Who will push the technical edge in Ladies FS?

With Yuna kim confirmed retired and Asada and Kostner sitting out 2014 /15 (nicer way of saying retired?), which of the current batch of ladies do you think will be able to push the skating technical envelop?

E.g.
1. The next lady to land a ratified 3A in competition?
2. The first lady to land a fully rotated quad jump under CoP?
3. The skater who will triple loop off running three turns (aka Slutskaya, Kostner - I love that entrance)?
4. Anyone crazy enough to go for a 3-3-3 jump layout in competition? (unlikely though cos the scores dun reward the difficulty)

Let me know who in your opinion will be able to hit the next big jumps.

My guess: 3A = Sotnikova or Tuk (if they fix their headcase issues); Quad = Radionova (I am not so sure of Julia Lip - her jumps are tiny, she depends too much on rotating fast but once she grows a bit more??)

Perhaps Miyabi Oba will successfully land her 3A in competition this season.
I see she got a placement at Rostelecom Cup this year - her GP debut...

hmmmm difficult....

1. Tuktamysheva. I heard Mirai is landing some as well, but I don´t know how it will work. Based on power shown on double axel, I would say Gracie and So Youn should give it a try.
2. No one.... Okay, but if.... It would be Gracie I think.
3. I hate loops, so I didn´t pay attention the last season...:no:
4. Again Gracie or maybe Yulia Lip and Adelina, though I can not see them fully rotated them, exept for Gracie...

I believe that girl will be Liza Tuk!! :yay:
Adelina = I am not sure. Big question till next season.

Liza hopefully

Globetrotter said:

3. The skater who will triple loop off running three turns (aka Slutskaya, Kostner - I love that entrance)?

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Maybe I don't know what this means but hasn't Kiira Korpi done that for years in her SP?

Lets not forget Polina. She can jump and if she gains some muscle I wouldn't be surprised to see her get a 3a or eek out a quad.

Gracie. None of the above. To me her jumps are diminishing and instead she will develop more into a SS and artistic skater as she ages. Nothing wrong with that but I fear her tech has maxed out and is going in the wrong direction.

Yulia. Maybe a quad but it will be low and something weird like in combo 2a-4t? Who knows but if she gets determined enough look out...maybe a 4f even. I like her 3f and she gets it clean usually. Maybe not the first to do quads but I wouldn't count her out entirely. 3a :no:

Radinova. Until she hits a growth spurt I'm not sure anyone can guess her fate. Maybe a 3-3-3. She's got heart and is every bit as serious about this sport as anyone so if she puts her mind to it who knows. Her strength is artistic interpretation so she'll probably just try to skate clean and focus on her performance.

Adelina. She is the most likely to get a 3a and has the power to get a 4t. Would anyone be surprised if she got both as soon as next season. Not me. Best jumper of the ladies left. OTOH I saw a video of her working on what appeared to be pairs skating. Wouldn't that be something.

Liza. I didnt like the way her jumps looked last year. Maybe a 3a but she should just be focusing on skating clean programs at this point and working her way up the standings. Hopefully she has some magic left and proves me wrong. I love Liza and the way the last two years have unfolded jumpwise have made me quite sad.

So Youn Park. Any thoughts? I'm undecided on her tech level or mostly uninformed.

Liza could bring a 3A to competition if she prepares herself mentally and physically, maybe Adelina since she has the big jumps and good athleticism, the 2A doesn't come off to me as her favourite jump though.The other Russian girls usually have the 2A as their weakest jump so I don't see it, jumps in general are unlikely for Yulia because I think she's one of the most worrisome to me. I've also heard that Miyabi Oba and Joshi Helgesson have tried the 3A before so I guess they're possibilities

Radionova has done 3-3-3s in practice before but unless she gets another triple (or quad) it's kind of unlikely a woman to do it since it would use up so many triple at once. Not sure if it's worth it for them. I think we might start seeing a lot of 3-3-2s instead?

Polina Edmunds I think has good technical content and could probably push the technical envelope too. Gracie I don't see her getting a quad and we all know her 2A is her most unreliable jump. So Youn Park has very sound jumps but she's young and it's a bit early to say since I only found her this year.

Sam-Skwantch said:

OTOH I saw a video of her working on what appeared to be pairs skating. Wouldn't that be something.

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Yes it would be something. Do you have a link, sam?

I don't think the 3A and quads are rewarded enough in the system to make it worth training the jumps. An athlete is far better off improving the component score by adding transitions and technical elements like spins. The scoring difference between a 3Lz and a 3A of 2.5 points can easily be made up by upgrading a couple of spins and improving PCS a bit.

Kuan said:

Yes it would be something. Do you have a link, sam?

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Not sure if this will work or not. I've never lifted a video this way. I'm on my phone and it won't play for me due to flash player update needed

http://vk.com/video16456855_169244304?list=fb5343305849ed3872

I'm sure it's just training or cross training if you will but it would be interesting to see her become a pairs skater after proving herself on the individual circuit. Not saying it will happen mind you. Just an interesting thought that came out of left field along with this video.

I took it from this VK Fanpage. Scroll down if the link above won't work.

http://vk.com/figureskater

Thank you! So its just normal training. Training in Russia seems to be fun I did not know about this portal. I found some other interesting practice videos!

I think the technical side has been pushed quite a bit already, particularly on the junior level. It's just now starting to catch up on the senior level. Many of the Russian girls and even a few of the Americans are routinely including two 3-3s in the FS and are capable of hitting level 4s in everything. I would think that's the technical direction we're heading...

I'm not too sure how realistic it is to expect 3As and quads to become common place in the women's event. Only recently has it become an absolute necessity to have a 3-3 (within the last 2 years). The emergence of the Russian girls has pushed the technical side of things so that now it is a must to have a 3-3 in the SP and 7-triples with either a 3-3, 2-3 or both in the FS.

The 3A has pretty much been exclusive to Mao during the last 2 quads. She was the only one doing it and with her gone, I'm not sure how soon we'll see that jump again. I think Adelina, Mirai and a few others could probably land it in practice but it takes huge gonads to throw that jump in competition. Same thing for a quad toe. As of now I could see Adelina, Gracie, Liza or possibly Anna hitting a quad toe; Adelina, Gracie and Liza are powerful jumpers and Anna actually is too. Her 3Lz gets very nice height and distance but at 15 years old, Anna (like Julia, Elena and Polina) is still growing/filling out. For all of those ladies we'll have a better idea of their capability once they level out in a few years but (other than Anna) none of them strike me as powerful enough to hit a quad toe...we'll have to see though.

The biggest issue with doing a 3A or quad would be having the confidence to go for it and hit it when the pressure is on. Skaters can often do things in the relaxed atmosphere of a practice rink that they are incapable of doing on competitive ice and under pressure. Mao was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of skater when it came to the 3A. That's why the 3A list is such a short one for the women (Midori, Tonya, Mao). It's a rare combination of ability and guts to be able to do that jump that does not come along that often.

Sam-Skwantch said:

Lets not forget Polina. She can jump and if she gains some muscle I wouldn't be surprised to see her get a 3a or eek out a quad.

Gracie. None of the above. To me her jumps are diminishing and instead she will develop more into a SS and artistic skater as she ages. Nothing wrong with that but I fear her tech has maxed out and is going in the wrong direction.

Yulia. Maybe a quad but it will be low and something weird like in combo 2a-4t? Who knows but if she gets determined enough look out...maybe a 4f even. I like her 3f and she gets it clean usually. Maybe not the first to do quads but I wouldn't count her out entirely. 3a :no:

Radinova. Until she hits a growth spurt I'm not sure anyone can guess her fate. Maybe a 3-3-3. She's got heart and is every bit as serious about this sport as anyone so if she puts her mind to it who knows. Her strength is artistic interpretation so she'll probably just try to skate clean and focus on her performance.

Adelina. She is the most likely to get a 3a and has the power to get a 4t. Would anyone be surprised if she got both as soon as next season. Not me. Best jumper of the ladies left. OTOH I saw a video of her working on what appeared to be pairs skating. Wouldn't that be something.

Liza. I didnt like the way her jumps looked last year. Maybe a 3a but she should just be focusing on skating clean programs at this point and working her way up the standings. Hopefully she has some magic left and proves me wrong. I love Liza and the way the last two years have unfolded jumpwise have made me quite sad.

So Youn Park. Any thoughts? I'm undecided on her tech level or mostly uninformed.

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what makes you think julia can do a quad even a 3a? her jumps are small.. who knows if her growth spurt will hurt her in the next few years..

maybe skaters should fix their lutzes and flips first.. then again if you have your countrymen in the technical panel you will get away with it..

cooper said:

what makes you think julia can do a quad even a 3a? her jumps are small.. who knows if her growth spurt will hurt her in the next few years..

maybe skaters should fix their lutzes and flips first.. then again if you have your countrymen in the technical panel you will get away with it..

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1) I think a triple axel is just as hard as a quad. Definetely scarier. I don't think she has a shot at a 3a...which is why I 'd at it.

2) I am 99.99% she is done growing minus a few fill out pounds because you can already see 12 and 13yr olds surpassing her sizewise. She is 16 now and as long as she works out and stays mostly muscle shell be fine. She is never going to get curvy. Besides she already had her growth spurt during the 2012-13 season.

3) What a lame comment about countrymen on the panel. Get over it already or start another Sochi thread No Russians on WC panel and she had the highest scoring element of all the ladies and it was a 3lz-3t

4) In case you haven't seen her summer videos she was knocking down 3t and 3f like child's play and landing better than she had all season. Root against her all you want. It won't change a thing.

To be crystal clear I said..."don't count her out". Sure there are others more likely to land quads but a competitive spirit can accomplish amazing unheard of things. I honestly believe, due entirely to how strong her free leg is in combo jumps, she might be able to eek out a 2a-4t. At about 5'1 her jumps are always going to be smaller so I just shrug of the height complaints by some. She always seems to fully rotate her jumps and satisfy the other bullets.

I actually hope she just does a similar layout to her Euro's skate and backloads her combo's to rack up points. If she continues to slow down and hold out her elements like in her summer skates and execute in seasons past I don't even see a need for her to increase her tech. At WC SP she was almost equal to Mao's TES who landed a 3a. Her spins pick her up quite a few extra points and +3 GOE's which helps level the field.

pohatta said:

Maybe I don't know what this means but hasn't Kiira Korpi done that for years in her SP?

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Mirai does a loop off running 3-turns as well.

I would have said Gracie for the triple axle a year ago, but in her last few competitions, her double began to fail. Did anyone see anything at SOI to indicate that it's back in form?

I will say eventually Anastasia Gubanova will do 3a if she wants to.

YLFan said:

I will say eventually Anastasia Gubanova will do 3a if she wants to.

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I think that with girls, quads and 3a's are hard to attain because when it comes time to start training them, 12-14yrs old, it is likely right in the middle of their growth spurt. Anastasia has a similar body type to Yulia, short legs in proportion to the rest of her body at a young age, so she probably won't have major growth issues but they both share a similar jump technique likely attributed to that body type. While I don't think it's out of the realm of posdibility, I'm not sure how likely it is to happen for them. That said the sooner she starts training for these bigger jumps the better but at what risk? It might prove to shorten what could be a great career due to injury. I'm with Kwanatic and think the Technical aspect of ladies has improved a lot recently. As I pointed out earlier Yulia kept pace with Mao's TES and her 3a in the SP at Worlds with her current layout. I'm not sure how necassary these jumps really are now and if the risk outweighs the potential downside.

The running threes into loop is not itself pushing the envelope, since Slutskaya did it almost 20 years ago and a number of skaters have done it since. Koster too.

But, if someone were to aim for those kinds of entrances into most/all of the jumps,

drivingmissdaisy said:

An athlete is far better off improving the component score by adding transitions and technical elements like spins.

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And that is another way of pushing the technical envelope.

Although spins mainly contribute to TES where they have a cap that a number of skaters have already approached.



For jump content, I would expect something like 3-3-3 combo to become common before quads or triple axels, since it's more a matter of improving technique (runout from the first two jumps), and less increasing the amount of time spent in the air, for which which most elite ladies have already maxed out their potential.

If someone invents springier ice or springier skates or an affordable way to counteract gravity in Earth-based competitions, then we'll see more revolutions in the air become common.