lol

I actually did not like this program artistically, and I am someone who often defended Ito's artistry and spoke against her too low artistic scores (and sometimes even technical scores). The music was strange for her, she didn't seem to relate to it, was very slow in places, and the spiral sequence sucked. I actually agreed with some of Cranston's commentary on the skate (although not his viewpoint of Trenary winning the short). That said I agree she was so technically inferior she deserved to win the short. The 6.0s? Meh, I don't think it was a 6.0 performance, even techncially, but as you said given what Trenary and Leistner got I guess looking at it that way it makes sense. Yamaguchi btw had an excellent short program with a triple lutz combo, which was much harder than Trenary, Leistner, and the Russian and West German's triple toe-double toe, and even Ito's double toe-triple toe, had strong spins, and decently presented, and skated very well. Her artistry was far from her 91-92 level, and of course her jumps were never that high, but she still should have been 2nd in the short to Ito, but came 5th or 6th in the short which was stupid. But that was the same thing that happened with Ito in the past, you were scored based on how far down you were in figures, your pre event rank, all that other stuff, and if you werne't near the top in figures or atleast in the final flight (this is the first time Ito ever did well enough in figures to be in the final flight) it affected your marks every single time, as silly as that was.

The double lutz was kind of crooked and off, and the spiral sequence which is a technical move was pretty bad, which is why I would not have given 6.0 on the 1st mark as two judges did. That plus someone like Yamaguchi did a much harder triple lutz combo (don't get me wrong, would not have had baby Yamaguchi over her at all, but it would be a deterent to giving a 6.0 on the 1st mark too). 5.9 for sure, but not a 6.0. It would not have mattered to her winning the short anyway.

Her spins were rather sloppy in this SP.

Not only was this the 6.0 system, but most of all, back then, the technical program was truly a technical program as in by-the-book required elements. It wasn't a technical program as in a "shorter free program". The figure skating committee would treat the singles technical program almost like how they did with the ice dancing compulsory. In this case, a required type of combination jump. This year 89, they required either of: a triple-double combination, or a double jump followed by a triple jump. This combination was done and looked at with value, because it's tricky for some skaters and they'd really go out of their way to avoid a double-triple.