Skaters who improved their Skating Skills program component over time

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

He went from a cat to a zebra.

Hah, that space zebra outfit is iconic for all the wrong reasons. It's like so aggressively tacky and distracting and has zero connection to The Four Seasons - but oddly in its quirkiness it's also very Stephane. It's in the Olympic Museum as an artefact actually! https://olympic-museum-artefacts.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/141673/

Though I suppose if we asked certain lambiel fans, they'd probably retort with something like, "It's not tacky at all... it is a visionary manifesto stitched in sequins and audacity, a triumph of artistic courage that transformed the ice into a savannah of self-expression with a heroically unapologetic and gloriously untamed striped masterpiece serving as a visual crescendo to his skating, amplifying every spin into a display of kinetic art and a declaration of aesthetic dominance. Better than most costumes seen these days, and many others from that era and earlier. Really helped the program build, too".

 

[Anna K.]

Hah, that space zebra outfit is iconic for all the wrong reasons. It's like so aggressively tacky and distracting and has zero connection to The Four Seasons - but oddly in its quirkiness it's also very Stephane. It's in the Olympic Museum as an artefact actually! https://olympic-museum-artefacts.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/141673/

Though I suppose if we asked certain lambiel fans, they'd probably retort with something like, "It's not tacky at all... it is a visionary manifesto stitched in sequins and audacity, a triumph of artistic courage that transformed the ice into a savannah of self-expression with a heroically unapologetic and gloriously untamed striped masterpiece serving as a visual crescendo to his skating, amplifying every spin into a display of kinetic art and a declaration of aesthetic dominance. Better than most costumes seen these days, and many others from that era and earlier. Really helped the program build, too".

It's "a zebra with butterfly wings flying across the snow through the winter towards the spring". This is Stephane's official explanation of his concept of Winter from Four Seasons. Just saying.

And now I need to go back one page to find out how a costume discussion has sneaked into a Skating Skills thread

 

[Anna K.]

Here is an example how much a skater can improve her skating skills in one year: Looking at her skating with one year apart - same event, same program, same camera angle - changes are noticeable.

This is the video from the Japanese Championships 2024:

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This is the video from the Japanese Championships 2025:

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What I noticed:
After the starting pose: in 2024, she twizzles on the spot and takes the next pose about one step to the left; in 2025, she twizzles to the left and covers some ice before she takes the next pose and pauses (better ice coverage)
Next, from pose 2 she skates to the right across the rink: in 2024, her trajectory is almost a straight line, minimal curves; in 2025, she skates in deep curves and her trajectory is rather an S (deeper edges)
Next, she gains speed before combo: in 2024, she uses 3 crossovers to accelerate; in 2025, she uses 2 crossovers (better speed control)
Next, the transition to axel: in 2024, she does 3 turns/direction changes; in 2025, she does 5 (more variety)...
...allright, I'm tired of writing just like you are tired of reading so I will stop here.

I'll only add that there is indeed a way to go; we can hear a lot of noise from her skating and also visually her stroke is not as light as we have seen from the best. But the improvement was absolutely worth doing. Her PCS mark jumped up. She had her musical sensitivity a year ago just like she had it this year but the improved skating skills added a larger dimension and more expression to all her movements. To me, it felt like a different program

Work on your skating skills, skaters, it will make you look cool and you will receive higher PCS

 

[yfan1]

Next, she gains speed before combo: in 2024, she uses 3 crossovers to accelerate; in 2025, she uses 2 crossovers (better speed control)

*Is* she going into the combo with the same amount of speed in both cases?

 

[Anna K.]

*Is* she going into the combo with the same amount of speed in both cases?

It's a rough estimate but there could be more speed in 2025.
In both videos, she starts crossovers at 0.27 and skates the same distance from bottom right corner to the middle of the left board before she takes off; but in 2024 she takes off at 0.36, in 2025 at 0.35

 

[Anna K.]

When I earlier posted the previous generation ISU videos that explained the Skating Skills component, I didn't realize that these videos were supported by a set of examples:

Women, average
Women, good
Women, weak

Men, weak
Men, average
Men, good

Pairs, weak
Pairs, average
Pairs, good

Dance, weak
Dance, average
Dance, good

Hope you can use it as a reference!

 

[pesto]

Ouch. It'd be quite hurtful to be given as a reference example of "weak" skills.

 

[Anna K.]

Ouch. It'd be quite hurtful to be given as a reference example of "weak" skills.

I humbly believe that my format of comparing skaters with the earlier versions of themselves is a much better way how to explain the difference in skills

Although we have only one example that shows the progression from "weak" to "good" on this thread; others are rather from "average" to "good" or from "above average" ("sixes") to "excellent" ("nines") if we use the current 10 point scale.

 

[yfan1]

Are we speaking about the ISU scale for judging "improvement"? If so, that is rather useless to me. No coach is going "you're a 5 currently, we need to get you to 7".

@gkelly is the one who wrote a useful analysis about the circular/serpentine steps from Kulik versus straight line step sequences (although apparently not on this thread).

EDIT:

In terms of Composition at that competition, I've got to go with Kulik's short program. Aside from the setup for the triple axel combo, there's barely any crossovers in the rest of the program. Always something interesting going on and linking together elements like circular steps directly into double axel. Plus he was one of the few skaters to choose circular and serpentine step sequences, instead of a straight-line sequence for one of them, for which the rules at the time actually discouraged deep edges.

All of which probably says something about Skating Skills as well.

 

[Anna K.]

Are we speaking about the ISU scale for judging "improvement"? If so, that is rather useless to me. No coach is going "you're a 5 currently, we need to get you to 7".

@gkelly is the one who wrote a useful analysis about the circular/serpentine steps from Kulik versus straight line step sequences (although apparently not on this thread).

EDIT:

No, we are not discussing the ISU judging scale. In this thread, we are taking it as a fact.

There is a certain way how the Skating Skills component is defined within IJS (in my previous posts, I have included references to the ISU Handbook of rules, a video guide of what to look at/what judges look at, and ISU examples for reference above). The purpose of this thread is posting/discussing examples of skaters who have made visible progress according to these criteria (and sharing the secret tips about how we noticed that - eta).

So, in a Step Sequence, the balance, flow, sureness, speed, and direction (meaning: is the sequence traveling the same direction the skater rotates when jumping or the opposite direction) are judged as the Skating Skills component but not the steps as such which is a technical element and a subject of a different thread as you fairly noted.

Did I answer you question?

 

[Ares]

In dance, I am most looking for clean edges (no flying snow or wobbling ankles) to evaluate skating skills.

You could also look at raw speed, as indicated by pattern size, and how blurry the ads are as the skaters fly by them.

The old CD'S were a good .measure of this, because you could look at a young team and then look at the same team doing the same steps exactly some years later.

The same was true for compulsory figures.

It's unfortunately true that there are few videos of bad CD'S to be found any more.

Here's a 16 year old with great spins,
https://youtu.be/OwO542dGDH4?si=Ywk445KJ4Y2tT7-6

But not the blade control he shows here:

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Here's some example of a pretty weak CD in seniors - Valadzenkava/Vakunov

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And the same compulsory dance but done extremely well. I wasn't rooting for Domnina/Shabalina but they were great technicians and it particularly stood out in CDs, I've found them delightful. A pity they're gone IMHO (the pattern dances). They won this segment and also became European Champions afterwords there. And they won despite finishing 2nd in OD (they performed their infamous dance there) and in FD behind Faiella/Scali. So it was possible to win a big competition based on the strength of your compulsory dance then whereas I remember people talking that you could have only ''lose it there''

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Why the links don't embed properly? Can someone help?

 

[dorispulaski]

All YouTube's embed like that, sad to say. It is due to the way YouTube sets them up.

If you want only the link to show, unfurl has to be listed as false.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejHPxw_g2Z0

If you want to put more descriptive info in, you have to type in the link info yourself.

Domnina & Shabalin 2010 Europeans CD

If you want to show it as a playable video, pick the icon of 2 pictures from the tool bar, paste in the YouTube link and hit Continue.

 

[Princessroja]

Kaitlyn Hawayek and Nathan Chen are the two people that come to mind. Kaitlyn was of course always compared to Jean-Luc, whose skating skills were fabulous, but she did a pretty good job closing that gap as much as she could. Chen was such a jumps only guy at the beginning of his career, and he really worked hard to change that image over time.

 

[yfan1]

This thread is actually pretty good because it affords the opportunity to think through. Nathan always had good basics and did good step sequences. What I disagree with actually is that these basics were ever taken to a particularly noteworthy extent. He also never developed particularly amazing glide, and it made him look heavy.

 

[LeReveur]

Surya Bonaly never became Yuka Sato, but she did improve her skating skills over time.

 

[Mista Ekko]

Olympic champions Shen & Zhao rose up to World podium level in 98-99
and were seen as inferior artistically to their competitors (B\S, and later on S\P)
to the point where their second mark (Started under the 6.0 system) was dropped so that
they could go clean and still not get the win even if the others made a mistake,
going into the infamous 2002 Olympics they had to train (and fail attempt) a throw 4Sal
in their FS just to have any kind of shot to shine against their competitors

By the time they won their 2nd consecutive world title in 2003 it seemed
like the tables have turned and now they were the second mark standard,
at the 2004 worlds they even got 10 6.0s on that mark (Last year of
the 6.0 system, judges were generous )

Going into the IJS and until their eventual Olympic title in 2010
they were top of the pile for components (whenever not dealing with injury).