  His program component marks were third best, but with so many errors in his elements, he ended up ninth in this group and appears to be well out of the running for a medal at these championships.