Which skaters “changed the course of figure skating?” | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Which skaters “changed the course of figure skating?”

Russian ladies in the coming quadrennial....you know, when all 12 (there's probably even more than I'm forgetting too) fantastic youngsters dominate the international skating scene :agree:. I have a feeling it's going to happen too...there's just too many of them for it NOT to happen. I'm excited :love:. Liza for Sochi gold! :laugh:
 
Kwanford Wife said:
I shall continue my negative trend and add Yuna and Mao to this list... Because I'm tired of hearing how awesome, amazing, and more talented than everybody else - when the reality is that they don't have a full set of triple jumps. Sure, CoP allows for this but having spent my entire life watching skaters struggle to get and keep these jumps - I struggle with the modern ideal of "perfection"

I don't blame the skaters, I blame the game.
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Why is there so much emphasis on a "full set of triple jumps" to indicate mastery of skating? Perhaps, this is an old pre-set notion from pre-CoP era. After all, shouldn't the same mastery be reflected in the ability to execute difficult jumps that most skaters can't even do? Shouldn't it be about the quality of the jumping not the actual quanitity? 3a or 3-3 combo is much more difficult to execute and most skaters are forced to do a full triple triple program because they don't have the ability to execute the more difficult jumping passes.
 
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Figure88 said:
Why is there so much emphasis on a "full set of triple jumps" to indicate mastery of skating? Perhaps, this is an old pre-set notion from pre-CoP era. After all, shouldn't the same mastery be reflected in the ability to execute difficult jumps that most skaters can't even do? Shouldn't it be about the quality of the jumping not the actual quanitity? 3a or 3-3 combo is much more difficult to execute and most skaters are forced to do a full triple triple program because they don't have the ability to execute the more difficult jumping passes.
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You raise an interesting point - as did Kwanford.

Let's not forget she blamed "the game" and not the skaters.
I agree that the quality of jumps is important - but also like the idea of bonus points for completing a full set of triples.

As to all of these other Ladies today "being forced to do a full set of triples" - who are they? None of the three medalists at Worlds did them.

I am wondering of the top 10 finishers at 2010 Worlds how many did a full set of triples?

I am not really sure how I feel about this. I don't mind Yuna skipping the 3Loop and doing three 2A's - because as you pointed out the quality of her jumps is so high.
 
Figure88 said:
Why is there so much emphasis on a "full set of triple jumps" to indicate mastery of skating?
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Well, it doesn't indicate mastery of skating on the ice so much as mastery of jumping techniques. Although not doing any sort of lutz likely means opportunities lost to demonstrate multidirectional skating and counterrotation as skating techniques on the ice.

janetfan said:
As to all of these other Ladies today "being forced to do a full set of triples" - who are they? None of the three medalists at Worlds did them.

I am wondering of the top 10 finishers at 2010 Worlds how many did a full set of triples?
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Do you mean ladies who finished in the top 10 at Worlds and who successfully executed five different triples plus double axel?
Ando, Phaneuf, Suzuki (3Lz was flawed but not completely failed)
 
Figure88 said:
Why is there so much emphasis on a "full set of triple jumps" to indicate mastery of skating? Perhaps, this is an old pre-set notion from pre-CoP era. After all, shouldn't the same mastery be reflected in the ability to execute difficult jumps that most skaters can't even do? Shouldn't it be about the quality of the jumping not the actual quanitity? 3a or 3-3 combo is much more difficult to execute and most skaters are forced to do a full triple triple program because they don't have the ability to execute the more difficult jumping passes.
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Hmmm. A Poster after my own heart. Quality is more important than Quantity. What a concept! Apparently, under CoP, Quantity pays off in big points even if a skater is unable to fulfill the definition requirements. It doesn't matter if a skater can not execute a proper jump when all the skater has to do is fake it. How many skaters are always consistent Fallers, Flutzers, Underrotators? yet they pick up points for Quantity, and to top it off, win medals. Quality be damned!

The perfect reason for me to want to get rid of the SP and use it exclusively for Technical only, with quality as the goal.
 
Joesitz said:
Hmmm. A Poster after my own heart. Quality is more important than Quantity. What a concept! Apparently, under CoP, Quantity pays off in big points even if a skater is unable to fulfill the definition requirements. It doesn't matter if a skater can not execute a proper jump when all the skater has to do is fake it. How many skaters are always consistent Fallers, Flutzers, Underrotators? yet they pick up points for Quantity, and to top it off, win medals. Quality be damned!

The perfect reason for me to want to get rid of the SP and use it exclusively for Technical only, with quality as the goal.
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You added a different twist but yes, your comments make good sense.
But I am not sure if it is fair or accurate to blame CoP for falls, flutzes and UR's. Didn't we see the same shortcomings under 6.0? Maybe even an Olympic champion or two with ur and edge problems that might not fly today?

Back to Kwanford's point - and with or without music - many of today's top ladies can't do 5 different triples in their LP. Is it a step forward or backward for skating? Does it even matter?

Under CoP points are points - and if Laura can win bronze with only three triples - (and only two different triples at that - a 3T and 3Lz) what does it say about the future of skating?
 
seniorita said:
Mm :) or anyone else, since you search old rules and books (at first i read 1998 and i thought, aaa this is not that old:laugh:), you mentioned before who introduced the music in programs, is there any idea how the rule about no lyrics in music pieces came up and how /why eventually they changed it for ice dance?...
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I believe that for a long time there was no actual rule about vocal music, but it was just a tradition to use instrumental music only. The first musical accompaniment was just the town band, hired to stand on the side of the lake and oom-pah away. Later, when indoor rinks were built for recreational skating, there would be an organ, the same as for accompanying silent movies in the movie houses.

(OT -- William Hershel (organist and oboist) and his sister Caroline (soprano) entertained between acts at a famous London theater in the 1700s. When the next act of the play commenced they had some time off before the next interlude. So they rushed home to look through their telescope until it was time to run back to the theater again.

They discovered the planet Uranus (which they named George (after the King of England), but Continental astronomers didn't like this name, so they changed it..

This is true -- you can look it up. :) )

I am not sure when major figure skating championships started to be held indoors, but I have seen photos of skaters in the 30s and 40s with phonographs at the edge of (outdoor) rinks.

I am pretty sure that in the late 90s some pairs team (Kuchikia and Sand for one) skated to opera music with vocals. But as for popular music, there were a lot of rules in place about "not making serious competitive skating into a public spectacle." Things like costume rules, rules against show-off elements like backflips and head-bangers -- and it was generally expected that skaters would use sedate classical symphonic-type music. I believe that the ISU passed a specific rule against vocals of all types after the 1989-90 season.

If I remember correctly the thin edge of the wedge came in the 1997-98 Olympic year. The Original Dance was the jive, and the skaters had a hard time finding appropriate music with no vocals. So the ISU relaxed the rule for ice dancing that year. I don't know if they allowed only "scat" vocals that year or full vocals for the OD.

But basically I think the impetus on disallowing vocals was to keep the pristine stick-up-the-behind image of serious competitive skating untarnished by anything connected to professional show skating.

(Caveat: Skating experts are welcome to correct any of this if I am remembering it wrong.)
 
Yu-na doing three of the same jump and a double at that, three double axels is at least one too many. I guess there will be many who say her double axels were better, prettier than Mao doing her historic 3 3a performance. I'm getting used to it now.;)

I agree with KW

I would hope that the ladies return to doing all the triples in their long. This seems the definition of Mastery at the elite level. The CoP should support that along with the stroking, edges, spins and spirals. The footwork sequences are being over done. Though anazing to watch Takahashi, I still feel thrilled when I watch the quad men. Evgeni had a point about Ice dance though he was snarky. Personally, I would have been thrilled to see Mao do 1 3a in her long. I think the men should do two. I don't think women should do two in one program even if they can. And they should not try quads as they get injured and ruin their hips. Even excessive 3.3's kept us from seeing Tara skate beyond age 17 or 18. What a shame. The 3a- Its such a difficult jump that only some 5 ladies have landed it in competition. To me it is more important that the skater has learned all the triples and attempts them. Doesn't that level the field and we get to see who can jump well?

As for the men, I agree that the quad is a good thing i love to see and I recall SLC where all three medalists did quads and quad triples. I do not like that the sport has pushed triple -triple on the ladies because only the very elite can do it. Michelle Kwan, with all her attributes didn't win Oly gold because she was outjumped. I'm taking nothing away friom the great skills/skates of Tara/Sarah, but the 3/3's were most highly valued and both these ladies jumped to first, with beautiful exciting performances of course.

I find it strange that a 3/3 could be worth more than two 3A's in the Ladies event, but someone made that decision. Joannie, getting bronze, had neither. Oh, well. I am never going to understand CoP.

They seem to want everything including difficult entrances and difficult footwork into these triples...so what has to be left out? The jumps. Love Laura Lepisto won bronze with 3 triples at Worlds? Hmmm.
 
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Mathman said:
(OT -- William Hershel (organist and oboist) and his sister Caroline (soprano) entertained between acts at a famous London theater in the 1700s. When the next act of the play commenced they had some time off before the next interlude. So they rushed home to look through their telescope until it was time to run back to the theater again.

They discovered the planet Uranus (which they named George (after the King of England), but Continental astronomers didn't like this name, so they changed it..

This is true -- you can look it up. :) )
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This is so funny, MM: Just this afternoon, I had to look up the discovery of the outer planets for work--and there was William Herschel. I've also done some reading about Caroline. But I didn't realize they also had musical abilities. Talk about the long arm of coincidence.

I didn't remember when the vocal music rule was relaxed for ice dance, but I remember that horrible period when ice dance music had to have been written for dancing--so you couldn't use great works like the Vivaldi that Usova and Zhulin used in 1992. Which is, I think, how Torvill and Dean ended up using Fred and Ginger's greatest hits for their dance routine. They were so circumscribed by this limitation that they couldn't be innovative, and we ended up with Grischuk and Platov winning with Rock Around the Clock. Truly a waste of everyone's potential, I thought.

I'm glad they allow a wider range of music again for ice dance. Just contemplating that wonderful Mahler symphony segment that Virtue and Moir used confirms this. But my favorite example of music outside of the ordinary is Denkova and Staviskiy's magnificent Baroque medley that they used for their 2003 OD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGFbFEDI6DA
 
People make it sound like Laura Lepisto skated in an amazing competition and won bronze. She didn't. She lucked into bronze when skaters who could outrank her (Nagasu, Flatt, Ando, Kostner) had less than perfect skates. She landed five triples in Vancouver and came sixth overall. In a well skated event, she wouldn't have been on the podium (with what she delivered).

And as for footwork - currently, level four footwork is worth 3.8 points. A quad toe is 9.8.
 
ImaginaryPogue said:
People make it sound like Laura Lepisto skated in an amazing competition and won bronze. She didn't. She lucked into bronze when skaters who could outrank her (Nagasu, Flatt, Ando, Kostner) had less than perfect skates. She landed five triples in Vancouver and came sixth overall. In a well skated event, she wouldn't have been on the podium (with what she delivered).

And as for footwork - currently, level four footwork is worth 3.8 points. A quad toe is 9.8.
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yes, a dismal ladies skate with a couple exceptions. thank goodness for Mao...
 
Kwanford Wife said:
My biggest issue with CoP are the scores themselves... In Kwanford's Perfect World - technical prowess would be rewarded to ensure the sport continues to be "bigger, faster, higher" - innovation across the board isn't encouraged so skaters don't have the incentive to push. A complete set of triple jumps would also get a bonus over tagging a 2axle onto jumps just to rack up points.

I also have an issue with what I see as leniency towards falls. It makes no sense that an under rotated jump is severly penialized where a fall is not. One thing that 6.0 got right was the harshness of the fall. Again, in my perfect world - I wouldn't give a single point for a fall. Don't throw it, if you can't land it.
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IMHO, the two statements in bold are contradictive. Who in their right mind would try to innovate when they get nothing for trying and falling?

A complete set of triple jumps would also get a bonus over tagging a 2axle onto jumps just to rack up points.
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I personally think quality is more important than quantity. I would rather enjoy a beautifully executed double axel over a poorly executed triple axel. If everyone is racking up points with double axels, then someone who can execute a triple will get rewarded for trying a triple.
 
ImaginaryPogue said:
People make it sound like Laura Lepisto skated in an amazing competition and won bronze. She didn't. She lucked into bronze when skaters who could outrank her (Nagasu, Flatt, Ando, Kostner) had less than perfect skates. She landed five triples in Vancouver and came sixth overall. In a well skated event, she wouldn't have been on the podium (with what she delivered).

And as for footwork - currently, level four footwork is worth 3.8 points. A quad toe is 9.8.
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Are you sure Caro is still better than Laura? The last 5 times they competed at major Intl events Laura has finished ahead of Caro 4 times. (Last 2 Euros + last 2 Worlds + Olympics).

Laura also finished ahead of Flatt at the Olympics and Worlds this season and beat Mao at the Japan Open.

Perhaps Laura is lucky that in today's skating 3-4 triples can get you on many podiums.
 
ImaginaryPogue said:
People make it sound like Laura Lepisto skated in an amazing competition and won bronze. She didn't. She lucked into bronze when skaters who could outrank her (Nagasu, Flatt, Ando, Kostner) had less than perfect skates.
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janetfan said:
Are you sure Caro is still better than Laura? The last 5 times they competed at major Intl events Laura has finished ahead of Caro 4 times. (Last 2 Euros + last 2 Worlds + Olympics).

Laura also finished ahead of Flatt at the Olympics and Worlds this season and beat Mao at the Japan Open.
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So perhaps "could outrank her" doesn't mean "are better overall skaters" but rather "are at approximately the same level overall, so contests between them can go either way depending who is more successful at executing her elements to gain the most points that day."

I would consider Nagasu, Flatt, Ando, Kostner, and Lepisto at a comparable overall level, albeit with different strengths.

Ando's are primarily the jumps, so her success or failure at those will make a big difference in her results.

Asada I think is a cut above those skaters in basic flow across the ice, so she'd have to make more mistakes to end up behind any of them. Unfortunately, that does happen on occasion. Especially when the mistake is as costly as doubling a planned triple axel in the short program without a backup plan.

But I don't think any of these individuals "changed the course of figure skating" any more than each other or than Yuna Kim or, say, Shizuka Arakawa or Sasha Cohen or Irina Slutskaya. They're all part of the development of the sport into the IJS era, but I don't think any individual stands out as singlehandedly influential enough to change the course of the sport.
 
Miki's landing the quad and Mao's landing three axels at Oly both made history.:) Younger generations may try to follow their path. We'll see their effects in the future.

Plush also changed the course of the trend of men's skating by his comeback. More skaters may have tried the quad because of him.
 
janetfan said:
Are you sure Caro is still better than Laura? The last 5 times they competed at major Intl events Laura has finished ahead of Caro 4 times. (Last 2 Euros + last 2 Worlds + Olympics).

Laura also finished ahead of Flatt at the Olympics and Worlds this season and beat Mao at the Japan Open.

Perhaps Laura is lucky that in today's skating 3-4 triples can get you on many podiums.
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No, but she did beat her at Euros 2010, and was skating on home ice. Laura Lepisto has medaled at three Euros (with the worst European field on record), two GP events and one worlds. She beat Mao at a terrible event for her.

Lets also mention that Rochette didn't compete, and she's never lost to Lepisto.

I'll echo gkelly, though.
 
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