Ladies LP 2:00 AM Eastern Time Saturday | Page 14 | Golden Skate

Ladies LP 2:00 AM Eastern Time Saturday

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
It's so bad the crazy CoP has gotten to such a stage that nobody, even the famous coaches do not know how to make of their pupils' jumps. How can you fix an UR problem if nobody really knows what the UR really means ?
I am sorry, but Mirai knew that she screwed those jumps up, Frank knew she did. Ando once said it honestly in an interview: the skaters apparently almost always know when they underroate. Ando said back then that she knows when her 3 Loop at the end of the 3-3 is not rotated.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
skaters know underrotation, the commentators were saying the jumps were cheated in take off or landing well before CoP came to play... they made a huge deal of it when it wasn't one of the chosen skaters, now with CoP everyone gets dinged and people complain, go figure
 

SerpentineSteps

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
I just noticed, Suzuki doesn't have a Triple Toeloop in her program! She can do it, she did it last year. Maybe she can turn the 2A-2A sequence into a 2A-3T sequence. The 2A-3T combo didn't work last year, she got always downgraded on it. But as a sequence it may work, judges and fans are always so delighted when a skater lands all five different Triples and 7 Triples overall.

Yeah, she apparently had a scheduled 2A-3T combo there like last year, but switched it to a 2A-2A sequence upon landing the first 2A: http://www.asahi.com/sports/spo/TKY200911010090.html

The ability to think on her toes really shows how mentally strong she is as an athlete! SO happy for her.
 
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jeff goldblum

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 16, 2005
In posting a response to this thread I think it is best for me to first admit my bias towards Nagasu. I will make no attempt to hide that she is one of my "favorite" skaters. However, I will also say that despite my disagreement with some of the UR calls, I don't think she was the best skater of the night, and regardless of those errors, am not entirely surprised she ended up off the podium.

That said, it seems many posters on this board need a reality check. There is an interesting thing going on with the issue of underrotations, for all skaters, not just Nagasu. In Nagasu's case, here, I'm probably the only one on this board willing to say "What underrotations?" I'd give the judges the first double loop, the second triple Lutz, and the triple loop. Both toe loops were clean, as was the first Lutz and the flip. My attitude might perhaps be because of the fact that the jumps she landed looked utterly identical to those landed in the short program. I will certainly agree that in both programs the jumps were indeed "close." There was a certain lack of ease in the completion of the rotations, but I will contend that they were completed.

As a skater, I can say it is true that we know when a jump is cheated. However, I also know from doing hundreds of triples in practice and competitions that we also know when a jump feels good or right, despite what the tracing on the ice might look like. In the rink where I trained many of the coaches had the habit of saying "I liked that triple flip," for example. This would often come after a jump that may have been two-footed or had a step out, or perhaps, even slightly underrotated, but the point is that a jump is not merely about one technical quality or another. Of course I know that all these things are mistakes and the point of practicing and competing is to get as close to eliminating these errors from the jumps as possible, but sometimes a jump is about a lot more than just whether it's "fully rotated."

In regards to that, I get the impression that some posters believe a triple jump to be three revolutions in the air. This is not the case and never will be. It is a physical impossibility to jump up into the air, then initiate three rotations and float down to the ice. The rotation is always created on the ice and in many or most cases completed on the ice. The pioneer in studying jumps, Kathy Casey, was at this event and it would be interesting to get her take on this. I posted about this issue several months ago in the thread about Sasha Cohen and in regards to toe axels and other jumping errors. If my memory serves, I believe most triple jumps actually rotate less than two-and-one-half turns in the air. Most of the "lost" rotation comes from the take off, but a portion of it also occurs on the landing.

I think it's rather unfair to say that Mirai's jumps suck or that she has poor technique. Making these statements based on the presence of an underrotated landing only illustrates that one has a lack of understanding of the term technique and what it means in regards to jumps. It seems to me that Nagasu's jumping technique is among the best, at least of the American ladies. Her flow (I do not mean speed, but rather the rhythm of her body), the position of the arms, legs, and back, the rotational position, and on good days, the landing position, all demonstrate good technique. I have a habit of arguing semantics, but if we're going to criticize Mirai's jumping we should call into question the execution of the jump, rather than the technique itself.

I think there are a couple problems stemming from the judging itself. I think the new system has a lot of elements in place which seem to me to be designed to advance the sport of skating both technically and artistically and that is great, but I don't think we can actually change the way the sport technically is executed and has been for years. Think of how many skaters would be stripped of medals if the past competitions were retroactively judged by our current system. This is not solely because the sport is advancing, but simply because in part, this is the way jumps are done. I think the system is making skating too objective. There was a wonderful comment by a poster in another thread (which one excapes me at the moment) suggesting there be a sliding scale for underrotations. The poster used the example of a triple flip jump and providing the figure that each degree of rotation is worth .0051 points and that if a skater underrotated a triple flip by 1/4 turn or 90º, that the resultant value would be about 5.041. I think this is a wonderful idea in theory. Unfortunately since, as stated above, no jump consists of three revolutions in the air, the math is a bit flawed. The other problem would be that it would just be impossible for a human to make these kinds of judgements. The last thing we need is for the sport to be judged by computers or robots. The reason it was a nice suggestion is that it illustrates another point I made in my post in regards to toe axels in the Sasha Cohen thread: I don't care what anyone says, as a skater I know that jumps are not objective, but in fact very subjective. To place all this value on a jump's rotation only makes the rest get lost. And at the time I referenced Miki Ando's double axel-triple toe from last year's GPF in which the toe loop was downgraded. Even the commentators agreed. In slow motion it was questionable, but watch that jump in the performance and it was as clean a double axel-triple toe as you can imagine. I'd say the same for Mirai's attempt at the same combination here. Sure her landing was poor, but that was a triple toe loop no matter how you look at it.

In the end it's obvious that the system encourages skaters to better themselves technically and I think Mirai should definitely do that, especially if she wants to win medals. But at the same time it's just all too arbitrary. It's like scientific experiments that have to be considered inside a vacuum in order to be solved. But skating is not in a vacuum, and I think the judging system or its adherents and upholders need to step back a bit and think about what they're actually asking for. And this goes for jumps, spins, footwork choreography and all the rest.

I hope that this made some sense and did not come across as a crazy rant in defense of Nagasu.
 
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sjwh08

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
I I don't care what anyone says, as a skater I know that jumps are not objective, but in fact very subjective.

I'm not a skater but I do believe jumps are closer to being objective than they are to being subjective.

Some things like how beautiful and balanced a landing posture can be subjective, but rotations, pre and under-rotations seem to be objective measures.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
...then initiate three rotations and float down to the ice...

gotta bring Kurt back up, he certainly could get an Axel into the air and then turn and then float to the ice with time to spare... not every time, but he could get the power and go up... one of the reasons I LOVE the triple axel... when it's done like this there's nothing better.
 

gold12345

Medalist
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
I loved it when Mirai said, "I just want to go home and practice," and Frank said, "Well just remember you said that when you practice."

:laugh: Me, too.

I felt bad for Mirai sitting there praying her score would be okay. I don't think I've ever seen anyone close their eyes for that long and look so worried in the kiss and cry. I think it might help for her to relax a little, not be so uptight. It's obviously okay to be nervous about your score, but Mirai looked borderline paranoid.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
I re-watched Mirai's LP, and noticed something about the UR calls.

Since what determines downgrade or not is whether there the landing is more than 1/4 rotation short or not, it's critically important to say that's 1/4 rotation with respect to *what*. One might have thought the natural reference is the line that you can draw from the last point of contact for take-off and first point of contact for landing. That's what I've always thought anyway.

This is yet another problem with CoP that I've talked about so many times - rotation within a jump is not defined. A jump is supposed to be downgraded if it is more than 1/4 turn short, but, 1/4 short of what exactly?

Some skaters pre-rotate less than others on the entrances to their jumps. It is acceptable for any jump to leave the ice 1/2 turn into the jump but, for those who leave the ice before that, shouldn't it be accounted for? (I say yes)

I will have to disagree after looking at slo mo mira does not complete three full rotations in the air

Almost nobody completes 3 full rotations in the air on a Triple jump (unless it is the 3Axel but, even then, a ratifiable 3Axel can be 2.75 rotations total in the air).
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
As for the actual skating:

***Akiko Suzuki was absolutely brilliant. She is very, very musical and a joy to watch.

I saw this with no disrespect at all, but, if Akiko Suzuki was more attractive she would be a big star in the figure skating world. She simply has an objectively homely face and I feel that is very much holding her back in terms of the scores she receives.

She isn't a perfect skater by any means, but she has great speed + good, consistent jumps + excellent presentation ability. I predict that Suguri and Nakano will not be in top form the whole season and that Suzuki will make the Olympic team.

***Mirai Nagasu was robbed. She deserved 2nd place. Neither of the 3Toeloops should have been downgraded (shaky landings - yes. More than 1/4 short of rotation, NO). Her 2Loop in combination also should not have been downgraded (again the landing was not perfect, but the tech specialist was not paying attention at all to the actual rotation...she made it far enough around).

***Joannie Rochette has a very good program this year. It might be her best ever, we'll have to see how it develops (her program from 2008 was my favorite from her up until now). I'm sorry, but Joannie's program last year was BORING. I was mad that she was getting better PCS in 2009 than she was getting in 2008. I am so happy that I can get behind Joannie this year; she has a good vehicle again.

***Carolina Kostner has developed into a lovely skater. She is feeling her music and expressing it better than she ever has. Unfortunately, her jumps have disappeared again.

***Kiira Korpi...I am not sure what to say here. She deserved 4th place, not 2nd. She is boring and made multiple mistakes on the jumps. Without her pretty face, nobody would care about her skating at all.
 

enlight78

Medalist
Joined
Nov 2, 2005
This is yet another problem with CoP that I've talked about so many times - rotation within a jump is not defined. A jump is supposed to be downgraded if it is more than 1/4 turn short, but, 1/4 short of what exactly?

Some skaters pre-rotate less than others on the entrances to their jumps. It is acceptable for any jump to leave the ice 1/2 turn into the jump but, for those who leave the ice before that, shouldn't it be accounted for? (I say yes)



Almost nobody completes 3 full rotations in the air on a Triple jump (unless it is the 3Axel but, even then, a ratifiable 3Axel can be 2.75 rotations total in the air).

I know; I ment that she doesn't finish her rotation in the air and land almost most Backward or parallel to how the blade took off. She often land perpendicular of 90 degrees short of landing backwards; I have seen a lot a male skaters and few females skater land completely backwards with good flow and ride out; so I would say yes jumps require prerotation but not excessive prerotation (more than a 180 degrees) and if one is finish the rotation(90 degrees or more) on the ice i would considered that under rotated( that is only 2.25 rotation in the air; I would say and the end of the program miria was doing like 2.15
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
Her last toeloop is seen in the replay. She gets to the 1/4 turn mark.

Her second 3Lutz was underrotated and her 3Loop was drastically underrotated. None of the others should have been downgraded.
 
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Kinga

Medalist
Joined
Feb 15, 2008
What I see is that if Rachael misses a few jumps or gets a little sloppy - there is nothing else about her skating that stands out or racks up the points. Her spins, spirals, speed are all average or below average. She looked a little more juniorish to me this year than last year. But maybe she will skate better at SA.

I partially agree, yet, I think the choreography and the interpretetion of her LP was something that stood out for me. She was emotional, musical, and she had plenty of linking elements. Her LP need refinement. But those spins.... Gosh, I think they got WORSE this year (at least basing on this first performance).

It seems that now only Yuna and maybe Miki are able to perform 3-3. I hope that this opens the doors for lovely skaters that do not have 3-3 in their arsenal to medal at big events. Or maybe someone could pull off 3T-3T? When executed well, it is such a pleasent combo to watch!!
 

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Her last toeloop is seen in the replay. She gets to the 1/4 turn mark.

Her second 3Lutz was underrotated and her 3Loop was drastically underrotated. None of the others should have been downgraded.

The 3T of the 2A-3T you can barely see because of the camera angle, no way we can say anything about rotation there.

And the solo Triple Toeloop was so underrotated, I rewatched it on TV Asashi with high qualitiy. No question to me. Alright, I can't believe I did this again. But I made a picture - here. From the TV Asashi broadcast. In the first picture you see the moment where she should take off for the Toeloop. Her freeleg is already one quarter prerotated, but lots of skaters do it. The second picture is very shortly before the take-off. The ice is white, but I think you can clearly see that the blade of the left foot is completely on the ice. So when she actually takes off, she already rotated half a rotation on the ice. The landing was one quarter revolution, perhaps a little less short. But in my opinion this Triple Toeloop is a perfect Toe Axel.

I checked other skater's toeloops, just to be on the safe side, e.g. Kim's. They don't take off like that.

What kind of nonsense were you talking about with Suzuki? She is not attractive enough to be a star? Huh? I don't get that.
 
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Trewyn

Medalist
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Random note; but I kind of feel for Frank Carroll: he has two new Ladies skaters and they both have major issues. Luckily, after watching Mirai's K & C he seems good at doing the pep talk. It's kind of weird imagining Mirai and Carolina being training mates; they are so different!
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
What kind of nonsense were you talking about with Suzuki? She is not attractive enough to be a star? Huh? I don't get that.

I have not seen as much of Akiko compared to the other other Japanese ladies.
I thought at COC she showed very strong command of the ice and her skating had a wonderful, fresh quality to it. I thought her skating was very attractive! :love:

ETA: If we are talking about "it factor" she has plenty of it from what I saw.
 
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Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
The 3T of the 2A-3T you can barely see because of the camera angle, no way we can say anything about rotation there.

On icenetwork her 2A-3T is shown directly on replay. I didn't see it being more than 1/4 short.

And the solo Triple Toeloop was so underrotated, I rewatched it on TV Asashi with high qualitiy. No question to me. Alright, I can't believe I did this again. But I made a picture - here. From the TV Asashi broadcast. In the first picture you see the moment where she should take off for the Toeloop. Her freeleg is already one quarter prerotated, but lots of skaters do it. The second picture is very shortly before the take-off. The ice is white, but I think you can clearly see that the blade of the left foot is completely on the ice. So when she actually takes off, she already rotated half a rotation on the ice. The landing was one quarter revolution, perhaps a little less short. But in my opinion this Triple Toeloop is a perfect Toe Axel.

That's not what a Toe Axel is at all.

It is standard for any jump to leave the ice up to a half rotation in.

A Triple jump is 2.25 rotations in the air, at minimum.

I checked other skater's toeloops, just to be on the safe side, e.g. Kim's. They don't take off like that.

Some skaters pre-rotate less, but that isn't the norm for the Loop, Salchow, or Toeloop. Watch a Quad Toeloop by Yagudin or Plushenko (the two most consistent skaters in history on this jump). The toepick leaves the ice 1/2 rotation into the jump.

What kind of nonsense were you talking about with Suzuki? She is not attractive enough to be a star? Huh? I don't get that.

I'm not sure what you don't get. Suzuki is objectively not very attractive. I think she is receiving lower scores because of that. Superficial beauty is a driving force in just about every area of society.
 

demarinis5

Gold for the Winter Prince!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
I know!! I felt so sad, she really wanted to do well... it was funny how she asked Frank Carroll for the skates' guards and he said something like "after they give your scores, now you have to keep smiling" it was very cute.

Frank's quote may have sounded cute but I interpreted it as a lesson in mental toughness for Miria. Frank knew Miria was upset of course but instead of coddling her he told her to keep smiling. Mirai has all the goods to be a champion in the future, she just needs to listen to Frank.

That said I did feel bad for her. She was so happy going into the FS in first
place then dropping to fifth is quite a disappointment for any skater.
 

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
I'm not sure what you don't get. Suzuki is objectively not very attractive. I think she is receiving lower scores because of that. Superficial beauty is a driving force in just about every area of society.
I just stop the underrotation talk with, obviously this, strangely enough, a subjective topic.

But there is nothing objective about beauty, you can say that you don't think that Suzuki is very attractive, but saying that she is objectively not very attractive is a paradox.
 
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