Sasha & Rockne???

the original question: throw jumps harder or easier?

The argument that was brought up earlier by FlattFan was that throw jumps are merely different from regular jumps of the same type; not harder or easier. I am inclined to agree with this, as I imagine if we took a whole flock of elite singles ladies skaters and gave them a partner big and strong enough to fling them into the air, many of them would be unsure and scared of relying on a partner to give them the lift and then timing their rotations and landings with the throws.

However, I suspect that it is also true that many ladies skaters who are not particularly strong at jumping on their own have more success in Pairs skating because their jumps are assisted by their partners' throws... but only if they are also pretty good at and dedicated to synchronization with their partners, and learning many of the unique elements of Pairs skating that are difficult.

So, I believe as an overall discipline, Pairs skating is at least the equal of Singles skating in terms of difficulty; it is rarer and more difficult to create a successful Pairs skating team (you need two outstanding individuals instead of just one, and then they need to complement each other)... Overall, elite Pairs ladies skaters are not as strong jumpers as their Singles ladies counterparts, but who cares when they are able to do the spectacular Pairs elements that probably require them to master a wider range of skills.

i love to skate said:

Yes, she finished 8th in 2005-2006 which was the year that Jessica started competing in singles "for the hell of it" - she was not serious about that discipline. She also competed in singles for the upcoming years, but often only in one portion of the event. She had been the Canadian Pre-Novice Champion, Novice Silver Medalist, and Junior Silver Medalist in the years prior. She also has two bronze medals from the Junior Grand Prix circuit. She clearly had success at both disciplines and decided to focus her attention on pairs - like I said before.

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Jessica Dube had Singles success mostly at the National level. Jessica won a bronze in a 2004 JGP, so 2005-2006 wasn't the first year she competed in singles; many ladies have won bronze JGP medals and have never been heard from again, so that isn't exactly a measure of international success.

The most successful Canadian lady to skate both Pairs and Singles was Meagan Duhamel, who won a gold JGP medal and made the 2004-2005 JGPF.

i love to skate said:

Her technique absolutely is world class. I never said it was consistent.

Like I asked you before, have you ever tried to land a throw? If not, using your logic it's funny how someone who has never landed a throw could have an opinion on the difference between the two elements...

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In that case, my lutz technique is world class, too. Just that I was not able to land them consistently, or once.

Like you asked yourself before, have you ever tried to land a triple?
All pairs seem to have the throw Sal down consistently. How many pairs have the SBS Sal? How many pairs consistently complete the SBS Sal? Maybe just one, Z/Z.

Jessica Dube hasn't landed the SBS Sal in years. Lest someone forget.

FlattFan said:

Like you asked yourself before, have you ever tried to land a triple?

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Sure have! Whether I was able to land them, that is another question laugh but yes I have tried to land some.

FlattFan said:

Jessica Dube hasn't landed the SBS Sal in years. Lest someone forget.

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What are you talking about??

2010 Canadian Nationals Long Program
2009 TEB Short Program and Long Program
2009 Canadian Championships Long Program
2009 Four Continents Short Program and Long Program
Shall I go on?

gold12345 said:

The top pair girls in the world, for the most part, are NOT doing pairs because they "don't have enough jumping talent". They are doing pairs because they have a passion for pairs and started when they were very young! Who is anyone to say these skaters could not make it in singles if it was never their intention to be singles skaters in the first place?

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There are almost no skaters who train solely in pairs from childhood and don't even attempt singles. Pretty much everyone tries singles. Those who show the talent for it remain in the discipline.

There might be a few people who have equal talent for singles and pairs and decide on pairs, but that's rare. Most people do pairs becuse they think their careers will be better in that direction. So many examples of this:

Kyoko Ina ---> only came in 7th in singles at Nationals in 1991 and immediately paired up afterwards and eventually became 5-time National Champion in pairs.

Rena Inoue ---> did singles for a long time but was never able to get anywhere post-1994. She switched to pairs and was able to achieve 4th in the World eventually.

Jamie Sale ---> never got anywhere in singles, but of course had great success in pairs

Naomi Nari Nam ---> after recovering from injures early in her career, she tried singles again but wasn't able to do well enough to get to Nationals. After switching to pairs she was able to manage a podium placement at Nationals

I don't know of anyone who tried to do pairs for years and couldn't get anywhere but then switched to singles and found success. Basically, there are many successful singles skaters who could have done pairs if they wanted to but there aren't many pairs skaters who could have been successful in singles.

gold12345 said:

Jumps and throws are VERY different. Having one does not mean the other will come, even with the proper training.

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If you're a female who can do the Triple by yourself, you can learn the throw (given that your partner is a correct match). Again, having someone else to help create the lift and rotation for you makes it easier as soon as you learn to harness it.

Whereas, on the other hand, most of these females who can do throw Triple Loops wouldn't be able to do that jump consistently on their own.

gold12345 said:

Both disciplines are difficult, but are very different. How can we compare which is harder than the other? They are just different, and every skater has different talents. Some skaters may be gifted in singles, but not cut out for pairs at all, and vice versa. It's not just about skills, it's about matching those skills to a partner and having a similar work ethic and an ability to work well with someone else.

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Well yes, as I said, the difficulty of pairs is in working with another partner and being compatible with them. But in terms of the technical difficulty, pairs is far easier in terms of jumps. Which means that it IS an easier discipline if you have the ability to do lifts (Sasha clearly does) and can find a suitable partner.

mousepotato said:

You do realize that pairs skaters also have to jump on their own in both the short and free skate? Most doing triple-triples or atleast 2A-2Aseq.

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There isn't a single pair in the World that has done a Triple-Triple combination in competition, what are you talking about? And a 2A-2A sequence is nothing compared to the jumps required as a singles skater.

The absolute most difficult jumping seen in pairs has been what Zhang/Zhang attempts -- a 2Axel/3Toe combination and a solo 3Sal...and they aren't consistent with them either. If your only Triples are the Salchow and Toeloop, and you aren't even consistent with those, you won't place well as a singles skater.

i love to skate said:

Yes, she finished 8th in 2005-2006 which was the year that Jessica started competing in singles "for the hell of it" - she was not serious about that discipline. She also competed in singles for the upcoming years, but often only in one portion of the event. She had been the Canadian Pre-Novice Champion, Novice Silver Medalist, and Junior Silver Medalist in the years prior. She also has two bronze medals from the Junior Grand Prix circuit. She clearly had success at both disciplines and decided to focus her attention on pairs - like I said before.

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Being Canadian pre-novice Champion and getting a bronze medal on the Junior Grand Prix circuit isn't a sign that you are going to have a successful singles career as a Senior. The fact is that Dube was getting higher placements at her pairs events all of those years, even when she was trying for a singles career.

PolymerBob said:

The logic I use is as follows. The easier it is to do something, the more people do it. It is easier to sit on your couch, with a beer in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other, then it is to run a marathon. So there are more couch potatoes than marathon runners. Make sense? If it is easier to skate pairs than it is to skate singles, we should have a surplus of pairs skaters ............ but we don't.

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First of all, you need the pair to have a connection and have synergy. That is called luck, not technical difficulty, and it dwindles the possible pair couplings. Secondly, there are far less Men in the sport than there are Women. If all of the girls out there who wanted to do Pairs could find a great partner, there would be WAY more pairs teams.

OK, so where are all these mediocre skaters waiting in line for a chance to be Rockne's partner????

Too bad that Maria Mukhortova doesn't want to play sexy spy and stay in the USofA. She would be a perfect candidate for Rockne.
Carolina Zhang would be an ideal candidate for Rockne. Her salchow and toe jumps are very solid. She's young. She's tiny. She can adjust her spins to match his. And here's the kicker, she sucks at single. LOL. Carolina meets all the requirements.

Internationally, at big events. 2009 Worlds, none. 2010 Worlds, none. 2010 Olympics none.
I "refudiate" throw jumps are harder than regular jumps.

FlattFan said:

Too bad that Maria Mukhortova doesn't want to play sexy spy and stay in the USofA. She would be a perfect candidate for Rockne.
[Caroline] Zhang would be an ideal candidate for Rockne. Her salchow and toe jumps are very solid. She's young. She's tiny. She can adjust her spins to match his. And here's the kicker, she sucks at single. LOL. Carolina meets all the requirements.

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Five words: Triple Twist -- Triple LUTZ twist.

She'd be really great if she got that mule kick under control.

FlattFan said:

She can adjust her spins to match his. And here's the kicker, she sucks at single. LOL. Carolina meets all the requirements.

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Carolina skates for Italy. They would have to sit out one season.

PolymerBob said:

Carolina skates for Italy. They would have to sit out one season.

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I think she means Caroline Zhang. I figured you of all people would see that

^ It was the "she sucks" part that threw him off. Obviously Caroline Z doesn't suck, so ?????

actually Caroline has a rather poor salchow and a wonky entrance into her double axel. I can't imagine she coul achieve any kin of synchronization. Her assets (spins and spiral) would be hidden in pairs and I the low height of her jumps also would be a problem.

FlattFan said:

Too bad that Maria Mukhortova doesn't want to play sexy spy and stay in the USofA. She would be a perfect candidate for Rockne.
Carolina Zhang would be an ideal candidate for Rockne. Her salchow and toe jumps are very solid. She's young. She's tiny. She can adjust her spins to match his. And here's the kicker, she sucks at single. LOL. Carolina meets all the requirements.

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Carolina is 5'7" (2 inches shorter than Rockne) and skates for Italy....that wouldn't work.

Caroline even at 5'3"-5'4" is probably even too tall for Rockne considering the other pair girls her height all have partners that are over 6' tall. Plus her speed would probably be an issue. Her toe and sal jumps are pretty normal for her though, the 2a would need some work though, but at least we know she has a pretty good success rate at rotating and landing her triples....

Blades of Passion said:

There are almost no skaters who train solely in pairs from childhood and don't even attempt singles. Pretty much everyone tries singles.

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Right. You have to learn how to skate before you can skate pairs.

But some skaters do decide to specialize in pairs early on. Especially sibling pairs. Who might reach elite levels together. Or the more talented or dedicated sibling might succeed later with another partner after the brother or sister has quit.

When singles skaters had to do school figures, pair skaters who were committed to pairs might not train them seriously or at all. I think this was especially true in the Soviet system, which used other training methods to develop basic skating skills.

Those who show the talent for it remain in the discipline.

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At a certain point, novice or junior or senior level, or senior level verging on world-class, a skater who has talent for and interest in both pairs and singles will often have to make a decision where to focus his or her energies. The decision might be based on where they have the most talent or the most potential for success, or it might be based on which discipline they enjoy most.

"Potential" in pairs sometimes depends on the skater's size as an adult, or the ability to maintain a partnership.

Some girls who had early success in pairs quit and focus on singles not because they outgrew their partners but because they just don't enjoy (or are afraid of) being lifted and thrown as much as they enjoy skating on their own.

There might be a few people who have equal talent for singles and pairs and decide on pairs, but that's rare. Most people do pairs becuse they think their careers will be better in that direction.

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Well, if they decided to focus on pairs at a lower level because they liked that better and didn't compete in singles as seniors, as fans we might not know how much talent they had in singles.

If the talent is equal in both disciplines, the results will be better in the discipline with less competition. E.g., a girl who is 80th percentile for her test level in the US will have an outside chance at qualifying for Nationals if she skates her best at regionals and sectionals and others of her level do not, but chances are she's never going to get there. A pair team in the 80th percentile of all US pairs at that level will be assured a trip to Nationals and have a good chance of earning international assignments.

I don't know of anyone who tried to do pairs for years and couldn't get anywhere but then switched to singles and found success.

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What consititutes getting anywhere or finding success? National titles or medals? International assignments?

Remember it's a lot easier for a pair skater to achieve those than a singles skater, especially girls, just because of the numbers. If they can't even make the top half of the field in pairs, they're not likely to make the top 5 or 10% in singles.

Basically, there are many successful singles skaters who could have done pairs if they wanted to but there aren't many pairs skaters who could have been successful in singles.

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Does this include skaters who did both up to senior level and then chose singles (or had it chosen for them by body size and/or the partner's choice)? E.g., Paul Wylie, Yamaguchi and Galindo.

They all "got somewhere" in pairs, but for various reasons they each chose to focus on singles and sooner or later achieved world-class success in that discipline.

For those who did not choose to switch to singles, especially those who didn't focus on school figures or harder triples at all because they put all their attention on pairs, we'll never know if they would have succeeded in singles had they made that their focus all along. We can guess, but who knows. Katia Gordeeva never had consistent solo triples, but if she had done only singles skating from childhood, might she have had enough triples to do well (top 10 anyway, probably not all the gold medals she won in pairs) during the period she competed with Grinkov?

Perhaps with a different partner (slightly larger, and rotating in the same direction) Yamaguchi would have had just as much potential for success in pairs as in singles.

It's impossible to know for sure. They made their choices, or the system made choices for them.

Or take Stephen Carr. Nineteen times Australian pairs champion with his sister Danielle (most of those titles uncontested I believe). Highest finish at Worlds was 10th in 1994. He also represented Australia in singles a few times, including an 18th-place finish, with a triple axel, at 1994 Olympics. I daresay his talent was actually stronger in singles than in pairs, but because of the depth of the field he got a lot more opportunities in pairs.

Lots of skaters who have done pretty well in singles also skated pairs at the lower levels but chose to focus on singles well before they got to seniors -- e.g., Rachael Flatt, Ryan Bradley, Jeremy Abbott. Did they quit pairs because they were better at singles? Because they liked singles better? Because it was logistically easier to sustain singles training than to coordinate with a partner, especially if they grew at different rates than the first partner? Because they were only dabbling with pairs in the first place? I don't know. But we can't rule out that some of them might have quit pairs because they knew they had more potential for success in singles, despite the numerical odds.

Tinymavy15 said:

actually Caroline has a rather poor salchow and a wonky entrance into her double axel. I can't imagine she coul achieve any kin of synchronization.

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Well maybe. Here is what we have so far...........
We have reports that Caroline has a new coach, Tammy Gambill, who is a jump technician.
Caroline has been posting on her AT&T blog that her training has been coming along very well.
Finally, we have one report from someone who claims to have seen her land improved jumps.

What we don't have is video of Caroline skating since 4 Continents, so I don't know what to think of all this apparently good news. But IF the news IS true, Caroline would be planning to hit the Grand Prix like a hammer, and wouldn't even think about skating pairs right now.

PolymerBob said:

But IF the news IS true, Caroline would be planning to hit the Grand Prix like a hammer, and wouldn't even think about skating pairs right now.

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At 5'3"-5'4", she'd be too tall in this case anyway. I see her remaining in singles though.

Blades of Passion said:

There are almost no skaters who train solely in pairs from childhood and don't even attempt singles. Pretty much everyone tries singles. Those who show the talent for it remain in the discipline.

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Of course you have to learn to skate by yourself before you learn to skate as a pair. But an 8 year old skating singles doesn't necessarily have a desire to be a singles skater. If she wants to do pairs, she has wait until she gets strong enough (in terms of skating skills and physical strength) and can find a partner that suits her, which isn't easy. The ones who go into pairs at a very early age often have a true passion for it.

You bring up examples like Rena Inoue... She was skating pairs before she was even a teenager, so it wasn't like she made a switch to pairs after "failing" at singles. She seemed to simply like both disciplines, but had more of a knack for pairs. And someone like Naomi Nari Nam never got to Worlds in either discipline. Her highest Nationals result was ultimately in singles. So I don't see these examples being proof of either discipline being "harder" than the other.

Why do we see so few pair girls switching into singles? Aside from the fact there are so few pair girls to begin with, if the girls aren't any good at pairs, they are probably still doing singles anyway, so there would be no need for a "switch". They would simply stop skating pairs. There are probably plenty of girls who try pairs when they are young, only to see it isn't for them, and end up just competing in singles.

FlattFan said:

Like you asked yourself before, have you ever tried to land a triple?
All pairs seem to have the throw Sal down consistently. How many pairs have the SBS Sal? How many pairs consistently complete the SBS Sal? Maybe just one, Z/Z.

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I don't see how this proves that singles is harder than pairs. Of course pair teams may be stronger at a pair element like a throw than they would be at a solo jump. They are training a very diverse skill set and don't spend nearly the same time on the solo jumps as a single skater would. Still, some pair skaters are more consistent at solo jumps than they are at throws.

Blades of Passion said:

If you're a female who can do the Triple by yourself, you can learn the throw (given that your partner is a correct match). Again, having someone else to help create the lift and rotation for you makes it easier as soon as you learn to harness it.

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IF you learn to harness it. Not every skater out there with a triple is capable of doing a good triple throw (consistently anyway). There are so many pairs out there with truly woeful throws. Not to mention a throw can be SCARY. Not everyone is cut out for that.

Blades of Passion said:

First of all, you need the pair to have a connection and have synergy. That is called luck, not technical difficulty, and it dwindles the possible pair couplings. Secondly, there are far less Men in the sport than there are Women. If all of the girls out there who wanted to do Pairs could find a great partner, there would be WAY more pairs teams.

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Good point. But I don't think it's all "luck". Being able to mesh with a partner is a skill in and of itself. Some skaters are cut out for it, some aren't.

gold12345 said:

I don't see how this proves that singles is harder than pairs. Of course pair teams may be stronger at a pair element like a throw than they would be at a solo jump. They are training a very diverse skill set and don't spend nearly the same time on the solo jumps as a single skater would. Still, some pair skaters are more consistent at solo jumps than they are at throws.

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Are you seriously telling me pair teams don't spend enough time to train on the biggest point getter?

FlattFan said:

Are you seriously telling me pair teams don't spend enough time to train on the biggest point getter?

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SBS jumps are not the biggest point getters!

For example:
A 3S has a base value of 4.50
A 3STh has a base value of 4.95
A 5ALi4 can have base values of 6.50, 7.15, etc.
A 3LzTw2 has a base value of 5.50
etc.

i love to skate said:

SBS jumps are not the biggest point getters!

For example:
A 3S has a base value of 4.50
A 3STh has a base value of 4.95
A 5ALi4 can have base values of 6.50, 7.15, etc.
A 3LzTw2 has a base value of 5.50
etc.

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SBS jumps can be big point getters depending on who does what and where in the program it is. K/S have done 3T+3T+SEQ in the beginning worth 6.40 to start (they got a 7.00) and a 2A+2A+SEQ after the half which is worth 6.16 to start (they got 7.16) so SBS jumps are important and can cost skaters medals when not exectued properly. The lifts on the other hand may have a base value of 7.15 but that doesn't mean the judge will see it that way, the skaters could be downgraded.