Setting aside – um – all this

-- the question that we should be debating is, just how hard is the Axel jump anyway, compared to other take-offs?
The IJS seems to feel that adding an extra revolution approximately triples the difficulty. So, all things being equal, an extra half revolution should be multiplied by 1.73. (The square root of 3. One extra revolution = two half-revolutions, 3 = 1.73x1.73.)
Multiplying the base value for a double Axel by 1.73 gives 5.7 for the scaled base value for a two-and-a-half Axel, which would be the same number of revolutions as a normal triple jump. So applying the difficulty-per–three-revolution standard puts the Axel, at 5.7, halfway between the flip, 5.3, and the Lutz, 6.0, in terms of the intrinsic difficulty of the take-off edge.
Therefore a triple Axel, 3-and-a-half revolutions, should be worth 5.7x1.73 = 9.9.
It’s just arithmetic, not who we like better, Mao or Yu-na.
This is what I admire about the CoP.

This kind of objective analysis would not have been possible under earlier judging systems.
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