Here are my thoughts - For changquan, that was a clear judging miss on the deduction. I think EVERYONE sees this, and it's surprising the head judge didn't catch it, even if the A judges missed it - For daoshu, Edgar was more explosive, but was also less controlled with his sword. You can see that by watching the lines of the swordwork. You'll notice Jin's sword is extremely clear and forms pretty much perfect lines/circles everytime even when moving very quickly. His sword stays very close to his body and engaged with his core/stance for all those moves. Meanwhile Edgar who has a ton more power/speed has swordwork where the sword deforms excessively and sometimes doesn't follow the ideal lines for broadsword technique. It's an excellent show of power, but it also shows some gap in technique and control. You can see that balance point of his sword and power seems further out and more "wild," and the power transferred from his core/stance seems to be kind of just going out there, instead of connecting back to the next set of moves. With some really high level daoshu you can go at Edgar's power and speed but have Jin's control and lines - That being said, daoshu is typically the one where going fast and explosively is rewarded over doing perfect technique, while jianshu is the one that rewards perfect technique and precision. But it is a bit of a continuum, depending on how clean something is versus how explosive something else is. In this case, Jin's technique is just that much cleaner that you can judge it as outweighing the gap in explosiveness and speed. So unlike the Changquan judging, this is defendable. - With regards to jumping, that's the one of the weird parts of this competition. Typical international competition has a C score for nandu, where you score points for jumping. This one didn't have that component, so you could put it in as many or as few jumps as you wanted and only get judged on A score (technical deductions) and B score (overall performance which generally is focused on the overall wushu and martial arts content). So I think Edgar got a boost for his great jumps, but less than normal without the C score aspect. - For Loan, I agree he was scored a little low. He did have one A score deduction so the gap would have been less than 0.2 without the deduction. This is a B score/subjective thing, but my take is he had interesting combinations and is extremely athletic, but his choreo/execution lacks some of the martial intent and rhythm that the top of the field has. Part of it is the way his choreo was structured, with combinations that didn't quite make as much sense mechanically/aesthetically sometimes, even though they were very unique.

@@bluehippofilms TY for the reply. I guess I can see where you're coming from for the daoshu part. I still feel like this form is generally much closer to what you'd typically consider an "ideal daoshu" compared to Jin's but I see what you mean given the criteria. As for Loan, I think part of why I favored it was because the unusual choreo made it stand out more compared to most other forms. But in this context, I understand that's not really a good thing. Either way, I appreciate the insight