Mira Leung's Olympic debut

**waterloofan** · 02-17-2006, 02:19 PM

Perhaps not a lot of people know Mira Leung. She is a 16-year-old Canadian skater who will make her Olympic debut next week.

I found her skating is so exciting. She's a jump bean, has a world-class air sense and rarely misses any jump. Her flexiblity, in my opinion, is second only to Sasha Cohen. The only technical weakness, in my eyes, is her skating speed.

You can download from the following her free program at 2006 Canadian nationals, she got the silver medal.

http://s52.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1...B2V2CSQWFIYANJ

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I found she's a young skater with great potential. But I've also heard a lot of unflattering comments regarding her jumping technique. Well, her jumping technique is slightly unconventional, her entry is not straight and speed is a bit slow, but she gets job done.

A lot of comments suggest she has the worst jumping technique,all of her triples are of bad quality. I am not an expert, can anybody tell whether there's any truth to it after reviewing this video. If it's true, what the problems with her jump technique?

I'm a big fan of Mira Leung and would like to hear your opinion.

**childfreegirl** · 02-17-2006, 02:24 PM

I've never seen her, so I don't have an opinion, but there have been several posts about her recently. Just put her name into the search function and they'll come up.

Welcome, btw!

**waterloofan** · 02-17-2006, 02:25 PM

give your opinion.

**waterloofan** · 02-17-2006, 02:33 PM

It's quite striking when you got totally opposite opinion on a skater's technique. Here's some highlights from several different people

"Insiders"' opinions

WEll, I personally think she probably is a nice girl but has a "skating" mom. She's so isolated and not allowed to talk to other people .I think some of the comments she says to the media is also totally uncalled for. She has been known to turn off peoples program music when she wants her own.

I think that until she takes to heart the constructive criticism people offer her (and her mother) she will always not be a "fav" amongst some people. Skating 8-9 hours a day doesnt make a champion. In fact, it causes burnout amongst other things. Saying" I don't know why I didn't place higher" when individuals of importance have asked her to work on speed and cleaning up those jumps, doesn't cut it.

She's no longer a "cute" kid. She'll be 17...time to grow up a bit and take responsibility for her own skating..not let mom do it for her.

She is improving but IMO needs more social interaction with peers and a few days alone without mom so she can gain some independance.

She has a competitive fire which is a positive for her, but there are younger girls coming up with the same thing AND more polish.

Even on TV, I noticed Mira's spins (especially the ones where she emulates Sasha's flexibility moves) were very slow. I can only imagine how much slower they appeared in person!

Then again, people often said Sasha did most of her flexiblility moves on a flat when she first started out, and she fixed that.

I agree Mira really needs to fix those cheated jumps and improve her speed overall if she wants to take her skating to the next level, especially since skaters seem to lose many more points on cheated jumps under CoP than under the 6.0 system.

I hope the judging Mira received during her first senior GP events last fall was a wake-up call for her to improve those aspects of her skating, and I agree her new LP is a big step in the right direction. Compare it to last year's LP or even this year's SP and there's a huge difference right there.

Outsiders' opinions:

Thank you for the clip it was fun to watch and I will probably not get to see her during the Olympics.
Technique (jumping and otherwise) is solid, she forces a back outside edge before the triple lutz so there is NO flutzing (a personal pet peeve of mine). She lacks a little polish and her jumps are a bit low to the ground however. She skates a great deal like a US skater named BeBeLiang. How old is she? IOW: will she be around four years from now? The only tiny thing I notice is- in order to get the jumps a bit higher she needs to lose 2 or 3 pounds. Many skaters overdevelop in the thigh area but she is starting to edge next to the danger zone so to speak. She should make the top 10, perhaps the top five if she is really "on". (By the way she is really cute)

This kid is in great condition-jumps after the halfway point (combo at end) huge huge bonus points! A few of the jumps are landed a little foward (on the front of the blade) Often this is just a matter of nerves at the beginning of the program. The jumps could be a little higher but they are not bad jumps at all. Spins are fantastic and fast. The layback position isn't the best, but not terrible either. The other spins are first rate. She doesn't have the polish of a twenty year old Sasha, however, she has way more energy at the end of the program, and she does a very defined triple lutz-twice! Irina is also not a polished skater, however, the judges overlook it in Irina, but will not overlook it with this skater.

How she does will depend upon how Irina, Sasha and the three women from Japan skate. (okay, duh, right?) They are going to have to award her huge bonus points for the end combination assuming she lands it again like she does in your video. There is no way Sasha could pull that combination at the very end of her program. The judging trend seems to be "you do the jumps and we will slide you a few points on the other elements". I look foward to watching her skate in the Olympics.

No, I didn't see any cheated jumps, a bit low and foward on the landings is all. If she skates like she skated in the video she will be top ten for sure. Given the bonus points for jumps after the halfway point she may end up top five. Her conditioning (ah, youth) should be rewarded, atleast it is supposed to be. Also rumor has it that judges are going to crack down on 'change of edge before jump' meaning flutzing. This girl makes a huge point of hitting the back OUTSIDE edge before her triple lutz. That is a good thing :::smile:::. She really is cute as a button too. hehe.

**mzheng** · 02-17-2006, 02:34 PM

sorry. wrong place.

**IndieBoi** · 02-17-2006, 02:42 PM

GO MIRA!! Best of luck girl... enjoy the Olympics!

**bethissoawesome** · 02-17-2006, 02:58 PM

I thought she was great. There is still a lot of room for improvement in her speed, and (I'm not sure how to phrase this correctly) the ease she gets into the "Sasha Cohen positions," for example... not letting her leg drop before she picks it up for the catch foot. It didn't look like her triple jumps were cheated, but I think some of the double jumps she did in combination at the end might have been a bit cheated... just my observations. I look forward to seeing more from her :D I hope NBC shows her Olympic debut.