Yuna Kim's 3S-2T at Worlds 2007 | Golden Skate

Yuna Kim's 3S-2T at Worlds 2007

NadezhdaNadya

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 22, 2017
Ok. So I have been wondering about this for more than 2 years. In 2007 Worlds FS Yuna Kim's 3S-2T combination was rulled invalid. I know for sure that 2T was indeed invalid since she had two 3Lzes and one of them was a repetition - the second Lz should have been a part of a combination. So again it is completely normal for her 2T to be invalid. But what about her 3S - why was this jump invalid too? In 2017 World SP Yuzuru Hanyu put a combination jump to a jump he executed unsuccessfully. Guess what - only the second jump in this combination was ruled invalid. So why a whole combination was invalid in Yuna's FS?
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Under the rules at the time, if one jump in a combination was invalid, the whole combination was invalidated.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
The way the rule worked at that time, if a triple jump (or quad) jump was repeated but neither time in combination or sequence, the second occurrence was called as +SEQ, the jump was scored at 80% of its base value as if it were an actual jump sequence, and it filled one of the three jump combo/sequence slots.

Therefore, the real reason that the 3S+2T was invalidated was because it was the fourth combo or sequence and only three are allowed.

My best guess as to why she did this is that she had been planning to put a 2T on the end of one of the lutzes. After she fell on both of them, she must have been thinking that she could make up for it by doing another combination, forgetting that one of the failed lutzes was going to count as a sequence.

It's hard to think on one's feet and remember all the relevant rules in the middle of a program that isn't going according to plan. Especially when rules change every few years.

Nobunari Oda was notorious for repeating too many jumps or doing too many combos and losing whole elements as a result. One such extra jump error cost him a trip to 2006 Olympics, but he had several other counting errors in later years.

I don't remember exactly when, but within the next few years after this the rules changed again so that for repeated jumps with neither in combo the second one was called as +REP (a brand new designation) with 70% of its base value, but it didn't fill a combo/sequence box. Also at that time or a couple years later it was decided that if one jump in a combination was ruled invalid, the skater could still earn points for the other jump.
 
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