Flutz and Lip timeline | Golden Skate

Flutz and Lip timeline

qwerty

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
An idle topic, since it's still off season.

Which came first, the lip or the flutz? By "came" I mean penalized by the judges/noticed by picky viewers, etc.

From what I gather, the flutz dialogue intensified during the Bobek/Kwan/Lipinski era, particularly when comparing the latter two.

My assumption is that the lip was not discussed quite so much, until IJS started doing "e" calls. Is that accurate, or was it a contentious thing earlier?
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I think that's pretty much true.

Even in the 1970s I was aware that changing to an inside edge on the lutz takeoff was an error to be avoided, but I never heard anyone at my rink call it flutz in those days. When I came back to skating as an adult in the early 1990s, that term was definitely in use within the skating community. And the error would have been something judges were penalizing for all along.

As far as I know there wasn't much concern about flip takeoff edges, which were generally expected to be shallow inside edges but could be deep inside edges. I think Dick Button or someone did make a negative comment about Surya Bonaly taking off from a flat, but I think the focus was more on making the preceding "3" turn on a flat (i.e., not really 3-shaped) than the takeoff itself.

I don't think flutzing was ever discussed much by TV commentators before the Bobek/Kwan/Lipinski era, and not with the word "flutz."

Which was also the beginning of the Internet skating fan discussion era. Fans who also skated talked about flutzes, and I think the term "lip" was coined by skating fans in parallel to the term "flutz" (remove the f instead of adding it), and then that usage spread from fan forums to rinks instead of the other way around.

As far as I know edge changes/wrong edges on flips were not a serious concern among judges or skaters/coaches before IJS.
 

draqq

FigureSkatingPhenom
Record Breaker
Joined
May 10, 2010
I've heard the term flutz before the lip. Wrong takeoff edges were considered before the Kwan/Lipinski era, but even then they didn't really make too much of a difference unless the judges were splitting hairs. I could see a judge giving a tenth off in the technical program for a jump that had a severe edge change. It wasn't one of those mandatory deductions if I remember correctly back in the day. So I'm actually glad that the IJS has effectively rooted out wrong edge take-offs as time has passed for the most part (still have some that go uncalled).
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I've heard the term flutz before the lip. Wrong takeoff edges were considered before the Kwan/Lipinski era, but even then they didn't really make too much of a difference unless the judges were splitting hairs. I could see a judge giving a tenth off in the technical program for a jump that had a severe edge change.

The range of deduction wrong edge takeoff in the short program was 0.1 to 0.3 by the later 1990s. I haven't seen the deduction sheets from early 90s or 80s, but I doubt the penalty was smaller.

http://www.iceskatingintnl.com/archive/rules/deduct1.htm

We have no way of knowing whether any given judge deducted specifically for a wrong edge takeoff, or if so whether they gave the smallest or largest (or middle) deduction in the specified range. The difference between the Required Elements and the Presentation marks might give a clue.

Do wrong edges explain any of these scores?
http://www.icecalc.com/events/owg2002/results/SEG003.HTM
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
As far as I know edge changes/wrong edges on flips were not a serious concern among judges or skaters/coaches before IJS.

I think in the early 1990s, when both jumps became necessary for top competitors, flutzes and lips were somewhat uncommon. Marina Kiehlmann is the only skater I can think of before Bobek that had a bad flutz. Meanwhile, a lot of skaters in that era had correct take-offs. If I recall correctly, none of Ito, Harding, Yamaguchi, Kerrigan, Baiul, Bonaly, Chen, Sato, Chouinard, or Shevchenko had issues. It seems that if skaters couldn't do the jump properly, they just didn't do it. Once the judges exhibited leniency there, maybe coaches thought doing the jump improperly was better than not doing it at all. I would say, without question, the proportion of top skaters with these problems exceeds that of the group from around 1993, although overall the skaters are executing so much more difficulty now.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I think in the early 1990s, when both jumps became necessary for top competitors, flutzes and lips were somewhat uncommon.

Triple flips and lutzes were rare among ladies before the early 1990s. During the figures era, only skaters who excelled at those takeoffs bothered trying to master the respective triples.

And men tend to have an easier time with taking off lutzes from a strong outside edge.

So yeah, we/judges didn't often see wrong edges on triple lutzes before 20-25 years ago. And if some men were taking off triple flips from outside edges as well, I'm not aware that anyone cared at that time.

But there were plenty of single and double flutzes by lower level skaters during that period, which is where the term must have originated. And judges were seeing them and penalizing them. But fans rarely got to see them. Senior ladies who didn't have strong lutzes weren't trying to master the triple and could often afford to omit the double from their programs if they had a few easier triples and doubles of everything else including the axel to fill out the rest of the jump content.

Then by the mid-90s, all the junior and senior ladies who aspired to good placements aimed to master all five 3-revolution jumps if possible. And if not possible, it seemed many would prioritize the lutz over loop or flip in the belief that including the hardest (non-axel) triple in their short programs would put them in a better position in terms of start value. And all the juveniles and intermediates (to use US names for those levels) were trying to get double lutzes into their programs as soon as possible without necessarily spending time to first perfect the single.

That's also when we started getting skaters reaching junior and senior levels without having trained high-level figures . . . and a few years later, without having trained figures at all. So any figures-related skills that the early-90s seniors you name had learned to assist with holding counterrotation on the back outside edge were no longer seen in the next generation that came of age around the turn of the century.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
So any figures-related skills that the early-90s seniors you name had learned to assist with holding counterrotation on the back outside edge were no longer seen in the next generation that came of age around the turn of the century.

That makes sense. Kiehlmann, like Lipinski, was originally a roller skater, so perhaps that explains some of her problems with the takeoff edge.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
The range of deduction wrong edge takeoff in the short program was 0.1 to 0.3 by the later 1990s. I haven't seen the deduction sheets from early 90s or 80s, but I doubt the penalty was smaller.

http://www.iceskatingintnl.com/archive/rules/deduct1.htm

We have no way of knowing whether any given judge deducted specifically for a wrong edge takeoff, or if so whether they gave the smallest or largest (or middle) deduction in the specified range. The difference between the Required Elements and the Presentation marks might give a clue.

Do wrong edges explain any of these scores?
http://www.icecalc.com/events/owg2002/results/SEG003.HTM

AFAIK it wasn't accounted for significantly. Kwan had what was obviously a flutz and her technical marks didn't exactly reflect it.

Hughes had an even more obvious one - maybe some judges took it into account?

Much like these days if you aren't one of the top skaters or most popular you'll get deducted more. A couple judges were quite generous to Slutskaya and Kwan in the FS on the technical mark for example.

Side note: I wonder what the judge who put Hughes in 10th after the SP thinks of her gold medal?! :laugh:
 

lyverbird1

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
As an aside to this thread, I remember watching a clip of Lipinski in Nagano and the Australian commentator was very tactful with her commentary on the replay - "There might be some 'chat' about the change of edge going into that lutz...". That made me laugh a little at the time but since then I've been paying a lot of attention to lutz and flip edges...
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
AFAIK it wasn't accounted for significantly. Kwan had what was obviously a flutz and her technical marks didn't exactly reflect it.

Hughes had an even more obvious one - maybe some judges took it into account?

Much like these days if you aren't one of the top skaters or most popular you'll get deducted more. A couple judges were quite generous to Slutskaya and Kwan in the FS on the technical mark for example.

Side note: I wonder what the judge who put Hughes in 10th after the SP thinks of her gold medal?! :laugh:

It's hard to say whether, and to what extent, judges took it into account. Hughes did not earn a single 5.9 in winning her OGM, but in the LP she skated before the three skaters who placed ahead of her in the SP so the judges needed to leave plenty of room in the marks. Lipinski earned six 5.9s in her Nagano LP for tech merit, so with two flutzes, each cost her at most a half tenth each (and that's assuming she'd get 6.0s with correct lutzes, which is doubtful given some of her other technical deficiencies like the 2A and overall small jumps).
 

Lipea

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Who among the current senior ladies can do clean edge on lutz and flip? I honestly cannot recall anyone but Tuktamysheva.
 

cohen-esque

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
AFAIK it wasn't accounted for significantly. Kwan had what was obviously a flutz and her technical marks didn't exactly reflect it.

Hughes had an even more obvious one - maybe some judges took it into account?

Much like these days if you aren't one of the top skaters or most popular you'll get deducted more. A couple judges were quite generous to Slutskaya and Kwan in the FS on the technical mark for example.

Side note: I wonder what the judge who put Hughes in 10th after the SP thinks of her gold medal?! :laugh:
I’m sure I can remember Kwan getting SP deductions for flutzing at least several times (or at least, the commentators pointed it out as a potential issue and then she had lower Tech marks you’d expect otherwise). But Kwan’s flutz varied in severity: every once in a while she got it clean, and most would probably be “!” now, then a few “e.”

The SP panel in 2002 was really very stingy: Hughes got:

5.1, 5.2, 5.2, 5.3, 5.3, 5.5, 5.5, 5.6, 5.6

I’m sure those judges all deducted for the flutz, and also for some combination of I think her under-rotations and insufficient ice coverage in the steps/spiral patterns. I think Sasha lost marks in the flutz (and steps), as well, and so did Kwan from a few judges (5.5s and 5.6s).

OTOH I don’t believe Plushenko lost points for his lip.

Who among the current senior ladies can do clean edge on lutz and flip? I honestly cannot recall anyone but Tuktamysheva.

Kostner has landed both this season.
 

Spirals for Miles

Anna Shcherbakova is my World Champion
Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 25, 2017
Who among the current senior ladies can do clean edge on lutz and flip? I honestly cannot recall anyone but Tuktamysheva.

Kostner, Tsurskaya, Sotskova, Zagitova
In juniors, Trusova's good at both
 
Top