Can Over-20 Skaters Increase Their Technical

antmanb said:

I can believe that - when i thought about Nagano and it being 8 years ago i had a moment of disbelief...the most scary thing is that we're well past the half way point of this decade, and i still think anything around the mid 90s is only a couple of years ago!!!!

Ant

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Did you HAVE to remind me?????

antmanb said:

I can believe that - when i thought about Nagano and it being 8 years ago i had a moment of disbelief...the most scary thing is that we're well past the half way point of this decade, and i still think anything around the mid 90s is only a couple of years ago!!!!

Ant

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Strangely, I was just thinking about this last night. It IS scary. Scarier still -- since they say the older you get you remember the distant past better than the recent one -- I remember NAGANO a lot better than I remember SALT LAKE CITY!!

eyria said:

I think Elena Sokolova did improve her jumps when she was past 20. In the 2003 season, she landed many triple/triples, which she hadn't done before, and I think she was in her early 20s then. However, as we all know, those triple/triples didn't really "stick" for her; I think it's been a number of years since she consistently landed them.

Nancy Kerrigan really did improve her jumps in the 1994 Olympic year, when she was 25 or so, I think. I don't think Nancy really added any new jumps that year, but she did become much more consistent in landing the jumps she had.

Overall though, I can't think of many cases of skaters past 20 who actually improved their jumps, at least on the women's side.

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IIRC Nancy Kerrigan was around 23-24 in 1994. She had landed a 3t-3t combination at the 1991 worlds and the 1992 Olympics (I think). She also landed it at the 1993 worlds. If she was 23 in 1994, it means she landed a 3t-3t at age 19 or 20 (I saw it at the 1991 worlds, but she may have landed one prior to this).

Sokolova definitely added a 3-3 combination to her repertoire after she was past 20.

May be it is harder to learn new jumps as one gets older, and that's why most skaters have their jumps in place at a young age, and then they work on the artistry.

Vash

I'd say it is not impossible for skaters to up the ante as it were later on, but it is much harder. When skaters learn a jump it becomes a matter of muscle memory. In other words the jump becomes routine and comfortable the more a skater does it. It's almost like starting over adding another rotation or combination. The younger a skater is to start changing a jump the better.

Also skaters stay longer in amateur competition than their counterparts did. Traditionally skaters would move on to tour in shows once they retired from their competitive ranks and therefore the jump requirements would be downgraded especially if they joined shows like Ice Capades or Ice Follies. One did not see a skater performing a triple axel in a show number for example.

Interesting question.

Well, Boitano added the Tano lutz when he was 23 (he'd done it once or twice before, but it didn't put it in full-time until the 1986-87 season competitive). He also added the triple flip-triple toe at about 22 or 23 (and kept it through age 31 or 32). He added the spread eagle entry into the Tano lutz after he turned pro.

Personally, I believe Carolina can rotate a good quad.

Just a thought, Tonya Harding was what? 21 when she landed her 3a not a girl of 14. As for the artistery I believe it will continue to delevolpe as long as you skate.

/Lena

anything_for_skating said:

Personally, I believe Carolina can rotate a good quad.

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Has anyone seen her try a quad?

Re Nancy Kerrigan: At Worlds '93, Nancy went from 1st after the SP to 5th overall after she bombed the LP. She already had a bronze medal from the '92 Olympics, but she was gunning for gold. Like Cohen, she had never put together a clean short and a clean long. Therefore, after her meltdown at '93 Worlds, Nancy and her coaches, the Scotvolds, who were also Paul Wylie's coaches, put together a totally new training program for Nancy.

I don't know all the details, but I know she did a lot of off-ice training, lost about 10 LB, worked with a sports science person about how to time her training so she would peak at the Olympics, which included how quickly to move her along into single, one and a half, and double runthroughs.

So, like others, I'd say Nancy didn't add any new jumps; however, she improved her consistency so she could have a much higher percentage of doing all her jumps in competition.

Speaking of late bloomers with consistency, the same thing happened to Paul Wylie. IIRC. Paul Wylie won his Olympic silver medal at age 27. I'm not sure about this, but I think that's the only international medal Paul Wylie has. I don't know if he ever even got on the podium at Worlds. OTOH, he was going to Harvard until he took off time to prepare for the Olympics.

My feeling is that new jumps can't be added after 20, but with the right training consistency can--at least for one season. If we're using Nancy as an example, I guess it also helps if you get really POd because a rival was responsible for some guy trying to break your knee.

Rgirl

P.S. These aren't figure skaters, but tennis star Martina Navratilova and prima ballerina assoluta, Natalia Makarova, kept improving technically in their respective activities by working with the smartest, most cutting-edge trainers in sports science available. Athletics, like dance, depend a lot on tradition, but the technical demands keep increasing. You'd think if actors work with Olympic calibre trainers that Olympians would, but they don't, at least not in sports such as figure skating. It's been 26 years since advanced degrees in sports science, exercise physiology, and sports medicine were added to various university curricula. Fumie Suguri, according to Terry Gannon, has an undergrad degree in sports science. Hopefully Fumie will escort figure skating into more sophisticated training practices so skaters can keep up with increasing technical demands with minimal risk of injury.

Speaking of late bloomers with consistency, the same thing happened to Paul Wylie. IIRC. Paul Wylie won his Olympic silver medal at age 27. I'm not sure about this, but I think that's the only international medal Paul Wylie has. I don't know if he ever even got on the podium at Worlds.

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Wylie was never higher than 9th at Worlds. He did win Junior Worlds . . . 11 years before his Olympic medal. I think his only other senior medal was from a minor fall international.

OTOH, he was going to Harvard until he took off time to prepare for the Olympics.

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He had graduated before the 1992 Olympic season.

I think it's possible to increase technical for skaters over 20 if you work really hard and smart. And you also have to be in very positive attitude all the time. The major problem is when skaters reach to 20, they have been skating for at least 15 years, and they just feel they have seen and experiences all the miserable things and time. They are just tired and don't have the drive as when they were young kids.

I don't think that is true about Shiz. She was practicing a 3/3/3 prior to the Olympics, but she decided to play it safe after what happened with Sasha (I personally think she was skating for Silver and what happened to Irina was a shocker). But she was over 20 when she won Worlds and she did 2 3/3 combos there. Not to mention, it is easier to learn jumps when you have a less mature body. I think Sasha could definitely do 3/3's (there is a video of her landing a quad sal)... but she is so inconsistent with her jumps that she sticks to the easier combos. Maybe if she goes to some serious "jump bootcamp" and becomes more confident, she could pull off harder combos.

bethissoawesome said:

I don't think that is true about Shiz. She was practicing a 3/3/3 prior to the Olympics, but she decided to play it safe after what happened with Sasha (I personally think she was skating for Silver and what happened to Irina was a shocker).

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Thank you for that insight! I know it is just speculation, but I never understood all the Internet comments along the lines, "After Sasha messed up Shizuka knew she could play it safe." That never made a bit of sense to me, since the favorite was still to skate.

But if silver were her goal all along, it does.

MM