Vladislav Dikidzhi lands quad Axel

[Mathematician]

The skepticism is about this part:
Vladislav and his coach Oleg Tataurov told media that he hadn't attempted the 4A until today.

I had heard rumours since a bit ago that he has been working on a 4A for a while. I dont know exactly what the difference between "working" on a 4A is and attempting one. I cant imagine he never attempted a 4A before this post.

Nevermind, I just saw the post about his harness training. I think its possible then that he could've landed it on his first dry attempt. Very impressive but not impossible.

 

[Skating91]

Just because a woman has some difficult jumps does not make them “one of the best skaters in history.” Its figure skating, not ice jumping.

A quad flip requires more skating skills than a twizzle.

 

[DancingCactus]

You sure about that?

 

[kolyadafan2002]

A quad flip requires more skating skills than a twizzle.

I dont agree/disagree, but a twizzle (on its own without other context, i.e. entrance/exit edges and turns) isn't really representative of skating skills, and neither is a 4F. Both are representative of specific technique. If you train twizzles a lot, and have good core strength, then you can have poor skating skills and good twizzles. Likewise with 4F (with 4F obviously having significantly more physical difficulty, and difficulty to train).

 

[Skating91]

I dont agree/disagree, but a twizzle (on its own without other context, i.e. entrance/exit edges and turns) isn't really representative of skating skills, and neither is a 4F. Both are representative of specific technique. If you train twizzles a lot, and have good core strength, then you can have poor skating skills and good twizzles. Likewise with 4F (with 4F obviously having significantly more physical difficulty, and difficulty to train).

How many women in the world have ever jumped a quad flip, and how many have completed a twizzle?

 

[lariko]

I am worried Russians would put pressure on him to do it in a competition without much prep. He has summer to see if it is ready, and that's good, but this year they had an explosion in senior quads, which is bound to have injury repercussions. I mean, Yablokov is already dancing after 4Lo, and Dikidzhi doesn't have that to fall back on.

 

[AlexBreeze]

I mean, Yablokov is already dancing after 4Lo

Yablokov has never been a jumper. Most quads he ever landed are q and ur. I don't know why he went for all these quads. He got better scores without them including 170 with only one quad attempt that wasn't clean.

Dikidzhi has competely different technique. However, he has already said on his TikTok live that he doesn't intend to include 4A in his programs so far because of its low BV.

But he made a bet with Galliamov that he would land a quint by the end of the summer.

 

[Mathman]

I vote for the twizzle. Historically figure skating means gliding and spinning -- the two things that a person can do better on ice than on the ground. Jumping -- well, OK , as a choreogrphic highlight.

To me, "how many people can do something" is not always a useful question. Not many people can tie a skate to the top of their head and do a trhee turn upside down. It would sure be entertaining if they could, though.

 

[lariko]

Nobody stops anyone from doing twizzles. But everyone is so gang-ho against jumps, because 200 years ago they did figures. Why the masses don't watch ice dance and synchronized skating, I would never know. Next stop, we replace all music with Vivaldi and earlier, because God forbid something changes. God forbid!

 

[Mathman]

Next stop, we replace all music with Vivaldi...

â 2008 Nationals FS Patrick Chan (CBC)

2008 Canadian Figure Skating ChampionshipsVancouver, BC. Jan 16-20, 2008 Men's Free Skating "The Four Seasons"

www.youtube.com

 

[TallyT]

Nobody stops anyone from doing twizzles. But everyone is so gang-ho against jumps, because 200 years ago they did figures. Why the masses don't watch ice dance and synchronized skating, I would never know. Next stop, we replace all music with Vivaldi and earlier, because God forbid something changes. God forbid!

Rubbish. No one is against jumps, they are simply against the sport turning into all (and all too many of them all quite unattractive, prerotated or whatever) jumps because the jumpmeisters all came from powerful feds and so that was all the ISU rewarded. But if people want to watch boingboingboing there are perfectly good pogo stick comps.

Triples and quads are impressive but not intrinstically attractive or exciting or even interesting to watch (I know, novel thought) the skater has to make them so, and some do but those now getting skyhigh PCS and GOE really, too often, don't.

 

[Skating91]

Rubbish. No one is against jumps, they are simply against the sport turning into all (and all too many of them all quite unattractive, prerotated or whatever) jumps because the jumpmeisters all came from powerful feds and so that was all the ISU rewarded. But if people want to watch boingboingboing there are perfectly good pogo stick comps.

Triples and quads are impressive but not intrinstically attractive or exciting or even interesting to watch (I know, novel thought) the skater has to make them so, and some do but those now getting skyhigh PCS and GOE really, too often, don't.

I've just watched a women's program where there where the top two had fundamental errors with multiple jump elements but the judges missed it. Where 4th place once again had a clear wrong edge on the lutz take off but the judges felt cowed and gave it a not clear edge. But apparently that's okay with figure skating fans. Everyone in this comp was also prerotating massively especially on the second jump of a combo. But fans don't seem too bothered which is rather strange.

However if someone doesn't get an unclear edge call on their 4Lz, we never here the end of it. They still talk about it years later.

 

[Skating91]

I vote for the twizzle. Historically figure skating means gliding and spinning -- the two things that a person can do better on ice than on the ground. Jumping -- well, OK , as a choreogrphic highlight.

To me, "how many people can do something" is not always a useful question. Not many people can tie a skate to the top of their head and do a trhee turn upside down. It would sure be entertaining if they could, though.

I give you credit for being committed to the cause of dismissing revolutionary technical content.

A 4F is so difficult and requires so much skill on the ice that only several women have ever accomplished it in the history of the world. It requires an combination of skill and athleticism that few on the planet have ever possessed.

But yes something every ice dancer does is more difficult.

 

[Mathman]

A quad loop is difficult.

Now let's get on to the question of what a superior figure skating performance should consist of. No one hates or dismisses hard jumps. This does not stop us from favoring programs that present the entire range of figure skating skills.

Figure skating means performing on ice. What can a person do on an essentially frictionless sheet of ice that he or she cannot do (and do better) on dry land? Two things. Glide and spin.

As for jumping, a cougar (mountain lion) can leap to a height of 7 meters. But this is not figure skating. In my opinion the most "figure-skatingest" part of jumps is landing on a beautifully controlled flowing edge. I think that this should be valued more than it is, while still acknowledging that other skating skills are also involved in the preparation and takeoff. What I object to are scoring rules that discourage the full palette of this unique sport. A skater who jumps a quad flip AND a quad loop AND a quad Lutz AND an quad Axel, good for him. Mow throw in some eye-popping spins and gorgeous moves in the field, woven together with inspired choreography and thrilling presentation and you've got something! Do a few quads AND a few twizzles. But why dismiss twizzles with the put-down, "even a mere -- ugh, yuck -- oce dancer can do them."

Let a thousand flowers bloom.

 

[kolyadafan2002]

How many women in the world have ever jumped a quad flip, and how many have completed a twizzle?

It's not even a debate, quad flip is much harder, and I am super impressed by anybody landing quads, it's not something I was ever close to accomplishing as a man (triples were very much my technical limit). I'm not by any means diminishing any level of quad, it's incredible to me.

But for me, it's not something representative of general skating skills (the prerequisite is having stability over a relatively flat inside edge). Then again, the same I would say for twizzles not being representative of general skating skills.

For me, a skater doing clean programs landing 4A should beat a skater without quads. Because they excel in 1 area (jumping), vs other skaters being weak in that area. And as a sport, technical is important, even if the other skaters excel in other areas.

But for me, skaters like Yuma Kagiyama who have everything (quads, skating skills, spins) should be ahead of skaters who excell in one area (jumping), and neglect the others. It is possible to excel in every area, as shown by skaters like Yuma. Even if the excellence in jumping isn't as high as Malinin, the fact is there is still excellence there, in addition to other areas.

 

[gkelly]

The rotating-in-the-air aspect of executing a quad jump is much more difficult than the rotating-on-ice aspect of executing a quad twizzle.

No question about that.

But if the question is about the skating skills specifically, then it's not so clearcut.

Suppose you took an athlete from another sport who had already mastered the ability to rotate 4 times in the air and just taught them to do crossovers and maybe simple three turns on the ice at sufficient speed to jump high enough for a quad, and to hold a backward outside edge for the landing. They might be able to jump a quad flip or other quad jump on the ice.

Crossovers and three turns and back outside edges on their own are beginning figure skating skills, but this new-to-ice athlete would need to master those three skills to quite a high level to be able to jump high enough to rotate the quad and to be able to control the landing.

Nevertheless, the hard part of the quad jump is the rotations in the air, which is not a skating skill per se.

If we're asking who had better skating skills, someone who can do easy on-ice skills with high enough quality to support difficult above-ice acrobatic skills, or someone who has mastered a variety of difficult on-ice skills, then the answer would be different.

In general, high-level ice dancers have better on-ice skating skills than high-level singles skaters.

If someone literally could do nothing than skate crossovers around the rink and jump quads, they could earn a lot of points for those jumps in the current system, but next to no points for anything else. They would be an excellent ice jumper but a deficient skater.

But fortunately, the best quad-jumping singles skaters also want to win their events with more than just air rotations, so they also develop a greater repertoire of skating skills than just the simple skills needed to be performed at speed to support the quads.

The debate is whether it's appropriate for the difficult above-ice skills to be worth so much that it's possible to earn high scores without actually developing advanced on-ice skills as well.

 

[Mathman]

Suppose you took an athlete from another sport who had already mastered the ability to rotate 4 times in the air and just taught them to do crossovers and maybe simple three turns on the ice at sufficient speed to jump high enough for a quad..

As always, a balanced and thoughtful post.

Axel Poulsen was mainly a speed skater, holding the world championship in that sport from 1882 to 1890. He also competed in figure skating wearing speed-skating boots and in fact is credited with inventing a technique for attaching a steel blade permanently to a skating boot. He cpild skate so fast that he was able to produce the "hang time" necessarily to rotate in the air.

Denise Biellmann was the first lady to do a triple Lutz, but she is a figure skating legend because of her spins. (Although she did receive the ISU's the first ever ladies' 6.0 for technical merit when she did the jump at 1978 Europeans, finishing 4th overall.)

OT, I suppose, but Biellmann still performs at age 61. Just last week (March 16, 2024) she was featured as a guest star at the Berlin Holidays of Ice show.

Denise Biellmann Official on Instagram: "NEWS‼️ Happy to be back in Holiday on Ice - Gueststar in Berlin next Month⛸️ #comeback #holidayonice #show #emotions #denisebiellmann #biellmann #figureskating #showtime #eislaufen #patinageartistique #iceskat

465 likes, 68 comments - denisebiellmann on February 24, 2024: "NEWS‼️ Happy to be back in Holiday on Ice - Gueststar in Berlin next Month⛸️ #comeback #holidayonice #show #emotions #denisebiell..."

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