How much further can figure skating develop technically?

Elucidus said:

Just two words: skating boots. When there is limit in human body - sport tools should help.

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Yes, THIS.

Also, ice development. I’m thinking different substances, different under layers, different methods of freezing it. Anything that brings down costs for building and maintaining rinks will spike sport development because more rinks = more skaters = more skating innovation.

VegMom said:

Also, ice development. I’m thinking different substances, different under layers, different methods of freezing it. Anything that brings down costs for building and maintaining rinks will spike sport development because more rinks = more skaters = more skating innovation.

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An innovation that makes it cheaper to make ice of the same quality we see now would, as you say, increase the number of rinks worldwide.

An innovation that improves the ice for figure skating purposes (e.g., makes it springier for jumping) would also have to be acceptable for hockey and other uses, because figure skating alone is not cost effective for rinks in most locations.

gkelly said:

An innovation that improves the ice for figure skating purposes (e.g., makes it springier for jumping) would also have to be acceptable for hockey and other uses, because figure skating alone is not cost effective for rinks in most locations.

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The ice would need more elasticity, like a very weak trampoline. I heard that you can get that on outdoor ice , because of water and air below the ice surface. Ice over concrete is unresponsive.

Re quints, do we know how figure skaters compare athletically with other sports? For example if there were a ‘Usain Bolt of Figure Skating’ how would he do when it came to jumps? - figure skating is a small world after all, but if someone like him came along who’s to say how he would do.

Also he would probably have to have the perfect physique for it. I would have said this would be something like a smaller version of an Olympic high jumper, tall, but not too tall so you don’t have too many moving parts, thin so you can do the super-fast rotations and with great spring in your legs to get the height.

Also it might be that the 5Lz would be the jump to go for. Looking at the height that Mikhail Kolyada and Boyang Jin get there must be something about the purchase they get on this particular jump that allows them to get the height. Must be something about going onto the outside edge, plus as the number of rotations increases the relative amount you have to do extra because of the lack of pre-rotation counts for less and less - this is probably why the 4Lo is the hardest quad, there’s no hiding place on this particular jump, plus with Lutzs there’s always the extra element of the toe/blade assist – can anyone actually quantify how much extra you might get from this. If you’re doing a standing vertical jump off 2 feet you’re always going to get an extra height compared with one off a single foot which is effectively what you’ve got with a loop.

Finally could skate design come into it? As other people have said could you do something so that the extra purchase required to convert your speed into height is possible, plus maybe even one day the material or design of the blade itself. Anything that gives more purchase must help, though of course there’s the difficulty of coming down from a greater height and landing it, that might be the ultimate holding back factor, landing in competition might actually be the easy bit, it’s all the training and landing beforehand that might do the damage, injury-wise.

Miller said:

Also it might be that the 5Lz would be the jump to go for. Looking at the height that Mikhail Kolyada and Boyang Jin get there must be something about the purchase they get on this particular jump that allows them to get the height. Must be something about going onto the outside edge, plus as the number of rotations increases the relative amount you have to do extra because of the lack of pre-rotation counts for less and less - this is probably why the 4Lo is the hardest quad, there’s no hiding place on this particular jump, plus with Lutzs there’s always the extra element of the toe/blade assist – can anyone actually quantify how much extra you might get from this. If you’re doing a standing vertical jump off 2 feet you’re always going to get an extra height compared with one off a single foot which is effectively what you’ve got with a loop.

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Well, math says that with Mikhail Kolyada's 4Lutz height and Anna Shcherbakova's rotation speed, 5Lutz should even be possible to get fully around if the specific type of a skater with the necessary lift and rotation speed comes around.

Miller said:

Re quints, do we know how figure skaters compare athletically with other sports? For example if there were a ‘Usain Bolt of Figure Skating’ how would he do when it came to jumps? - figure skating is a small world after all, but if someone like him came along who’s to say how he would do.

Also he would probably have to have the perfect physique for it. I would have said this would be something like a smaller version of an Olympic high jumper, tall, but not too tall so you don’t have too many moving parts, thin so you can do the super-fast rotations and with great spring in your legs to get the height.

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Ideal for jumping would probably be someone on the shorter side of average, based on past history.

But everyone can only work with their own body type. So if someone who happens to be a little taller also has everything else, physically and externally, to make a great jumper, it's not impossible that the first skater to achieve some major milestones might be on the taller side. Just less likely.

gkelly said:

Ideal for jumping would probably be someone on the shorter side of average, based on past history.

But everyone can only work with their own body type. So if someone who happens to be a little taller also has everything else, physically and externally, to make a great jumper, it's not impossible that the first skater to achieve some major milestones might be on the taller side. Just less likely.

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I was thinking that Olympic high jumpers are invariably very tall (though there have been a couple, Franklin Jacobs and Stefan Holm, who were both under 6ft tall and could jump almost 2 feet above their height). However thinking about it, it's probably more about their having a higher centre of gravity that gets them over the bar, though, unbelievably, their C of G actually goes under the bar (because of the bend in their back).

However for figure skaters having a higher C of G wouldn't necessarily help, it's probably going to all be about the thinness for the rotation and spring for the height that's going to count, though normally very thin people happen to be quite tall and I would imagine you're definitely going to have to be very thin to get the rotational speed.

Jumps are not the only tech that can be developed.

Just saying...

Miller said:

However for figure skaters having a higher C of G wouldn't necessarily help, it's probably going to all be about the thinness for the rotation and spring for the height that's going to count, though normally very thin people happen to be quite tall and I would imagine you're definitely going to have to be very thin to get the rotational speed.

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Historically, most good jumpers in figure skating have been on the shorter side. Either short and muscular or short and thin (which makes them look taller than they are).

There have been a few strong jumpers in the 5'10" to 6'0" range -- Boitano, Urmanov, Kulik, Plushenko, Lysacek -- but 5'6 to 5'9" seems to be a more common height range for top male figure skaters, and many shorter than that, while almost none are over 6'.

For the ladies it seems like the recent surge has been in more rapid rotations rather than height and airtime. Maybe a quint is possible just by spinning faster.

If you can get 1 meter off the ground, then you need to spin at the rate of 2000 degrees per second throughout the jump. Mao Asada's triple Axel has been timed to max out at just this rotational speed, 2000 degrees per second.

Mathman said:

If you weigh 45 kilos and can get 1 meter off the ground, then you need to spin at the rate of 2000 degrees per second throughout the jump. Mao Asada's triple Axel has been timed to max out at just this rotational speed, 2000 degrees per second.

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So no?

^ I think it's an attainable goal for someone to shoot at. Time will tell.

The world record for spinning on ice (held by Natasha Kannonikova) is 1848 degrees per second.

gkelly said:

Historically, most good jumpers in figure skating have been on the shorter side. Either short and muscular or short and thin (which makes them look taller than they are).

There have been a few strong jumpers in the 5'10" to 6'0" range -- Boitano, Urmanov, Kulik, Plushenko, Lysacek -- but 5'6 to 5'9" seems to be a more common height range for top male figure skaters, and many shorter than that, while almost none are over 6'.

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The really tall men head for Pairs and Dance.

WeakAnkles said:

Jumps are not the only tech that can be developed.

Just saying...

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I must admit I don't see any other tech evolving in more or less fundamental way. What else can be done theoretically?

Mathman said:

^ I think it's an attainable goal for someone to shoot at. Time will tell.

The world record for spinning on ice (held by Natasha Kannonikova) is 1848 degrees per second.

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I have thoughts here, but I mostly want to know how you and others pull out these facts lol

^ Google is your friend.

https://mathspig.wordpress.com/tag/how-fast-do-figure-skaters-spin/

https://www.angio.net/personal/climb/speed.html

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/...08a91ffb8ac38b3ceb8caa1a7b8a03112b79f2a_1.pdf

Shayuki said:

Well, math says that with Mikhail Kolyada's 4Lutz height and Anna Shcherbakova's rotation speed, 5Lutz should even be possible to get fully around if the specific type of a skater with the necessary lift and rotation speed comes around.

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I think the problem is that the body types that lead to good lift or speed, respectively, are not really compatible with each other. Bigger thighs mean slower rotations.

In addition, I would imagine that the increased height and speed would make the jump very difficult to stop or control on landing, so you’d also have to have someone with a freakish ability to STOP rotating on a blade on ice as well.

I don’t think that math has shown any of this to be possible. It may be possible. But it seems pretty unlikely.

Mathman said:

^ Google is your friend.

https://mathspig.wordpress.com/tag/how-fast-do-figure-skaters-spin/

https://www.angio.net/personal/climb/speed.html

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/...08a91ffb8ac38b3ceb8caa1a7b8a03112b79f2a_1.pdf

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Thanks.

As far as I know (/remember from the document the Russian research on jump height and revolution speed), a few skaters do reach close to 2000 degrees/second (5.55 revs/sec), but I doubt the other criteria are met.

What about birotational jumps and spins? I am still amazed that it is just taken for granted that skaters learn their elements only in one direction. There a a few exceptions like Miyahara's clockwise spins or Lambiel's experiments with clockwise jumps, but they show that a skater can actually learn them. Elements in both directions must be trained independently and take twice the effort, therefore I think they should count as independent elements. Imagine someone doing four 3Lz in the free program. Plus they may open new choreographic opportunities and even the chance for new combos like 3Lz-3Lz.

Speaking of it, Dimitriev's 3Lz-3F with a wrong-foot-landing is also an innovation.

Yes, if the ISU decides to build in scoring incentives for those kinds of jump difficulty, then we'll see more skaters attempt to learn them.

Also, e.g., giving triple-quad or double-quad combinations higher base value than quad-triple or quad-double.

Just as not all would-be competitors are capable of mastering triple jumps, and not all elite skaters are capable of quads, we would surely also find that not all skaters are capable of adding double much less triple opposite-direction jumps to their skill set. Some would, some wouldn't. And so we might see some skaters gaining points by jumping both directions and others by jumping four rotations; if the difficulty levels prove to be comparable and the scoring recognizes that commensurately, then we'll see different medalists taking both approaches.


I think that when jump content became the most important factor in results in the 1990s after the end of figures, the content of the skating skills between the jumps went way down. IJS has encouraged more development of transitional moves, but there is still plenty of room for even more complex in-between skating even more directly connected to today's difficult jump content, with even better quality. So I expect we'll continue to see more development in that area, especially if the ISU and the judges figure out how not to max out the scoring (on GOEs and PCS especially the TR component) when there is still evidently room for improvement even for someone like Hanyu.

Will it be possible for skaters to connect difficult spins directly to difficult jumps? That's another way to increase difficulty.

But of course additional rotations in the air are much easier to quantify than more difficult connections between elements.