Stolbova and Klimov need a harder element or two

Some people say Gpf is just an example of Canada 1 beating Russia 2 but s/k were Olympic silver medalist. Do they need a throw quad or twist or harder jumps. They are being ultra conservative and doing the usual stuff. Nothing special technically. Or how can they improve pcs. It's medium -they were almost beaten by d/r.

Well V and T have similar elements so pcs would help. Remember though if D and R make errors they lose points left and right. THey have a high risk program. I think individual triple salcows and maybe a throw triple flip or lutz in place of the salchow would help. V and T should also worry too. The Chinese have quad twists. AT the same time the Russians, both teams aren't exactly chopped liver.

I fear for the future of pair skating if quad twists/throws will almost become a required element.
one of the reasons why I (and many others) have never felt connected to D/R is because they emphasize the technical aspect of pair skating TOO MUCH.

I do agree that S/K need to add some harder lifts and jumps, but God, no quad throws please. They're just ugly to watch.
even V/T didn't start their career together with the hardest elements, and look at them now. IMO Mozer is playing a smart game here, as she's done with V/T. She wants to get her teams motivated, to set a goal and reach it. People forget that S/K are still so young and have much time to improve.

Once S/K add more difficulty they'll be unstoppable.

They at least need to add a second triple jump. At this level, only doing a double axel as a solo jump is just not enough.

Alvyne said:

They at least need to add a second triple jump. At this level, only doing a double axel as a solo jump is just not enough.

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Agree! :agree: Stolbova/Klimov doesn't have enough height on their twist and throws. But they can do harder side by side jumps.

4 teams did quad throws or quad twists at GPF. I think we are officially in ''quad area'' of pairs skating. :think:

I was thinking that v and t can get away with their elements because their pcs is that odd Russia number one. And their twist is amazing.

elif said:

4 teams did quad throws or quad twists at GPF. I think we are officially in ''quad area'' of pairs skating. :think:

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if this is true then I'm out.
Quad throws are ugly. they risk the ladies and they interfere with the whole program.

I don't mind about quad twist as much cause they're mainly impossible to perform unless the lady is tiny or super skinny.
What's next? a backflip into your partner's arms?

I want to watch figure skating. Not athletics.

a harder side by side would be helpful. they also only got a level three on their lift in the sp but that looks like that was just a one time snafu thing. Still, essentially this title came down to base value which Duhamel and Radford really had in their favor. S/K had higher GOE in both portions and better PCS in the free but the difference in difficulty was too much to over come. I wonder why they only do a throw sal in the long? I know they do it right at the end and it's impressive to be sure, but they do a great throw lutz in the short. That alone would raise their technical bar by a whole point.

I think it's very nice that all this teams are pushing each others into this hard elements. I was this weekend in Barcelona and it was impressive to see those quads in the free skating. I don't think they disturbe or anything, the only thing it worries me is the ladies health. And I want to remember to those who are against the quads that this is a sport, and difficulty should be rewarded, which I think it isn't rewarded enough.

I think Ksenia and Fedor need harder elements, there was a big gap in the BV in the long program with the D/R that was impossible to catch up with the GOE.
Another SBS triple could work or a quad throw sal.

Mentalopes said:

And I want to remember to those who are against the quads that this is a sport, and difficulty should be rewarded, which I think it isn't rewarded enough.

I think Ksenia and Fedor need harder elements, there was a big gap in the BV in the long program with the D/R that was impossible to catch up with the GOE.
Another SBS triple could work or a quad throw sal.

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I agree with that actually, yet figure skating is an exception. Much like acrobatics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ToykvDhkI is very different from artistic gymnastics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru-pVDLa0r4 . It's a show, not only elements.

I strongly believe that adding quads is not the answer. I'd say to pairs: try thinking out of the box, add transitions, work on choreography, choose clever music- all those things.. any quad in the world cannot replace. The easiest thing in the world is to execute big elements but this way pair skating will become boring. We'll get used to seeing women land quads all over the place... and then? where do you go from there?

Technical difficulty is important, but it's not everything.

Maybe their playbook is to for consistency and excellence in what they do, rather than high-risk elements like D/R have (D/R are excellent in their own right). If D/R mess up, S/K with a clean skate would finish ahead of them.

I think a quad is gonna have to appear, S/K will always have the superior PCS but if D/R present a clean FP with such high tech, they are no gonna be able to compete.

kinoriH said:

I fear for the future of pair skating if quad twists/throws will almost become a required element.
one of the reasons why I (and many others) have never felt connected to D/R is because they emphasize the technical aspect of pair skating TOO MUCH.

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I don't think quad throws are a required element, seeing as how D/R would have still beat S/K if they did just a throw triple. K/S landed one almost cleanly and it didn't help them move up. I don't get why people are suddenly thinking it's a requirement or defining the sport now.

One of the reason why I (and I'd imagine others) haven't been entirely on the S/K train is because they don't have the technical aspects/difficulty that other teams do. At this point, S/K should at least be ATTEMPTING two SBS triples, especially when they've said they can do 3S in practice.

kinoriH said:

I do agree that S/K need to add some harder lifts and jumps, but God, no quad throws please. They're just ugly to watch.
even V/T didn't start their career together with the hardest elements, and look at them now..

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I personally don't find quad throws ugly to watch. Like any element of high difficulty, it's not going to be particularly pretty. IMO, most teams shouldn't be doing triple twists because many of them are ugly/awkward to watch but does that mean teams should just do 2Tw then?

Also V/T don't have the hardest elements by any stretch. What they execute, they do very well with high GOE... and they do have some of the hardest lifts and an excellent 3Tw. But pairs have been doing sbs 3T & sbs 3S as well as 3STh and 3LTh for well over a decade now. There are skaters who do 3F/3Z/3A/4S throws, quad twists, and SBS 3Z.

S/K get very high GOE on their throws and jumps because they land them cleanly with excellent runout. When they are sure they can land 3s consistently, they will swap that for the 2a. They are six years younger than Duhamel / Radford and have time to work on difficulty without sacrificing consistency.

chuckm said:

S/K get very high GOE on their throws and jumps because they land them cleanly with excellent runout. When they are sure they can land 3s consistently, they will swap that for the 2a. They are six years younger than Duhamel / Radford and have time to work on difficulty without sacrificing consistency.

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I love their lutz throw in particular... she has a delay into the rotation, and gets wonderful flow on the landing, especially compared to other pairs skaters who do 3F/3Z throws. It'll be interesting to see if they will add the 3S for nationals and Worlds.

As much as D/R have high risk elements, they are actually landing them with impressive consistency, so S/K can't simply hope for D/R to make errors and get by with just one triple jump. They do have great 2A's though... funny enough, other than Sotnikova (and occasionally, Liza), I would probably say Ksenia has the best double axel of all the Russian women (singles or pairs) currently skating!

I agree with many users, that S/K have not got the potential to make some Quads, at the moment. Their strength is the consistancy and flow. I cannot believe that they will try to raise the difficulty of their programs.

D/R won because of there difficult individual jumps, highest levels and the quad and they achieved more GOE than i would give them (scatchy triple lutz throw?).

The base value of Quad throws and 3Ath is really low! Tarasova/Morozov say that they probably will not try a quad twist, because it is better to do a solid high triple twist than so perform a risky quad twist.

it is sad and i do not know why the ISU do not change the base value.

A quad twist isn't particularly risky (I don't think I've ever seen a disaster/fall on a quad twist), as the man can assist the woman in her landing... a quad throw is MUCH riskier though, and should certainly be worth more than the points that are currently allotted to it. There's a separate thread about that, I think. But 8 points is measly for a 4STh compared to 4.5 for a 3STh... in singles a 4S is 10.5 points and 4.2 points for a 3S. A quad throw should be at LEAST 9 points BV.

I agree that S/K will probably not make drastic changes to their difficulty, but they should be making some changes, otherwise they're simply depending on D/R to make errors, which is happening less and less often.

S/K's SP is also hurting them this year, as the judges simply aren't connecting with it... or at the very least they're giving D/R similar PCS (which I agree with, but I'm surprised to see that the judges are actually keeping them on par with each other in the SP).

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

I agree that S/K will probably not make drastic changes to their difficulty, but they should be making some changes, otherwise they're simply depending on D/R to make errors, which is happening less and less often.

S/K's SP is also hurting them this year, as the judges simply aren't connecting with it... or at the very least they're giving D/R similar PCS (which I agree with, but I'm surprised to see that the judges are actually keeping them on par with each other in the SP).

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To me the PCS of S/K were ok (i fell in love with this programm espacially the Steps at the end). But the PCS of D/R were to high! Their Skating Skillins and Choreography is farly not as good as the Russians. One jugde marked had given them a 10.00 in choreography in the SP. That must be a joke.

There has often been one top team which is (technically) in front. If this team go clean, it will be almost impossible to beat them.


Do not forget that S/K has recently raised to one of the top pairs. And today we are wondering how they will beat D/R till the end of time.

Maybe S/K should try something new next year. Crazy music. new lifts. Extraordinary Choreography...



I agree that a Quad throw is not that risky, nevertheless i would increase the base value: 3Tw4 (GOE+3)=8,30
4Tw1 (GOE 0)= 7,10. I can understand the Russians not to go for the Quad.

IMO, this is just the latest round of the oldest argument in skating, sport vs. art. I believe that if the same difficulty is maintained in perpetuity, then skating should be an artistic exhibition/beauty contest and not a sport. Pushing athletic and technical boundaries is a critical aspect of any sport if it is to remain credible. That ideal is also embedded in the Olympic motto: citius, altius, fortius or faster, higher, stronger. So the logic for restricting technical innovation is a sport is counter-intuitive to me.

I've written this here before, but I'll mention it again. Throws, other that twists, have not always been a core part of pair skating and many of the fears expressed about quad throws were similarly raised for double and triple revolution throws into the 90s. They were seen as cheap tricks to cover up poor pair skating. The Protopopovs and Rodnina and Zaitsev never did any throws but filled the spaces we would expect to see them in with constant side by side jumping and additional, often minor, lifts. Their skating was wonderful, but appears dated to a degree today. Their German and North American counterparts and younger Soviet compatriots were the ones leading the throw jump charge. Before that, multi-revolution throws were a complete novelty, done here and there by daring teams like Mark and Melissa Miliatano, Militano and Johnny Johns, and Kermer and Osterreich

R and Z did revolutionize the twist lift and made it a mandatory element to be competitive. On that note, quad twists are not new. They've been done sporadically since the late 70s going back to Cherkasova and Shakhrai and other one and a half pairs (including a young G &G in the mid 80's). Training quad throws goes back to at least the Carruthers in the early 80s. Some of the same pairs I've mentioned were attempting or doing side by side triples going back to the early 70s (the Militanos are one example)

The first versions of almost all of these innovations were not always successful or pretty. However, they were necessary to push the sport forward rather than allow it to stagnate. Throw triple salchows, one of S/K' standard elements, have been a pair staple for well over thirty years. Making that same throw bigger or longer will only go so far in validating its continued use. That sounds like stagnation to me. Flip and lutz have only become standards recently, although both have been used at times over the years.

I applaud D/R for pushing the envelope successfully. The "artistry" will come. Maybe not with them, but likely with successors who follow their technical lead.