Stephane Lambiel's spins

Is it anyone else who thinks that he's not spinning as fast as before, or is it because everybody else is spinning faster?

The judges giving him lower scores than people with far worse spins have probably skewed your opinion. He has the best spins out there but the idiot fool judges give him lower scores than the worst spinners out there like Plushenko, Lysacek, and Joubert. I guess your spin scores depend on your country.

Without Lambiel there would not be any variations on the sitsspin other than the standard change foot. Johnny's no fool he knows a good variation to copy when he sees one.

Joe

If I were in charge of the ISU, I would hire a specific set of judges to only judge spins and I would monitor them closely. Then you would see spins scores the right way finally, I would tolerate the BS they come up with now when scoring spins.

I kind of agree. Not as fast as in the past. The final combination spin in his LP is great though.

Maybe he has been putting more practice time into the 3A? lol Since that is the only jump he misses. I agree...the final spin combo with the ending headless spin is THE BEST! The way it ends with the music is timeless..

I think for some skaters getting to level 4 has cause a reduction in speed. The same thing has happened to Sasha. They are both still awesome though.

It's the blasted "change of edge/ change of speed of rotation" rules that are driving it. I see a lot of the change of edge spins done when a faster more centered spin would probably be more difficult to do well. The rules don't reward fast centered spins, even those that practically fly like lambiel's.

Perhaps after the Olympic/worlds are over, ISU will do what Gymnastics does and regrade the component and execution scores along with which elements receive "bonus" points (the equivalent of 'grade of execution in skating)

It seems that the ISU did put out rulings that attempted to diminish an "all biellmann program" such as Irina won with by using that element's particularly high value to up her scores in her program. Perhaps that will do something similar in changing the rules on spins.

I personally think that the speed and centering of the spins is the alpha and omega of the basics of good spinning. I think it would behoove the ISU to at least consider speed as part of the GOE, and also consider variation of position when giving base marks for spins.

the COP needs to be fixed after this Olympics. I agree w/ DickButton- too many ugly spins and too many ugly catch-foot positions. The emphasis should be on quality.