Spin Rules

What's the limit for the number of Biellmanns one can perform in a program? I remember they made a rule after people (e.g. Irina Slutskaya) spammed it non-stop for levels in early COP days... Is it one per program? Which means a skater can't use the Biellmann as a variation for both layback and camel spins, correct?

Sandpiper said:

What's the limit for the number of Biellmanns one can perform in a program? I remember they made a rule after people (e.g. Irina Slutskaya) spammed it non-stop for levels in early COP days... Is it one per program? Which means a skater can't use the Biellmann as a variation for both layback and camel spins, correct?

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A few years ago, the difficult variations were divided into 11 categories based on the basic type of position and position of shoulder line for camels (camel forward, camel sideways, camel upward); free leg for sit spins (sit forward, sit sideways, sit behind); or torso for upright (upright forward, upright straight or sideways, upright Biellmann); and a difficult position within an actual layback position and a difficult variation in a non-basic position (i.e., doesn't qualify as camel, sit, layback, or upright).

Any of those categories can only be used once per program.

But it would be allowed to do an upright variation with a catchfoot held above the head (i.e., Biellmann) and also a camel variation with a catchfoot held higher than the head, which would not qualify as a Biellmann but could look somewhat similar.

QLutz said:

http://static.isu.org/media/166717/...and-technical-rules-sandp-and-id_14-09-16.pdf

why do the jump requirements change for junior ladies short program depending on what year it is??? (page 98-100)

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In the 1970s and 80s, senior singles short programs -- and junior SPs when they were later introduced -- required a specific solo jump, one specific double jump to be included in the jump combination, a specific flying spin, a specific solo spin, and a specific shape of step sequence that changed every year.

Starting in 1989, those requirements went away, but then in the mid-1990s some of them came back for juniors: the solo jump, the flying spin, and for men the spin in one position.

Pair spins also have specific requirements that rotate from year to year, some for seniors (e.g., takeoff hold for lifts and lady's edge for death spirals) and more for juniors.

My understanding is that the motivation for these requirements is to test skaters/teams on skills that they all should be required to master and to compare apples to apples. Since there are different edges/takeoffs/positions of the same kind of skills that they want to require, and short programs only allow for one such element, they need to rotate from year to year.

But for senior singles they continue to allow more choices in the SP, although the solo axel and the lady's layback spin are always required.

also (page 102) says no choreographic seq req'd for jr lp? why?

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The junior freeskate is 30 seconds shorter than the senior and therefore has one fewer element.

At the beginning of IJS, the difference was that seniors were allowed 4 spins and juniors only 3.

A few years later it was decided that the programs were too crowded and there wasn't enough time for in-between skating, so the 4th spin was removed from the senior program, and the second step sequence (men) or spiral sequence (ladies) was removed from the junior freeskate.

More recently, those sequences were replaced by the choreographic sequence in the senior freeskate.

QLutz said:

http://static.isu.org/media/166717/...and-technical-rules-sandp-and-id_14-09-16.pdf

a weird question:

page 103 says there may be up to 3 jump combos in the free. one combo could be 3jumps, the other 2 combos could have 2jumps. this would total 7 jump elements: all that is needed. has this ever been done by a skater? what would be the disadvantage of doing this, aside from difficulty? would it leave too much time remaining in the program?

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A jump combination or sequence counts as one jump element.

If you're allowed seven jump elements, of which one can have three component jumps and two can have two component jumps, plus four solo jumps, that allows for eleven jumps in total.

Because of the Zayak rule, the maximum number of triple jumps any skater can do is 2 more than the maximum number of kinds of triples they can do -- if she can do all six different takeoffs as triples, the max would be 8 triples. If she can do all but triple axel (or some other takeoff), the max would be 7 triples total. Thus the rest of the 11 total jumps in a lady's free skate would be doubles.

Men get 8 jump passes with the same restrictions on combos, so they can do a total of 12 actual jumps. If 8 are triples including two repeats, the others need to be quads or doubles.

Choosing not to do all the jump elements means leaving points on the table, so no skater would choose to do only three jump elements. Even choosing to do only six jump elements would mean giving up points, because you can't replace a jump with some other kind of element that earns points.

In practice skaters sometimes leave out a planned jump entirely or pop it in a way that earns no points.

And it's possible that a skater who really can't do many different kinds of jumps would choose to spend more time on in-between skating, either because she can do good things in between that will help her program component scores more than an easy or failed jump would, or because she needs a lot of setup time to have any chance of landing the more difficult jumps she is capable of.

But a medal contender skater is going to plan on filling all the allowed jump boxes.