The Underrotated Jumps of Evgenia Medvedeva

[largeman]

It's peculiar that BoP decided to single out Evgenia. It's also interesting that Evgenia jumps are not compared to some of her present day competitors, like say Boston's very own silver medalist Ashley Wagner, which, due to pure oversight I'm sure, didn't get a similar thread after her victory at SA. What a remarkable coincidence.

Ashley didn't get +1.6 and +1.4 GOEs for her triple-triples at SA, did she?

I (and I believe I can speak for BoP and many others) take no issue with Zhenya's victory at SC, and I trust that the point of the thread was really to examine the jumps and call the judges' scoring into question rather than to launch a personal attack.

Also, of course we have compared her jumps with her competitors. Here's Sam's video and here's a few of us concluding that her pre-rotation issue is not as severe as Satoko's but not much better...

 

[VIETgrlTerifa]

As a survivor of the Kwan wars (Tara, Slute, and Cohen) and observer of the Mao v. Yuna wars, I have to say that although people may not agree with a lot of the critiques of Medvedeva's jumping technique among other things, at least it's about her skating. Some may think some posters are only using those skating-related criticisms to mask some more irrational or emotional negativity they have towards her or Russian skaters, but at least there's a front. During the Kwan wars and the Mao v. Yuna wars, it was a lot dirtier and personal from what I'm seeing these days. I also think there's some over-sensitivity going on, but I understand it if you think it's part of a trend post-Sochi.

 

[jenm]

Criticisms of the tech calls (or the lack thereof) and judges' decisions do not equal to attack to a skater. I have not seen one post in here that attacks Evgenia on a personal note and I do, personally, think that she is a great person and a very very hardworking athlete. She has been praised for her good qualities (consistency, charm, great talent, dedication, etc) in here and other threads. I don't get the "hater" accusations. No one hates her. She is in fact adored by many including myself. Unfortunately, her flaws are, a lot of times, overlooked. Not only her but whoever the judges favor at the moment. While other skaters get nitpicked to death and gets questionable calls and low GOEs for some reason. It's unfair to those who work just as hard. This isn't about Evgenia. It's about the ridiculous scoring as it has always been.

 

[NicolettaL]

About Shoma I once talked with our Eurosport commentator who also is a skating coach and ex skater. He said that flip technique recquirest doing it that way. So prerotation is a lot complicated that you may think. Clear prerotation is for me what f.e Kovtun does before his quads.

 

[Pracygr]

Ashley didn't get +1.6 and +1.4 GOEs for her triple-triples at SA, did she?

Yes, unfortunately she didn't manage to land any of her 3T within 90 degree sector at SA. She did however land her 3F-3T within 90 degrees at Worlds. She got +2 from every single judge. More than 180 degrees of prerotation. No difficult entry, no difficult exit, no difficult air position, no length or height to speak of. Plus two in GOE.

I (and I believe I can speak for BoP and many others) take no issue with Zhenya's victory at SC, and I trust that the point of the thread was really to examine the jumps and call the judges' scoring into question rather than to launch a personal attack.

Also, of course we have compared her jumps with her competitors. Here's Sam's video and here's a few of us concluding that her pre-rotation issue is not as severe as Satoko's but not much better...

It's great that you made such comparisons. I'm sure it makes appearance of threads that basically say "Evgenia Medvedeva is cheating" completely justified. After all somebody made comparison somewhere, so it's all good. People make mistakes, things can get overlooked, and sometimes a genuine attempt to improve the sport of figure skating can condemn an individual, but somehow manage to overlook everybody else including the worst offenders. It happens, I understand.

 

[Meoima]

About Shoma I once talked with our Eurosport commentator who also is a skating coach and ex skater. He said that flip technique recquirest doing it that way. So prerotation is a lot complicated that you may think. Clear prerotation is for me what f.e Kovtun does before his quads.

https://youtu.be/YUyCNeUubkc?t=11m21s
Send my regards to him. I also talked with Eurosport commentators who are skating coaches and ex skaters and they talk about pre-rotation as some kind of cheating technique. And in case you don't believe me, PM me so I can send you their facebook accounts if you want to talk to them directly.

 

[ks777]

I don't know why people keep talking about this pre-rotation thing every time their favorite lose. It looks like they are pre-rotating but it's their jump techniques. That's just the way they learned to do the jumps. It's not like they are doing it on purpose. I highly doubt that this so called "pre-rotation" is helping them with their jumps. Why do you think all the commentators, who knows way more than people on this board about jumps, ignore this issues for years? Because it's not cheating. It's not good techniques but it's not cheating like some of you claims. I do agree that Medvedeva's toe loops in the combos are under rotated badly.

 

[plushyfan]

It starts to be an obsession... I really hope Evgenia is not aware how she is attacked on GS. Even, if she knows, she doesnt care about it. She is liked much in Japan (other Russian girls too) and this is enough for her, I think. Who as cameraman, she choose when approaching the bord during gala ? Japanese, of course I think she will never again come to Skate America...

Yes I think, too

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

https://youtu.be/YUyCNeUubkc?t=11m21s
Send my regards to him. I also talked with Eurosport commentators who are skating coaches and ex skaters and they talk about pre-rotation as some kind of cheating technique. And in case you don't believe me, PM me so I can send you their facebook accounts if you want to talk to them directly.

Ironically, that mannequin's flip jump looks underrotated on the landing.

 

[Meoima]

Ironically, that mannequin's flip jump looks underrotated on the landing.

No, look again. It was fully rotated. The issue is the background was too blue-ish, same color with the robot so you have the feeling it lands too soon.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

No, look again. It was fully rotated. The issue is the background was too blue-ish, same color with the robot so you have the feeling it lands too soon.

Er, I dunno... looked like a hooked landing to me. But regardless, that's not the point, using a CGI ISU mannequin isn't a good example of how a skater should emulate a takeoff.

Regarding the topic of the thread in general, I think people are being WAY too nitpicky. I know pre-rotation is a think, but there are TONS of ladies who do it, including at the elite level, and if we were to scrutinize each one on each jump, we'd be here all day. I'm more concerned with the landings, personally.

And I also think Evgenia is getting extra scrutiny when somebody like Wagner isn't getting a similar thread. Especially interesting this thread is made when the OP has continually expressed UR bs regarding skaters like Murakami, when Medvedeva's jumps are most definitely more sufficiently rotated by comparison.

 

[Meoima]

Er, I dunno... looked like a hooked landing to me. But regardless, that's not the point, using a CGI ISU mannequin isn't a good example of how a skater should emulate a takeoff.

https://youtu.be/YUyCNeUubkc?t=11m59s
:scratch3: why don't you spend just one more minute to see real human?

 

[plushyfan]

This is an old video : Elite Skater's Jump Technique Salchows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BedH69e7PR0

the description: I've gotten tired of hearing X skater has bad jump technique because they pre-rotate their jumps and they take off forwards and blah blah blah, so this is a video with 5 different skaters doing triple salchows. I included Brian Joubert, Yuna Kim, Mao Asada, Joannie Rochette and Evgeni Plushenko. For each skater, you can see that the toe-pick does not fully leave the ice until the skater is facing forwards.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

https://youtu.be/YUyCNeUubkc?t=11m59s
:scratch3: why don't you spend just one more minute to see real human?

Firstly, because you had queued it to that one flip jump, so I assumed that's the one you were referring to.

Secondly, one minute later are skaters doing single flip jumps, which don't actually require any pre-rotation because they're so easy and the skater doesn't have to actually initiate virtually any rotational momentum.

Almost any 3F, from the ladies, will not have that perfect, no-pre-rotation technique you see in those single flip jumps in the video - where the skater vaults upwards off the pick. The men are better at vaulting on their 3F and then starting to rotate without prerotation but certainly for men trying a 4F, they will not be able to simply vault up straight off the pick and then start their rotation.

 

[Meoima]

Firstly, because you had queued it to that one flip jump, so I assumed that's the one you were referring to.

Secondly, one minute later are skaters doing single flip jumps, which don't actually require any pre-rotation because they're so easy and the skater doesn't have to actually initiate virtually any rotational momentum.

Almost any 3F, from the ladies, will not have that perfect, no-pre-rotation technique you see in those single flip jumps in the video - where the skater vaults upwards off the pick. The men are better at vaulting on their 3F and then starting to rotate without prerotation but certainly for men trying a 4F, they will not be able to simply vault up straight off the pick and then start their rotation.

https://youtu.be/uxBsR3Ghrb4?t=58s

Hail Nathan! :luv17:

 

[TheLakeside]

Funny. No one forbid anyone to criticize Sakamoto or Shoma for their mistakes. Russians and others spend the whole last season moaning about her URs and about fair judging..No japanese mentioned about any "attacks on japanenes". But when a russian skater did mistakes, should got punished for it and she didnt and overal she was overscored, they have only one thing to say - russophobia/attacks on russians. Is it so hard to say :"Yes, she should have been punished for it,she underotated.". But no, you still make of yourself "the most hated nation of all " for no reason. What for? You are so restrictive to every skater, please be also to russian ones. Because it is just not fair. She is just not that excellent skater as you think she is

 

[solani]

I think that voicing critique should be allowed in a skating forum. And it's only natural that we tend to criticise Evgenia - she hasn't lost a competition in months.
Do I think that Evgenia did deserve all those wins? Most of them, but not all. But mind you, I cannot be russophobic because I think that Anna should have won Worlds. And I know that most of that is personal preference and I don't have a real problem with Evgenia winning Worlds, I didn't have a problem with Adelina winning the Olympics either, my result would have been different but that doesn't mean that I consider the result to be wrong or particularly unfair. Figure skating is a very complex sport, I guess we all admire different things. Evgenia is very good at everything, she's a balanced skater. Her jumps are quite good but are they excellent? No, but she's no Sarah Hughes either, I'm thankful for that.

 

[bestolen]

I don't know why people keep talking about this pre-rotation thing every time their favorite lose. It looks like they are pre-rotating but it's their jump techniques. That's just the way they learned to do the jumps. It's not like they are doing it on purpose. I highly doubt that this so called "pre-rotation" is helping them with their jumps. Why do you think all the commentators, who knows way more than people on this board about jumps, ignore this issues for years? Because it's not cheating. It's not good techniques but it's not cheating like some of you claims. I do agree that Medvedeva's toe loops in the combos are under rotated badly.

I can't read this stupid statement anymore.
Well, I do some change for your reply.
What do you think?

I don't know why people keep talking about this flutz thing every time. It looks like they are inside-edge take off but it's their jump techniques. That's just the way they learned to do the jumps. It's not like they are doing it on purpose. I highly doubt that this so called "flutz" is helping them with their jumps. Why do you think all the commentators, who knows way more than people on this board about jumps, ignore this issues for years(1990s and early 2000s)?

 

[FlattFan]

I think her PCS and GOE are too high. Looking at her PCS, you'd think she has the best skating skills ever + programs that stand the test of time.
GOE is also ridiculous. Those terrible helicopter arms are so distracting, how do you even think it's a feature. It's like those ugly catchfoot spins that everyone's doing for extra features + extra GOE. They are unnecessary and ugly. The system is rewarding the wrong thing and she's exploiting it. I don't blame her for putting tano on everything. If i could put 5 tanos on a triple toe, i would, too. The system needs a major overhaul.

 

[ks777]

I can't read this stupid statement anymore.
Well, I do some change for your reply.
What do you think?

I don't know why people keep talking about this flutz thing every time. It looks like they are inside-edge take off but it's their jump techniques. That's just the way they learned to do the jumps. It's not like they are doing it on purpose. I highly doubt that this so called "flutz" is helping them with their jumps. Why do you think all the commentators, who knows way more than people on this board about jumps, ignore this issues for years(1990s and early 2000s)?

You do realize every skater pre-rotate a little no matter how good they are technically. flutzing is you either do or don't. You can't compare those two.