Level of Ladies Skating (2004 to Now) | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Level of Ladies Skating (2004 to Now)

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
Wel,l the skating is better, but clean jumping is rare. One would have to go back to tapes to see if Elaine Zayak, Kristi, Nancy, Oksana were clean. They all did 3x3's in competition. Tara did, Sarah did two 3x3's-first lady in history. I think there is the same amt of flutzing, urs etc if you go back and just analyze the Olympic jumpers from 92 on. Maybe Tonya was cleaner-I am assuming she did 3x3's if she could land 3A.

I think one thing lots of folks hate re CoP is the amt of footwork required that has not much to do with the music, and ugly spins instead of nice easier spins more pleasing to watch or spirals and layback spins where the upper body arm changes were beautiful to watch. I notice very few women can do the jumps and all else. It seems the judges recognize this and at least in ladies, prefer the artists to the jumpers. Yuna Kim was enough of both to beat most, though I see her as an athlete, more than an artist. I have no idea what we will see if she comes back, but it was her jumping ability that landed her on podiums first and foremost. I guess it depends what you grew up with. I know that MK was a 6.0 skater, but her consistency with single triples or triple double let one relax and enjoy her spirals, spins, smiles, etc. I see her as an athlete with enough elegance and beauty, like Kim to be on top. Consistency rules. But then look at Carolina's two programs last year, and can either skater be that majestic with the lines? It is so nice when we have time to see what a skater can become, and 6.0 made that easier to see. I know MK could not have pulled jumps out of nowhere like Patrick Chan does. Her turns and telegraphing would be downgraded today, but under CoP, I have seen few ladies skate a program like Lyra Angelica. The CoP skaters, except for a few can't afford to hang around unless they are on the podium, or have the money.

I think that CoP seems to have improved ice dancing a lot. I am not sure if I could say that about pairs, as I can point to better pairs in the past-far distant past. The cookie cutter aspect of CoP is what is too bad. I am not sure how to fix the judging to encourage creativity in many elements of singles and pairs. Ice dance is surely where one sees the best skaters now, blade to ice, and quite athletic lifts and spins. Strangely, one sees the same people on the scene a long time, occupyinging same medals, as in 6.0 era ? Why?
 
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gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Wel,l the skating is better, but clean jumping is rare. One would have to go back to tapes to see if Elaine Zayak, Kristi, Nancy, Oksana were clean. They all did 3x3's in competition.

What do you mean by "were clean" -- and on which occasion(s)?

I don't believe Zayak ever did triple-triple combination in competition. She did do triple toe in combination after double axel or double lutz, so that's the next best thing.

Baiul definitely never did -- she had troubles even doing a clean triple-double combination.

There is, of course, much more to the "level of ladies skating" than which jumps they're doing and whether all were landed perfectly on the biggest occasions.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
What modern female skater doesn't have at least a couple of triple jumps in her repertoire? I doubt that was the case 20 years ago.

I think all the top ladies had a couple of triple jumps in their repertoires in 1992. Midori Ito had a triple Axel. Kristi Yamaguchi had a triple Lutz-triple toe.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Are we defining "level of skating" = "level of jumping"?

If so, how deep into the field do we want to look for the average level?

At any time there might be one or two skaters who are doing jumps that no one else is able to attempt. Does the fact that they were doing them define the level for the whole field, or should they be considered outliers and ignored entirely? Or somewhere in between?

Should we look at what the 10th place skater in the world is doing? The 24th place skater?

I think all the top ladies had a couple of triple jumps in their repertoires in 1992. Midori Ito had a triple Axel. Kristi Yamaguchi had a triple Lutz-triple toe.

And Surya Bonaly had a quad toe, or so she believed and tried to demonstrate.

But does that represent the level of jumping across the field at the time? Or the way that a handful of the top jumpers tried to set themselves apart from the other good jumpers, while meanwhile the average jumpers were still making do with only 2-4 different kinds of triples?


Should we look at the short program requirements as an indication of what the minimum expectations are on the bottom end for senior ladies, and what is considered normal enough at the top end to allow in SP?

For example, in 1992 the senior ladies' short program jump requirements were

*double axel
*double jump out of steps
*combination of double and triple jump

There were at the time two women who were capable of landing triple axels; if they wanted to do it in the short program they had to do 3A+2T as the jump combination.

Only one triple jump was allowed in the SP. The competitive skaters usually did 3Lz combination, and the choice of combination as well as the quality/success often ended up being a determining factor in the SP results.

But it was possible for a senior lady with only one triple in her repertoire to skate a clean legal short program, and the ones who had five different triples only had one element advantage over her in the short program, assuming the quality was comparable. It was in the long program that having lots of triples became a big advantage.

By my estimate there were fewer than 20 women ever who had landed 5 different triples in competition as of the end of the 1992 season. In 1993 it seemed to become the new norm, but there were still some exceptions.


In 2012, the SP requirements are
*double or triple axel
*triple jump out of steps
*combination of one double and one triple or two triples

So it's required to attempt at least two different triples (and the weakest seniors who can't do so suffer GOE reductions even if they perform great doubles) and it's allowed to attempt up to four triples in the SP. At the moment there's actually only one active skater who might perform the triple axel as the solo axel jump, so that's still just as much an anomaly as it was in 1992. But triple-triple combinations have become much more common.

And the number of ladies who can do triple lutzes is much larger than in 1992, when that jump was still considered somewhat cutting edge.

However, in the later 1990s/early 2000s when jump count seemed to be the most important thing in long program results, there were more women attempting five different triples.

With IJS, there are probably more women who would have attempted five plus double axel under 6.0 norms but now, for several possible reasons, find it strategically wiser to attempt only four different kinds plus the double axel.
 
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dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
What do you mean by "were clean" -- and on which occasion(s)?

I don't believe Zayak ever did triple-triple combination in competition. She did do triple toe in combination after double axel or double lutz, so that's the next best thing.

Baiul definitely never did -- she had troubles even doing a clean triple-double combination.

There is, of course, much more to the "level of ladies skating" than which jumps they're doing and whether all were landed perfectly on the biggest occasions.

I don't remember Elaine doing a 3t/3t, and I believe that Nancy Kerrigan as a junior was the first US lady to do that combination.

However, this may be my favorite jump sequence at the very end of a program that I have ever seen from the ladies :love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZdHorxKW-mw#t=226s
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
That's a lovely one, Doris. Elaine was a wonderful skater with a lot of heart. I love the triple she did in the 1984 Worlds--can't remember what triple it was, but I remember her look of pure joy afterward. People had just about given up on her, but she proved conclusively that she still had a lot of fight left in her.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
gkelly said:
Are we defining "level of skating" = "level of jumping"?

What I am more concerned about is that we are defining "level of skating" = "difficulty." A 'Tano Lutz is more difficult than a regular Lutz. But then, so is doing a Lutz with a monkey tied to your leg. I am not a huge fan of jump combinations. I would rather see a textbook triple flip than a triple flip with a wonky triple toe tacked on, especially if the landing of the second jump lacks a secure flowing edge.

For non-jump elements I would rather see an Angela Nikodinov layback or a Todd Eldredge scratch spin than a modern spin with many changes of position, each more ungainly than the last. We will never see a Nicole Bobek spiral again -- it is not difficult enough to be worth any CoP points.

Still, I see the point that youngsters learning to skate want to try ever more difficult tricks. So...
 

Layfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
A 'Tano Lutz is more difficult than a regular Lutz. But then, so is doing a Lutz with a monkey tied to your leg.

:laugh:

.... That does say it all.

But I did think that the ladies skating in Vancouver was wonderful and it showed that there are just some skaters who are so darned good they can rise above COP or 6.0 or whatever and just skate beautifully no matter what the requirements put on them. And imagine if Mirai had skated the way she did in 2010 in 2006....Hard to imagine her not on that podium!
 
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