Alert: Brian Joubert is human
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Brian Joubert stumbled, but he did not fall.
That was one of the bigger surprises when the French star botched his opening quadruple toe-triple toe combination in his World Figure Skating Championships short program, touching his hand down on the quad and stumbling on the triple and hitting an unattractive landing.
The veteran, who did pull it together with his usual verve to skate away with first place after the short, admitted to a bout of nerves beforehand.
‘I didn’t take enough speed for the quad toe, so I did a mistake,’ he said in the mixed zone. ‘The rest of the program was clean.... I have a big mistake in the beginning, so not bad.’
One reporter asked an obvious question: How could be be so nervous, given his long resume and impressive credentials?
‘You know, I need to feel the pressure,’ he said. ‘But you know I am not a robot.’
Still, despite the deductions, he scored 10.6 points for that opening combination.
Canada’s Patrick Chan, who was in the third place behind Joubert and American Evan Lysacek, thrilled the crowd with his performance and it booed his marks, feeling he deserved better. Chan spoke about the new scoring system, saying: ‘It took away some of the judgmental stuff but it’s still a bit about reputation.’
-- Lisa Dillman
