ISU Recognizes Mroz's Quad Lutz!

[Violet Bliss]

Wonder how Patrick will respond.

Patrick is competing against himself. But his rivals may take that as "Catch me if you can"!

He's rethinking which new quad to add this season. I linked his interview video on his thread.

(The video is here if you're interested in discussing it here. Just don't accuse me of dragging him into this thread!)

 

[Spun Silver]

Just don't accuse me of dragging him into this thread!)

You don't need to worry about that with me. I'm a fan. (And I dragged him in myself.)

 

[demarinis5]

Congratulations Brandon!!! Quite an achievement. Wishing him the best this season.

 

[ivy]

Wow - a nice jump too - lots of control, clean flowing exit. Makes it look almost easy. I always take anything Tom Z says with a huge grain of salt, but if close to true Brandon could do 4 or 5 quads in a program ?!?

 

[Blades of Passion]

Mroz's 4Lutz looked questionable when I first saw it and this shot of the landing confirms that suspicion:

Looking at the jump in real time you can see a bit of a jilt on the landing. He lands on the inside edge of the blade, which is not ideal and may be the cause, but as you can see from the photo it's possible the blade is turning too much on the ice as well. The rotation is definitely borderline at best; would be more helpful to have a slow-mo closeup of that landing. Don't be surprised if he never gets this jump ratified at a major competition.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

I'm rather annoyed at this turn of events, actually. Oh well.

 

[jcoates]

The jump was not just ratified by the local tech panel. The made an official petition to the ISU for ratification. Video was submitted along with written competition declarations from officials. They took almost 2 mos to review it. If they approved this vid evidence, they will likely approve others of similar quality. Plus as he does it more often, the quality will likely improve.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

The jump was not just ratified by the local tech panel. The made an official petition to the ISU for ratification. Video was submitted along with written competition declarations from officials. They took almost 2 mos to review it. If they approved this vid evidence, they will likely approve others of similar quality. Plus as he does it more often, the quality will likely improve.

I don't know - there's something special about having to do it in a specific international competition for it to count that I like. How good was the video? Will we get a spate of video ratifications from these smaller events now?

 

[Violet Bliss]

I don't know - there's something special about having to do it in a specific international competition for it to count that I like. How good was the video? Will we get a spate of video ratifications from these smaller events now?

Maybe the fact that it took 2 months for an ISU decision means there were indicisions, besides schedule and procedure issues. But the official decision has been made and we should respect it.

I too hope there will not be lots of ratifications via videos from small events with virtually no audiences.

 

[BackStage Barbie]

At his regional event Mroz did a Quad Lutz in the short and fully rotated it but received negative GOEs. The base value was 13.60 and he received 11.85 points. In the free skate he also received a negative GOE and a total of 11.85 points. It;s good to see that he's consistently doing the jump and it will get better in time. He's lucky that his Grand Prix events are later in the season and he still has two more weeks to perfect the jump before NHK Trophy. The rest of his programs were messy at his regional so I hope that he hasn't shoved everything else aside to focus on this new Quad. The rest of his technical content in the free included a negative GOE 3A-3T, 2A, negative GOE 3F, level 2 steps, a 1A, level 2 camel spin, 1lz, 2A, 3lz, level 1 choreographed steps, level 4 combination spin, and PCS in the 6-7 range. He was pretty much blown away by Max Aaron.

 

[jcoates]

I don't know - there's something special about having to do it in a specific international competition for it to count that I like. How good was the video? Will we get a spate of video ratifications from these smaller events now?

Pogue, the video is in the link to the article about the ISU press release. It's very clear and good quality. At least as good as the vids ISU posts on youtube for the junior comps.

As for recognizing jumps at smaller events...the landscape has clearly changed. In the old days, ratification of new jumps usually only happened at the biggest international events because they were the only ones being filmed and the right officials were in attendance. Now in a world of instant video uploads and rapid communication, there really is no excuse for restricting recognition to certain settings. The camera is the audience of record, not the people in the stands. What it records will outlast any one person's memory of the event in question. None of us was there when Dick Button landed the 1st 2a or 3r. But they were filmed, so we can see them for ourselves. Same for every other milestone. Terry Kubicka mentioned in a recent interview that when he became the first man to land a 3z since Don Jackson, he did it in the SP at US nationals. However, that segment was not filmed, so no evidence existed. Everyone in the stands saw it and knew it was true, but that did not matter for historical purposes. Dick Button informed him of that fact and encouraged him to go for it again in the LP which was being filmed. He did and landed it and that was the jump that was ratified. That happened in the days when national championships were rarely seen by outside audiences, so the rest of the world had to accept the USFSA's word and the video proof that went along with it. Also, Goebel landed his first quad as a junior when junior events were far less actively followed. Same for Miki. The point is they did them and enough evidence existed to prove the effort.

If Andy Roddick hits 155 mph serve at a small event in Florida rather than at the US Open or Wimbledon, should it be ignored simple because of the size of the field or the crowd? I say no. In fact, almost every time that serve speed record has been broken for the men, it's happened at an obscure event or on an outside court and often without a camera. All that's needed is a speed gun. Fact is ground breaking efforts in all sports often happen in more obscure settings. So long as they can be verified, I don't really mind where they happen. To withhold recognition of legitimate athletic achievement in open competition is unfair IMO and discouraging to the athlete.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

1. Yeah, but those videos suck.

2. In the end, I hope he does it on the GP circuit, because his achievement will always have an asterisk beside it for me, personally.

 

[Serious Business]

The quality you see on the YouTube upload may not be reflective of the video(s) the ISU used to ratify the jump. Keep in mind that technical calls are made using video replay all the time in skating now. And from the behind the scenes footage of how tech calls were made at US nationals, it didn't seem like they were using any particularly fancy camera or setup. So, if it's good enough a system to ratify Mao Asada's record breaking 3 axels at the Olympics, it's good enough for this.

And I really don't see why making this achievement at a smaller competition diminishes it. If anything, skaters have an incentive to play it safer at smaller competitions where the competition level is less high. Mroz gets my respect for going for something so hard at a competition where he didn't have to.

 

[prettykeys]

...skaters have an incentive to play it safer at smaller competitions where the competition level is less high. Mroz gets my respect for going for something so hard at a competition where he didn't have to.

The reverse might be true for other skaters; that is, they might want to try harder elements at smaller competitions because there is less chance of losing big if they falter or fail.

 

[Serious Business]

The reverse might be true for other skaters; that is, they might want to try harder elements at smaller competitions because there is less chance of losing big if they falter or fail.

That is true, too! But I can't imagine a skater only trying the more difficult elements at a smaller competition, unless they tried it out and failed horribly/gets injured. Usually if they do it it's so they can try it at a bigger competition.

Well, it's a bit hard for me to say whether it's easier for Mroz to land his quad lutz here than elsewhere. But either way, it's a gutsy move in my opinion. And I wouldn't take anything away from him just because he landed this historic move at a smaller competition. I'm glad he put that competition on the map and gave the people lucky enough to be there something to remember.

While I'm not much of a Mroz fan, I have no doubt he will land it at a bigger competition. And, to paraphrase Russian coach Tamara Moskvina, strike fear into the hearts of his enemies with this difficult maneuver.

 

[Violet Bliss]

The reverse might be true for other skaters; that is, they might want to try harder elements at smaller competitions because there is less chance of losing big if they falter or fail.

And there is just so much less pressure competing in a hockey rink with friends and club mates looking on. Some accomplishments are much harder to attain than others. Doing a quad on its own in practice is different from doing it in a program which is different from doing it in a club competition, and so on. How many most elite and successful skaters falter at World Championships, let alone the Olympics? There is excitement, prestige, and undeniability to accomplishments under the most pressure with the biggest audience. At what level should a new difficult element be ratified? With video recodings, it's getting lowered. Also, achievements at Nationals, which are high stake high pressure major events in some countries, are not ISU recognized. I think.

I'm just contemplating here, not trying to take away what Mroz has done, which is an amazing feat. First official quad Lutz!

Speaking of videos, these days so many skaters put up their practice "success" on Youtube. They generate buzz but will they backfire come real competitions?

 

[fscric]

I just read on FSU that ISU recognized this jump from a video on youtube.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I just read on FSU that ISU recognized this jump from a video on youtube.

I'm very surprised by that actually. I hope they don't come across that quad axel video on youtube...

 

[Violet Bliss]

Youtube is not the source of the video. The video, which is evidently good enough for ISU when submitted, existed first and got uploaded. Any video being on Youtube says nothing about its quality or credibility. It's like information from the Internet, which can be trash or gems. The main thing is that this video was accepted and accredited by ISU, whether or not it was uploaded to Youtube.

drivingmissdaisy, I know which 4A you talk about! And then there is that Charlotte Spin!

 

[jcoates]

I get the feeling that some of this is as much about the setting as who is getting credit for the jump. Brandon is not a complete skater yet. Because of that, I sense that some wish the Chan or even Plushenko (who came darn close) had gotten there first. Fair enough. But just he's not Chan, Plushenko, Kozuka or even Rippon attempting it as he contends for medal on the big stage does not mean he should not have an equal shot at setting new marks. That introduces far too much partiality and subjectivity into the sport and frankly is why many fans of non-judged sports despise skating. They feel that action counts less than personal bias.

Let's look at this from the perspective of another sport where world records are routinely recorded and recognized: track and field. Before someone dismisses me by pointing out that a) track is not judged and b) results are determined by impartial means like time or distance, remember that judgment does play a role in determining winners in close contests like photo finishes and extremely close finishes which may break world records; and records can have and have accounted for altitude, wind, venue (indoor vs. outdoor) and surface. Nevertheless, barring an unfair advantage like excessive wind, whenever a world record is broken in a valid event, it counts in whatever relevant category is appropriate. Much of the complaints I'm reading here remind me of the complaints in track about records set at altitude.

World records in track are broken frequently enough, certainly more frequently than new jumps being landed in skating. Not just at Olympic qualifiers, worlds or the Olympics themselves when large audiences are watching or the pressure is arguably greatest. The athletes are running against time and each other, not a setting. The settings where those feats occur do not diminish the raw accomplishment. They may amplify it, but that is a different distinction which I think is being confused here. How many times have we entered a summer games and heard of the latest fastest man/woman in the world being introduced to us? Now, how many of us can say we actually saw him/her assume that title by breaking the world record beforehand (evening new highlights don't count)? Sure we all hope that same athlete will win his/her race at the Olympics in a new world record time, but they may not do it and often don't. They may instead break the existing Olympic record. That is nothing to sneeze at, especially if said Olympic record happens to be the previous world record. In that case, the athlete has broken the previous world record twice. He's just not surpassed his performance at a smaller event. Both accomplishments are very significant and given proper distinction.

From a skating point of view, the first quad I actually saw done successfully was not by Browning or Urmanov, but by Barna. Being a kid in school at the time with other activities and no access to youtube, I frequently missed all or portions of competitions. Of course, I knew the jump had been done and accepted that fact. Still Barna doing it (or at least coming as close as he did and standing up) in Albertville and being the first to do it so well up to that point it in a Olympics was a pretty freaking big deal and is an honor that will always belong to him. Yet that did not diminish the importance of Browning being first and Urmanov second, despite neither doing it in a setting where they had a legitimate chance of winning or medaling.

I don't begrudge people their desire to see the jump done on a big stage. I want to see him do it again as well, especially if it's live. I just don't think that desire should outweigh or bring into doubt the significance of what Brandon achieved.do