- Joined
- Jul 31, 2003
icenut84 said:The "Mike Pike" is something that, actually, almost every skater learns. In the US it's called a shoot-the-duck, in the UK it's called a teapot, and I think it has a few other names too. Skaters almost always have to learn it (unfortunately!!). They're not done at the elite level that often, but some skaters do do them, such as doing them as a transition into a jump (Nancy Kerrigan for one has done a backwards "mike pike" into a jump in her SP before, and I'm pretty sure others have done similar things too). It's certainly not somehting Mike Weiss invented, nor is it something that only he does. He does it very well, granted, but in relation to most skating moves at the elite level it is not among the most difficult.
As for the Biellmann spin, I don't know if Denise Biellmann actually invented it or whether she just popularised it because it became her trademark. Every time this issue is brought up, people say that actually other skaters did it before her - one poster has already mentioned one, but I'm sure I've read that Tamara Moskvina used to do it when she was a skater too, which of course was before Denise's time.
Long before Denise Biellman did that spin, Tamara Moskvina (yes, the same one!) had done it as a singles skater. However, it did not get the recognition. Denise Biellman's spin did. Hence the name Biellman.
Vash