What some of the athletes had to say at the press conferences following the short programs at 2016 Cup of China.
Kaetlyn Osmond:
“There are a couple of things that I wish I would have done better, but after my skate at Skate Canada to come here and do another clean run-through, I’m really happy with it.”
Elena Radionova:
“I think I skated better than at the Cup of Russia (Rostelecom Cup). My jumps were cleaner and I had more confidence. The most important thing is now to skate the free program (tomorrow).”
Mai Mihara:
“This time I performed better than at Skate America and I am more satisfied with my short program than the last time. In the free skating, I just want to do the same thing as I did today.”
Boyang Jin:
“I think I performed better than I do in training right now. The second jump in the combination was not perfect, but the other jumps were not bad. Skate America didn’t go so well for me, so after I came back I worked very hard, because I wanted to do better at the Cup of China.”
Daniel Samohin:
“Definitely I’ve been working hard to be top three or maybe top six. This season started off a little bit rough in the first two competitions that I had, but after that in Skate Canada it definitely got much better and I got top five. I was pretty surprised placing second right now and I’ll keep on working harder and hopefully be able to execute a nice long and go from there.”
Patrick Chan:
“The opening of the program I was pretty happy with it, and I think I just lost a bit my focus into the triple Lutz. In the short program those little mistakes become very big mistakes. You do lose a lot of points. I call myself lucky today. I was able to stay in the top three, which is a good spot to be in for the free. Tomorrow is a new day, new challenges, new goals, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
Kaitlyn Weaver/Andrew Poje:
“Cup of Russia was a great start for us as the first competition of the season, but we went home, not far away, to Novogorsk and we worked on strength of our elements and the strength of our program along with the general dance ability, because it’s such a fun program to perform. We had a couple of minor mistakes today. Still, we’re just getting the bugs out. I think that we’re building momentum with this program.”
Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani:
“I think that the performance today was stronger than what we did in Skate America, so it’s always good to be trending upwards.”
Alexandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin:
“For the first time in our lives we got over 70 points, that is a joy and a victory for us. Compared to Skate Canada (their first Grand Prix) I think we skated with more emotions and more freely.”
Xiaoyu Yu/Hao Zhang:
“Today we opened the competition in front of our home crowd, which was very exciting and we skated very well. We got all level fours, although we still need to practice a lot to perform the program better. Hopefully we’ll perform well tomorrow.”
Lubov Ilyushechkina/Dylan Moscovitch:
“We felt good about that program. We felt very connected and we were together as a team and we felt comfortable. It was definitely an improvement for us from the last few times out, unfortunately a few little mistakes, but definitely a step up. We’re happy about the new seasons best and about breaking into the 70s points range.”
Cheng Peng/Yang Jin:
“This is our first international competition and I think we performed like we can do in training. We got good levels and the program was complete. We are very satisfied with our performance today.”
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