Some scientific analysis of Mao's 3A

[gfskater]

Yes I agree, Yu Na was not trying to do a triple so she did not try to rotate as fast. This does not mean she cannot.

I think if Yuna could do a triple axel, she would be doing them in competition. She might be a little TOO good then

That did not come out the way I meant it.

I did not mean
"this does not mean she cannot do a triple axel".
I meant
"this does not mean she cannot rotate fast".

Her triples are very tight and fast. I know they are 3 and not 3.5 rotations but they are still fast.

 

[gsrossano]

For her double Axel she was in the air for 0.51 sec.

For Yu Na's first triple she was in the air for 0.63 still not as high as Mao.

0.51 sec 2A -- 12.5 in, 4.9 rps

0.63 sec triple -- 19.0 in, 4.8 rps

Mao 3A, ave of two numbers on this thread 0.75 sec -- 27 in, 4.7 rps

 

[Mathman]

I was just reading an interview with Kurt Browning, and he said, about landing his first quad: "That was the most exhilarating 0.7 seconds of my life.

 

[gfskater]

0.51 sec 2A -- 12.5 in, 4.9 rps

0.63 sec triple -- 19.0 in, 4.8 rps

Mao 3A, ave of two numbers on this thread 0.75 sec -- 27 in, 4.7 rps

Right,
And while I agree with silver22 that Kim has it all, I do not agree that her jumps are "much higher, bigger, and covers more ice" In fact the opposite is true.

These are two of the best female skaters ever. Both are scoring in the 190s and 200s The others are in the 150s-170s maybe 180s.

There are differences in their point grabbing elements but these are two skaters that keep you watching and enjoying the entire program.

If you forget the science, height, and time in the air, they are both very musical, artistic, and have great extension, flow, and expression. I find it funny that as I surf the web there are so many people with an either or this one is better than that one, this one cheated her jump, aha, she fell in that competition. They are both legendary.

 

[miki88]

Right,
And while I agree with silver22 that Kim has it all, I do not agree that her jumps are "much higher, bigger, and covers more ice" In fact the opposite is true.

These are two of the best female skaters ever. Both are scoring in the 190s and 200s The others are in the 150s-170s maybe 180s.

There are differences in their point grabbing elements but these are two skaters that keep you watching and enjoying the entire program.

If you forget the science, height, and time in the air, they are both very musical, artistic, and have great extension, flow, and expression. I find it funny that as I surf the web there are so many people with an either or this one is better than that one, this one cheated her jump, aha, she fell in that competition. They are both legendary.

:agree: Good point. They are both wonderful skaters.

 

[gourry]

Right,
And while I agree with silver22 that Kim has it all, I do not agree that her jumps are "much higher, bigger, and covers more ice" In fact the opposite is true.

It is true about height, but Yuna's jumps are definately bigger and covers more ice. I don't remember which gala was that, maybe 08 Worlds gala because Yuna performed before Mao, and Mao was doing So Deep program. Yuna did three 2 As in her EX. Later, Mao skated and did like 6 jumps(not 100% sure, but she sure did many jumps and it was impressive!) and couple of them were also 2As. At that time it was very visible that Yuna's 2A covers lots of ice and Mao's 2A goes very high and doesn't really have distance. The camera work sucked, but because at times it was not moving along with skaters and took kind of far away shot of their jumps, so it was easy to observe and compare their jumps.
Maybe their tragectory angle is makes the difference between their jumps' height and distance. I don't know. Science, physics, numbers are not my thing. I wish they were but sadly no...

This thread seemed very interesting so I tried to read as thoroughly as possible but I was lost with all those formulas....... It just sounds like alien language to me.

 

[Nadine]

I have seen that one. That is the one Mr Luddington told us about when he told my daughter to emulate Mao. She gets low before takeoff, beds her free leg, get some height, and is tight as can be in the air. Best air position of any lady's 3a in the set. He has had competitors in just about every worlds form mid 1960s to today. I think that gives him some credibility.

Anyway, Did you watch Mao at Nationals? The whole program was beautiful. I notice she changed the second 3A to a 2A. That is the one she was having trouble with and I don't believe any other female has done two 3As in one program. What a great footwork seq,

It is going to be tough for the US ladies who are scorig in the 150s-170s to compete with Mao and Kim who are scoring in the 180s-200s.

Yes, that sounds like the one I was talking about, but unfortunately I cannot find it on youtube. And, yes, I agree Mao was lovely at her Nationals.

The only triple axel video I could find on youtube was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29SMYaEwGyM

I commented on it about 8 months ago, but my comment does not show up because 9 people marked it as "spam", which I find totally laughable. There was absolutely nothing derogatory, only praise for Tonya, Midori, and Mao, yet because I don't kiss a** & dare to say that Tonya's was the best I get spammed. Yet you can see my comment by scrolling down to the -9 highlighted in red (lol ), and clicking on REPLY.

This is why I have only commented on two videos (i.e. this one & another one about Alissa Czisny's beautiful "Swan" program) because youtube has been overrun by juvenile infantile behavior when it comes to skating. The bots have gone absolutely totally crazy!

Back on topic, Mao Asada has a beautiful high exquiste textbook perfect triple axel. And I don't need anybody else telling me otherwise. Just more mumbo jumbo which I tend to ignore.


GOOOOOOOOOOO MAO-CHAN!!!!

 

[gfskater]

It is true about hight, but Yuna's jumps are definately bigger and covers more ice.

I am not sure what bigger means if they are not as high. I think they cover about the same ice.

Did you ever see Angela Maxwell's 3T-3T. Talk about covering the ice. It looks like she covers 15 feet on the first 3T. You can find it on you tube. I saw her do it at the Liberty competition this year. Wow. I think JGP poland is on you tube.

 

[hellcat]

Right,
And while I agree with silver22 that Kim has it all, I do not agree that her jumps are "much higher, bigger, and covers more ice" In fact the opposite is true.

These are two of the best female skaters ever. Both are scoring in the 190s and 200s The others are in the 150s-170s maybe 180s.

There are differences in their point grabbing elements but these are two skaters that keep you watching and enjoying the entire program.

If you forget the science, height, and time in the air, they are both very musical, artistic, and have great extension, flow, and expression. I find it funny that as I surf the web there are so many people with an either or this one is better than that one, this one cheated her jump, aha, she fell in that competition. They are both legendary.

Well said.

However, as far as coverage-wise, I do think nobody comes close to Yuna.

And you won't notice that in TV screen.

Compare these 2 animated gifs:

YUNA 2A

MAO 2A

 

[SkatingAnalyst]

ISU Rule

This is one of ISU RULEs about cheated jumps.

Cheated take- off
A clear forward (backward for Axel type jump) take-off will be considered as a
cheated jump.
The toe-loop is the most commonly cheated on take-off jump. The Technical
Panel may only watch the replay in regular speed to determine the cheat and
downgrade on the take off (more often in combinations or sequencese of ISU RULEs on cheated jumps.

 

[SkatingAnalyst]

Hang Time

Midori's 3A has at least 1/4 more turn than Mao's.
It is natural Midori has to spring higher to compensate that extra 1/4 turn.

Mao kills approaching speed to execute her 3A for more skidding.
Mao's is more like standing jump rather than running jump.

No wonder... less hight and distance than Midori.

 

[silverlake22]

Midori's 3A has at least 1/4 more turn than Mao's.
It is natural Midori has to spring higher to compensate that extra 1/4 turn.

Mao kills approaching speed to execute her 3A for more skidding.
Mao's is more like standing jump rather than running jump.

No wonder... less hight and distance than Midori.

Yes, exactly! If you watch Yuna's 3-3s (esp 3f-3t) she flies into these jumps with a lot of speed. Mao's jumps are more up and down.

Whoever said the thing about Angela's 3t-3t, ITA, her jumps are HUGE. Her second 3t is higher than the first! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpKdbcyUAjg

She reminds me of a young Slutskaya. Hope she does well at nationals!

 

[gfskater]

Whoever said the thing about Angela's 3t-3t, ITA, her jumps are HUGE. Her second 3t is higher than the first! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpKdbcyUAjg

She reminds me of a young Slutskaya. Hope she does well at nationals!

Absolutely, Angelas 3T-3T is huge and that one at Budapest was small compared to others I have seen her do. She has so much energy and personality when she skates. She is very entertaining and fun to watch.

Funny story,
At Liberty Angela said her program was changed just before the competition. About half way through her mind went blank out so she basically had to make up the second half of the program including footwork. She won the freeskate.

 

[hellcat]

Absolutely, Angelas 3T-3T is huge and that one at Budapest was small compared to others I have seen her do. She has so much energy and personality when she skates. She is very entertaining and fun to watch.

Funny story,
At Liberty Angela said her program was changed just before the competition. About half way through her mind went blank out so she basically had to make up the second half of the program including footwork. She won the freeskate.

Good speed as well.

 

[steyn]

Reading the thread, it seems people here agree that there is something wrong about the numbers quoted in the newspaper. My guess is that the reporter took those numbers rather carelessly without knowing the precise meaning.

From the viewpoint of physics I cannot get any conclusion about Mao's jump height from them. First of all, it is unclear what the 0.45s (or 0.55s) precisely means. Is it the entire air time? Or is it just part of the air time during which Mao actually did the rotation under some scientific definition? I am sure that the Japanese professor obtained the data from some high-tech 3d analysis probably with dynamic tracking. Also I think those numbers did appear in some part of his talk (or article) but the reporter failed to provide the precise definition. 0.17s (rotation period) seems reasonable but still this may be either average time or the fastest time.

By the way, I think we need to be careful about the free fall formula from the particle mechanics. This is because this formula applies only to the center of gravity, strictly speaking. For example, if the body of a skater is tilted a bit then the actual jump height may not be the same as the distance of the skate from the ice. Also it should take more time during the second half because legs are bent and arms get lower during landing, although I don't know how much these factors affect the real data.

So I think that we don't need to take the numbers mentioned in the newspaper seriously because we don't know the precise meaning. (Such data significantly depend on the definition.) But probably we can safely accept the conclusion of the article that Mao is the second type jumper rotating quickly in the air, rather than jumping high because the reporter could not create this kind of statement from his/her own head no matter how ignorant s/he is..

 

[gsrossano]

Reading the thread, ... .

Seems like a good summary of things.

The point about CM is well taken, however, if the body only rotates around the center of mass it will not affect it's motion in the air. Things like tucking the legs or bending the body slightly will. But most of the mass of the skater is in the torso, so motions of the arms and legs will have only a small impact on the location of the CM.

Still, this is a limitation, that the time measured from the moment the skater leaves the ice to the moment of the landing is not exactly the time the CM is on it's ballistic trajectory. This time that determines how fast the skater has to rotate to get around, but there may be a small error introduced in determining the height of the jump from just that time, or not. But I think this is at worst case a small error (one could adjust for in a careful analysis), and it does not prevent a meaningful comparison of different skaters and jumps if the time is measured in a consistent way.

A bigger uncertainty is that if the video has a 15 frame per second rate (as some posted videos do), then there could be up to a 67 msec error in the measurement of the time the feet are off the ice.

 

[silverlake22]

Good speed as well.

I know, especially for someone as small as she is, firecracker haha. Anyways, I heard that about Liberty, apparently she is very talented but not the most dedicated trainer (or so I've heard), when she's on she's certainly great to watch though!

 

[so_proud]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEnuEOh5oPk

Mao definitely rotates fast, her 3a takes the same amount of time as Yuna's 2a!

Just my opinion, but isn't that because the 3a is pre-rotated on the ice (a half turn) and the 2a is a kind of delayed in the air?
To me, it seems not just the matter of who rotates fater in the air. It seems rather the matter of who rotates more completely in the air (2.7 rotation vs 2.5 rotation) and how delayed the jump was.

 

[silverlake22]

Just my opinion, but isn't that because the 3a is pre-rotated on the ice (a half turn) and the 2a is a kind of delayed in the air?
To me, it seems not just the matter of who rotates fater in the air. It seems rather the matter of who rotates more completely in the air (2.7 rotation vs 2.5 rotation) and how delayed the jump was.

True, but ideally the 3a is supposed to have 3.5 rotations in the air, when really it rarely does (Mao and Evan are good examples of big pre-rotation).

 

[sk8rdad]

While some skaters may pre-rotate I dont think that is the norm. Dont confuse pre-rotation and skid. The skid is due to the foot turning into the jump direction which aids in the launch, pre-rotation implies that the hips have turned into the circle before the jump is airborne. Kurt Browning has stated in the past that the a triple axel is virtually impossible to execute without skidding, he said this was basically Emmanulle Sandu's problem, Sandu jumped with too clean an edge and thus didn't actual impart some of the entry momentum to the rotation of the jump.