Viveca Lindfors was able to lift her shin so up that knee was in to the level of her head. She had lots of back problems. I cannot remember if she did it in competions, but she has posted in her ig some photographs about it during her active years.
Agree about wakaba. Sometimes it's impossible to do that position. It's basically a requirement or you may be seen as a weak spinner which, in my book, just isn't true. About Liza, well, she attempts the position but the foot is more behind / below the head instead of above it. Same for samodurova, and other women. It's just so detrimental to the back, and becomes formulaic.I think that if Wakaba could do Bielman she would do it. She just can't. Liza finally started to do a one hand Bielman after years of plain haircutters. I wonder what she had to overcome to get there. Well, her motivation to get to the Olympics is just astonishing.
I imagine many struggle with back problems, viveca, evgenia, yelim, Elena R, Caroline, Tessa H ?How many skaters have injured their backs doing Biellmanns? I almost prefer skaters that don't do it, like Wakaba, her haircutter with the arm extended is beautiful.
Slutskaya's layback was fantastic back then, she had a great back arch and the spin was fast and controlled, maybe the leg position wasn't the ideal always (in the ways Cohen's, Sarah Hughes' and Nikodinov's were back in that day).I agree 100%. I also believe that a Biellman Spin has a higher base value which is why they became so much more frequent. Irina Slutskaya never had a great layback but, she had that Biellman and she used it to the hilt.
She definitely improved it when she switched it to a catch foot in 2002. The Layback she did in 2000 was not nearly as good. It's her final spin so you can just FF to the end. This is her Carmen LPSlutskaya's layback was fantastic back then, she had a great back arch and the spin was fast and controlled, maybe the leg position wasn't the ideal always (in the ways Cohen's, Sarah Hughes' and Nikodinov's were back in that day).
If you put layback spins from the top two skaters from that era (i.e. Slutskaya and Kwan) back to back on a split screen, you'll see how great Slutskaya's Lbs was.