Just like judges, certain fans have lost touch with reality when it comes to PCS scoring

It’s pretty uncontroversial at this point to say that figure skating judging has been broken for a while, with PCS far too linked to TES - to the point that skaters like Deniss are stuck with mid-8s while skaters with consistent quads but clearly worse PCS are in the high 8s-9s.

But at the same time it also feels like some fans are really overexaggerating the problems with scoring - throughout the whole Beijing quad we had fanyus rescoring events and giving Nathan absurd PCS to justify Yuzuru winning every competition with ‘fair’ scoring (even though it was clear to anyone who’d actually read the rulebook that Nathan deserved his victories, even if the margins were a bit exaggerated)

Now it feels like Ilia’s become the new scapegoat for this fan outrage over quads leading to inflated PCS. I do agree to an extent - Ilia still has clear room for improvement in basic skating skills, and judges putting him over Yuma in that category are clearly just … wrong.

However, Ilia isn’t a bad PCS skater, he’s just not a world-beating one. At this point the criticism of his skating is just as detached from reality, if not more, than the judging - it’s crossed the line from accurate criticism to just a vibes-based hate train that feels very reminiscent of the hysteria over Nathan’s scores.

I just feel like the judging and the fan reactions to the judging have both lost touch with reality but in opposite ways.