Mirai's Triple Lutz Unfairly Downgraded?

gfskater · Jan 25, 2010

Mirai skated a beautiful program at Nationals that was athletic, artistic, had great flow, good connections, and was well coreographed She was marked down on three jumps and some say that the judges were unfair.

I created a slow motion video of her 3Lz that people claim the technical panel unfairly downgraded. I will not make a call but will say that there are two things in the rules that can cause a jump to be downgraded UR, <

1. Clear forward takeoff.
2. More than 1/4 turn under rotated landing.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

*** Vidie link updated to remove freeze frames see link below ****

I am not posting this to bash Mirai. I think she is a wonderful skater and a great hope for the US Ladies. I just think people are unfair to the technical pannel who are trained to see this. I do not think they have some hidden agenda. They called it as they saw it.

FlattFan · Jan 25, 2010

The technical panel was lenient. They could downgrade her flip as well, but chose not to.

In the end, the best 2 get to go to the Olympics.

Bennett · Jan 25, 2010

The moment you stop the video seems at the end of prerotation but isn't she already slightly off the ice by then? It looks to me only a 1/4 short of rotation if I start counting her rotation a moment ago. It would depend on which moment you define as the take off. I am not an expert and would appreciate people's insights.

janetfan · Jan 25, 2010

Bennett said:
The moment you stop the video seems at the end of prerotation but isn't she already slightly off the ice by then? It looks to me only a 1/4 short of rotation if I start counting her rotation a moment ago. It would depend on which moment you define as the take off. I am not an expert and would appreciate people's insights.

These angles can get tricky. For instance it is obvious the second freeze is before her skate has touched down. I have seen many clips like this from Yuna bashers before.

gfskater · Jan 25, 2010

janetfan said:
These angles can get tricky. For instance it is obvious the second freeze is before her skate has touched down. I have seen many clips like this from Yuna bashers before.

For some reason I knew this would hapopen if I did the freeze frame thing.

It looks to me like her toe pick is on the ice on the take off frame. She is facing forward for several frames before that as well. Her shoulders are rotated even further.

I will make another with no freeze frame but realy slow so as not to be accused.

janetfan · Jan 25, 2010

gfskater said:
For some reason I knew this would hapopen if I did the freeze frame thing.

It looks to me like her toe pick is on the ice on the take off frame. She is facing forward for several frames before that as well. Her shoulders are rotated even further.

I will make another with no freeze frame but realy slow so as not to be accused.

That might be more interesting. Or try one with the second freeze after Mirai has touched down on the ice. That alone is probably worth 45 degees. :yes:

gfskater · Jan 25, 2010

OK,

I posted another super slow without the freeze frame. Hopefully the youtubers won't accuse me of being a Mirai basher for posting 2 videos of this. Look at her entire body as well as the skate. Is she clearly forward on take off? I am still not entirely sure what clearly forward means but that is what is in the rules for cheated takeoff. I don't think she is clearly backward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ3uEMDTNrU

BTW,

You only need one of these errors to be marked < (under rotated). If your takeofff is forward and your landing is perfect you can be marked <

The landing looks quite close to 1/4 hard to tell without high speed video. I don't envy the job of the technical panel.

janetfan · Jan 25, 2010

gfskater said:
OK,

I posted another super slow without the freeze frame. Hopefully the youtubers won't accuse me of being a Mirai basher for posting 2 videos of this. Look at her entire body as well as the skate. Is she clearly forward on take off? I am still not entirely sure what clearly forward means but that is what is in the rules for cheated takeoff. I don't think she is clearly backward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ3uEMDTNrU

Thanks - I think that clip is better.
I am no expert but maybe someone else will comment.

gfskater · Jan 25, 2010

janetfan said:
Thanks - I think that clip is better.
I am no expert but maybe someone else will comment.

I removed the other video. I think you are correct that the freeze frame can make it look like I am up to something. Better to show the raw footage and let people judge for themselves.

chuckm · Jan 25, 2010

NBC showed all three jumps in slomo and all three were UR. The flip may have been slightly URd as well, but the tech panel gave her the benefit of the doubt on that one.

SkatingAnalyst · Jan 25, 2010

Bad Technique

gfskater said:
Mirai skated a beautiful program at Nationals that was athletic, artistic, had great flow, good connections, and was well coreographed She was marked down on three jumps and some say that the judges were unfair.

I created a slow motion video of her 3Lz that people claim the technical panel unfairly downgraded. I will not make a call but will say that there are two things in the rules that can cause a jump to be downgraded UR, <

1. Clear forward takeoff.
2. More than 1/4 turn under rotated landing.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

*** Vidie link updated to remove freeze frames see link below ****

I am not posting this to bash Mirai. I think she is a wonderful skater and a great hope for the US Ladies. I just think people are unfair to the technical pannel who are trained to see this. I do not think they have some hidden agenda. They called it as they saw it.

You're 100% correct.

Mirai is using her right foot toepick as a tool for pre-rotation.
This is how to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoj1LY50MoQ

feraina · Jan 26, 2010

Thanks for the slow-mo. I don't think she was dinged for the take-off, but it's pretty clear from the slow-mo that she didn't under-rotate the landing.

I'd like to see a similar slow-mo for her 2A-3T.

SerpentineSteps · Jan 26, 2010

SkatingAnalyst said:
You're 100% correct.

Mirai is using her right foot toepick as a tool for pre-rotation.
This is how to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoj1LY50MoQ

I'm 99% sure that, in terms of downgrades, it's the skating edge that's considered for pre-rotation, not the toe pick.

Blades of Passion · Jan 26, 2010

n_halifax said:
It is close but I'm sorry to say it looks like 1/4 to me. I think this was fairly called.

It has to be more than 1/4 turn short to be downgraded.

2 out of 3 of the underrotation calls were unfair, seeing as how they weren't applied to Flatt. Her 3-3's should not have been ratified if Mirai's 2Axel-3Toe wasn't.

Also, look at the great close-up of Flatt's 3Lutz in the SP here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsgUmE8ei54

That jump could have been downgraded if the panel was being picky because her toepick touched the ice before the 1/4 turn mark. I will create screenshots later.

Layfan · Jan 26, 2010

Blades of Passion said:
It has to be more than 1/4 turn short to be downgraded.

2 out of 3 of the underrotation calls were unfair, seeing as how they weren't applied to Flatt. Her 3-3's should not have been ratified if Mirai's 2Axel-3Toe wasn't.

Also, look at the great close-up of Flatt's 3Lutz in the SP here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsgUmE8ei54

That jump could have been downgraded if the panel was being picky because her toepick touched the ice before the 1/4 turn mark. I will create screenshots later.

Just for the record, I've never questioned the techs decisions in this case and not for a minute do I think they were out to get Mirai or any such silly notion.

I still have a hard time seeing under rotations, even in slow mo. I see that both Rachael and Mirai slightly twist their body before they jump. Is that what people mean here?

What does it mean that "her toepick touched the ice before the 1/4 turn mark?" Sorry to sound so out of it but if anyone has the patience to explain, it'd be awesome.

SkatingAnalyst · Jan 26, 2010

Judges in Dilemma

feraina said:
Thanks for the slow-mo. I don't think she was dinged for the take-off, but it's pretty clear from the slow-mo that she didn't under-rotate the landing.

I'd like to see a similar slow-mo for her 2A-3T.

You're right.
Mirai is not dinged for cheated take-off.

Judges know about Mirai's pre-rotation...
If they crack-down the pre-rotation, Mirai doesn't have any toe-jumps.

But they will downgrade Mirai's jumps if there is any slight hint of under-rotation.
Because... the net rotation is not more than pathetic 2 1/4 turns.

Phoenix347 · Jan 26, 2010

I think this is right... what I'm really seeing is that Mirai has too much pre-rotation. Enough to be taking off more forward than backward. However, all that's written about take off is that "A clear forward (backward for Axel type jumps) take off will be considered a cheated take-jump. Tech panel may only use regular speed playback to determine the cheat and downgrade on the take off." So this is less explicitly defined therefore harder to penalize.

As someone said already, they already know about Mirai's bad take-off so they must be extra vigilant about any kind of iffy landing and penalize her harshly for so. Now I think I understand why they penalized her with UR's. She did deserve it.

Blades of Passion · Jan 26, 2010

Layfan said:
What does it mean that "her toepick touched the ice before the 1/4 turn mark?"

After she jumped and was coming down, the toepick of her landing foot touched the ice before reaching the 1/4 turn mark - that is, the point at which the jump has achieved what is considered to be 2 and 3/4 rotations from the point of where the takeoff started.

Some technical controllers seem to consider a jump landed the very moment that a skater's toepick reaches contact with the ice and also do not into the consideration the point at which the jump actually left the ice (rather than the point at which the beginning of the takeoff started).

Here is Flatt's 3Lutz from the SP:

Takeoff:

"Landing":

I do not consider a jump to be landed at this point...the body weight is still in the air and only the very tip of the toepick has reached the ice. A very strict (ie - less canny, less educated) tech specialist might downgrade the jump, though, since at this point it is short of having reached the 1/4 turn mark.

Strict downgrading was applied to Mirai Nagasu at the competition, but not to Rachael Flatt.

gfskater · Jan 26, 2010

Blades of Passion said:
Here is Flatt's 3Lutz from the SP:

This is the mistake I made when I posted the stills. You can tell nothing from them. You need to post a slo mo vidoe. I looked and Racheal is at less than 1/4 pre-rotated on take off. Her landing looked to be about 1/8 -1/4 UR

I think that others are correct in that the judges may be critical if you are 1/2 turn pre rotated (perhaps more if you look at her entire body which is what the panel may see in regular motion) on take off and 1/4 on landing then you are missing 3/4 of a turn in the air and your triple is 2-1/4 turns in the air. Sounds under rotated to me but I am not a techincal controller.

Bennett · Jan 26, 2010

I can't quite see why this jump was called for UR and none of Sasha's in both programs or Rachael's 3-3.

Is Mirai's prerotation that bad?

Mirai's Triple Lutz Unfairly Downgraded?

gfskater

FlattFan

Match Penalty

Bennett

janetfan

Match Penalty

gfskater

janetfan

Match Penalty

gfskater

janetfan

Match Penalty

gfskater

chuckm

SkatingAnalyst

feraina

SerpentineSteps

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be

Layfan

SkatingAnalyst

Phoenix347

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be

gfskater

Bennett

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