2013 Worlds Ladies FS

hurrah · Mar 23, 2013

Many skaters take the first minute to get their big jumps out of the way. Mao's swan program suffered choreographically at Worlds because they basically rearranged her jumps dramatically. Her team probably just wanted her to test out next season's potential jump content so as not to have to make major changes mid-season.
But it is not true that all her programs have lacked choreography in the first minute. Liebraustram had great choreography right the way through.
I thought Swan Lake showcased her interpretative skills well. She expressed a range of different moods, from quiet to sad to exhuberant not just with her face but with her edges. I felt that I Got Rhythm also improved after it was tweaked with more emphasis on the slow part in the middle.
In terms of Mao's musicality, isn't that self-evident? I love to watch her in motion. She moves her body so beautifully and delicately. I recently realized this afesh when I watched the Four Continent gala. Unfortunately for Gracie, she skated right before Mao, and I suppose her exhibition number does not hide her weakness too well. Watching them back to back, it was clear that there was a huge difference between them.

ffionhanathomas · Mar 23, 2013

Mao does have incredible musicality. She can be so graceful, powerful and fun so easily. She's wonderful to watch and really connects with the music!

Mathman · Mar 23, 2013

hurrah said:
Many skaters take the first minute to get their big jumps out of the way.

Yeah, I think most do. But it's live by the sword, die by the sword.

If the first minute of your program is, "Look at my quad combo-- tada! Now look at my triple Axel -- tada!" -- then you better hit. Otherwise, when you get into your actual program, you are already playing catch-up and trying to get the audience back on your side.

hurrah · Mar 23, 2013

Mathman said:
Yeah, I think most do. But it's live by the sword, die by the sword.

If the first minute of your program is, "Look at my quad combo-- tada! Now look at my triple Axel -- tada!" -- then you better hit. Otherwise, when you get into your actual program, you are already playing catch-up and trying to get the audience back on your side.

Ain't that the truth. And when your money jumps are on, your weaknesses somehow become invisible. I guess that's just how the human brain works.

Morning Glory · Mar 23, 2013

Melon said:
Mao doesn't need to fix her lutz. She should just focus on 3-3 or 3A.
My guess is, Mao will not fix her jump because her current Lutz with edge call received 5.3 points(at 2013 worlds) which is practically same bv as 3F
Rather than trying to fix, and fall on a jump, it's safe to just jump a flip and say you were "trying" to execute lutz.

Smart JSF

out there and back said:
This is what I thought too. Scoring system is kinda strange really. Skaters can just pretend they were trying~, and get some points.

The differences between flip and lutz are not only edges.

In lutz jump, skaters jump to the oposite direction to the approach. Just like "S".
In flip jump, skaters jump to the same direction to the approach. Just like "C".

So, if a skater jumps to the oposite direction to the approach with inside edge, it's a lutz with wrong edge.

In this video, you can see Mao is drawing "S".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLk6DBB7X60

This is my understanding. Hope someone who knows well helps us.

Macassar88 · Mar 24, 2013

Can't wait for next year to see how the new skaters compete with the older ones
Hopefully Zijun Li gets more recognition next season. She's China's best since Chen

Ilvskating · Mar 24, 2013

Morning Glory said:
The differences between flip and lutz are not only edges.

In lutz jump, skaters jump to the oposite direction to the approach. Just like "S".
In flip jump, skaters jump to the same direction to the approach. Just like "C".

So, if a skater jumps to the oposite direction to the approach with inside edge, it's a lutz with wrong edge.

In this video, you can see Mao is drawing "S".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLk6DBB7X60

This is my understanding. Hope someone who knows well helps us.

Actually, if you are jumping, when you see a mirror image of S mark on the ice, you are doing a flutz. The correct mark for Lutz should be mirror image of C. The counter rotation of lutz suppose to happen in the air, not on the ice. When you do it on the ice, it has a change of edge to inside from outside and it is called flutz. You are right about the C mark for flip. All these are for most skaters who jump counter-clock directions. For skaters jump clock direction, you see the mirror image of what you see for counter-clock skater's mark.

There are also skaters who lip, which means they have a great lutz, but when they do flip, they switch from inside edge to outside edge before take off. Lip happens less frequently than flutz.

Why you can't do three or four flip and just call two of them flutz? One thing is that you need to approach lutz with backward outside edge, and at least try to jump off that edge, another thing is that the way you toe pic it is different too. Most skaters who do flutz switch to inside edge or flat edge immediately before take off.

What makes lutz the most difficult jump? Because the backward outside edge makes you rotate towards the opposite directions of your jump rotation direction, so your body has to fight that force to make the jump happen. When you flutz, you make the counter-rotation on ice and it is not as difficult as make it in the air, and that's why you will get a deduction. For lip, I can only assume it was a bad habit and penalized for wrong technique. I can't see the benefit of doing it.

Hope this help.

bebevia · Mar 24, 2013

Ilvskating said:
Actually, if you are jumping, when you see a mirror image of S mark on the ice, you are doing a flutz. The correct mark for Lutz should be mirror image of C. The counter rotation of lutz suppose to happen in the air, not on the ice. When you do it on the ice, it has a change of edge to inside from out side and it is called flutz. You are right about the C mark for flip. All these are for most skaters who jump counter-clock directions. For skaters jump clock direction, you see the mirror image of what you see for counter-clock skater's mark.

There are also skaters who lip, which means they have a great lutz, but when they do flip, they switch from inside edge to outside edge before take off. Lip happens less frequently than flutz.

Why you can't do three or four flip and just call two of them flutz? One thing is that you need to approach lutz with backward outside edge, and at least try to jump off that edge, another thing is that the way you toe pic it is different too. Most skaters who do flutz switch to inside edge or flat edge immediately before take off.

What makes lutz the most difficult jump? Because the backward outside edge makes you rotate towards the opposite directions of you jump rotation direction, so you body has to fight that force to make the jump happen. When you flutz, you make the counter-rotation on ice and it is not as difficult as make it in the air, and that's why you will get a deduction. For lip, I can only assume it was a bad habit and penalized for wrong technique. I can't see the benefit of doing it.

Hope this help.

Thank you.

hurrah · Mar 24, 2013

Ilvskating said:
Lip happens less frequently than flutz.

Amongst ladies, lip happens less frequenly than flutz. Amongst men, flutz happens less frequently than lip.

(I found out a couple of weeks ago when a poster did a count of no. of lips/flutz calls in men's competition this season. Sorry I cannot find the original post. )

Macassar88 · Mar 24, 2013

I'm not a skater, but from a physics point of view, maybe men tend to lip more because being on the outside edge allows them to be steadier and they have enough power to not have to worry about the counter rotation difficulties?

Mathman · Mar 24, 2013

^ That's an interesting thought. I am not a skater either, but that flip edge is really shallow. Plus, it looks like there leg gets in the way of where they want their blade to be, or something. It looks really hard to me.

Macassar88 · Mar 24, 2013

Mathman said:
^ That's an interesting thought. I am not a skater either, but that flip edge is really shallow. Plus, it looks like there leg gets in the way of where they want their blade to be, or something. It looks really hard to me.

Yeah and when I do skate, I find it a lot easier to balance on an outside edge than an inside edge.
But I can only do forward crossovers and balance on edges so what do I know.

Skater Boy · Mar 24, 2013

when you look at the fs it is amazing how many problems or incomplete skaters we have even at the top. What I mean is some of the spirals and rule changes with spins have stoped the over use of ugly biellmans and spiral positions but some man skaters can't do the toe, sal, loop, flip and lutz in triple format consistently without lips, edges and such. I am not sure why.

Nadia01 · Mar 25, 2013

Skater Boy said:
when you look at the fs it is amazing how many problems or incomplete skaters we have even at the top. What I mean is some of the spirals and rule changes with spins have stoped the over use of ugly biellmans and spiral positions but some man skaters can't do the toe, sal, loop, flip and lutz in triple format consistently without lips, edges and such. I am not sure why.

I'd say poor instruction/coaching and impatience and/or other issues by the athlete involved.

If a coach consistently produces skaters w/ the exact same jump issues, I usually suspect that the coach is the problem.

But if a few of the athletes under the said coach has the problem, not the others, then I suspect the impatience of the skaters (wanting to be able to say, "I can do a sal, loop, etc." rather than focusing on doing them properly) and/or maybe their biomechanics is poor.

mskater93 · Mar 25, 2013

Macassar88 said:
I'm not a skater, but from a physics point of view, maybe men tend to lip more because being on the outside edge allows them to be steadier and they have enough power to not have to worry about the counter rotation difficulties?

It's not a "steadier" thing at that level, they are using the outside edge to generate power. Because the flip generally takes off from a near-flat back inside edge, some skaters flip the edge over to an outer as the generate more power on the pick and are using the soon-to-be free leg to assist in the explosive lift off. Often times, the lip is a lot less pronounced than the flutz because it's MUCH more slight versus releasing the counter rotation in the upper body too soon to make the take off easier.

CanadianSkaterGuy · Mar 26, 2013

mskater93 said:
It's not a "steadier" thing at that level, they are using the outside edge to generate power. Because the flip generally takes off from a near-flat back inside edge, some skaters flip the edge over to an outer as the generate more power on the pick and are using the soon-to-be free leg to assist in the explosive lift off. Often times, the lip is a lot less pronounced than the flutz because it's MUCH more slight versus releasing the counter rotation in the upper body too soon to make the take off easier.

In women's, you get a lot of women who already started turning into the jump with their left foot because they don't vault as high and rely on rotation... they pick in and then rotate very quickly, Cohen/Asada/Murakami. Often it results in a 3-turn to RBI, then a slight shift to RBO, and then starting the rotation on a RBI -- so because of many women using this technique, there's less lipping. And then you get skaters like Kostner and Rochette who go into their flips with excellent speed and get a great vault up straight from the 3-turn, like the men. They don't ride the RB edge and the 3-turn is part of the rotation going into the jump. It's almost like they're just doing a 3S but with a pick (hence why it's occasionally called the toe-salchow).

CanadianSkaterGuy · Mar 29, 2013

I know that nobody really talks about the skaters outside of the top 10, but I was looking back at more skaters, and noticed Natalia Popova (UKR) actually skated a clean SP (3F, 3T-2T, 2A) and clean FS with 6 triples (3F, 3L, 3T-2T-2T, 3T-2T, 3S-2T, 3S, 2A). Not the hardest jump layout and certainly needs to be more graceful and refined, but she was the only lady other than Kim to have two clean back-to-back performances, so kudos to her.

Unfortunate though that two clean skates was only good enough for 15th, considering the mistakes made by those placed above her. :rolleye:

FSGMT · Mar 29, 2013

CanadianSkaterGuy said:
I know that nobody really talks about the skaters outside of the top 10, but I was looking back at more skaters, and noticed Natalia Popova (UKR) actually skated a clean SP (3F, 3T-2T, 2A) and clean FS with 6 triples (3F, 3L, 3T-2T-2T, 3T-2T, 3S-2T, 3S, 2A). Not the hardest jump layout and certainly needs to be more graceful and refined, but she was the only lady other than Kim to have two clean back-to-back performances, so kudos to her.

Unfortunate though that two clean skates was only good enough for 15th, considering the mistakes made by those placed above her.

I saw her at Euros, and I have always loved her style and her technique! I think that she needs to work a lot on her speed, though: even at euros (there were a lot more low-level skaters) she looked one of the slowest on the ice...

vera01 · Mar 29, 2013

http://fsrussia.ru/news/518_yu-na-kim-vyigrala-chempionat-mira-sotnikova--9-aya-tuktamysheva--10-aya-leonova--13-aya--/

Russian fed's interview with Tuktamysheva(or is it Mishin?). Are they saying that Tuktamysheva's goal for this Worlds was to place over Yuna?!

TontoK · Mar 29, 2013

^^^ This was an absurd goal.

There seemed to be a lot of over-the-top expectations for the Russian ladies this season. They are talented and have promising futures, but I think the "crowning" was a bit premature. Two of their ladies had solid Top 10 World Championship debuts, and, yet, it was seen as a very poor outing for them.

I think this is unfair. Yes, they had done well at Europeans, but that field did not include Yuna, the powerful Japanese contingent, or the North Americans. The expectations placed on these skaters had to have been immense, and I think it showed in their performances. Their mistakes seemed to be caused by nerves rather than poor technique.

I contrast this with Gracie Gold, who, although we hoped would do well, did not skate with the same weight of expectations. She performed beyond the rational hopes of most observers.

I think most contributors here thought the US would most likely continue on trend and earn two Olympic spots, while the Russians were expected to earn three... in at least one thread, it was a given that Russia would have three, and at least one would be fighting for a podium spot.

I think this was a disservice to these young athletes.

2013 Worlds Ladies FS

hurrah

ffionhanathomas

Mathman

hurrah

Morning Glory

Macassar88

Ilvskating

bebevia

hurrah

Macassar88

Mathman

Macassar88

Skater Boy

Nadia01

mskater93

CanadianSkaterGuy

CanadianSkaterGuy

FSGMT

vera01

TontoK

Hot Tonto

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