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Mikimao t1_j69ph8t wrote

Reply to comment by tmobilekid in Levito wins first U.S. women's figure skating title by IslandChillin

Why exactly are her jumps problematic?

They are consistent, clearly fully rotated (By the standard with which she will be judged) and she maintains impeccable center over her right side as she rotates. Her coaches have done an excellent job with her jumps.

She is skating to the letter of the law, and she is executing that plan perfectly. I fail to see your argument without some more detail.

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hifrom2 t1_j69qvqa wrote

if you look at her jumps, particularly her toe jumps like lutz and flip, you can see she is very hunched over when picking. that indicates an excessive and unsustainable use of her back to generate power into her jumps instead of a more sustainable and healthy balance of using core, leg and upper body muscles. what her technique reminds us of is evgenia medvedeva’s, who was a young star who swept a bunch of awards for a few seasons as a teen but then got a back injury so severe that she now cannot even turn her back anymore. their technique simply cannot be tolerated by a non prepubescent frame and it becomes harder and harder on the back as they get older. ofc Isabeau has many great qualities about her (edges, performance quality, carriage over the ice, etc) but there’s just a lot of worry about her technique. she does seem to be making conscious efforts to improve her technique though (and her speed in and out of jumps)

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Mikimao t1_j69sz7l wrote

I don't disagree that her jump technique is an offshoot of what the Russians are doing, but it's exactly why I am picking on your interpretation too, it's generalizing, rather than looking at circumstances specific to her.

she jumps similarly to Medvedeva, but if you break down their timing by frame, you are going to see an ever so slightly different decent into the air, which is resulting in Isabeau landing well over her right really consistently, allowing way more of the wear and tear to be absorbed properly.

Her technique would be a huge worry, if she didn't land properly every time over her right side, or she had issues with not being able to control her edge on a landing. She would be causing a lot more wear and tear on her body, but these are basically never issues for her. She gently lands over her Right Back outside, solidly, every time.

Then I gotta point out, Medvedeva is what, a two time world champ and an Olympic Silver? If your comparison for her technique to be considered "bad" is someone who won worlds twice... I rest my case. Her jumps are excellent, and I stand by my original statement.

Or another way to look at it, I think a lot of people would say Yuna Kim has one of the great Lutz's in Women's skating history. She bent forward a bit for torque as well (and also dealt with, and recovered from back injuries) and I wouldn't have ever considered her jumps to be risky.

e: Btw, this is a touchy subject with me, coaches who teach inferior technique at the behest of trying to sell skaters something that isn't real is a real sore spot with me, that has directly contributed to the loss of business, and close relationships I have had within the sport. On some level, I will never get over that. I would scream from the mountain top if I felt this girls jumps were truly sending her on a path to a career ender... it's just not the case here. If I felt that she was a puberty away from losing it all, I would happily boast as such, she is gonna transition just fine.

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Lambily t1_j6ckexw wrote

>Then I gotta point out, Medvedeva is what, a two time world champ and an Olympic Silver? If your comparison for her technique to be considered "bad" is someone who won worlds twice... I rest my case. Her jumps are excellent, and I stand by my original statement.

Medvedeva is a prime example of the overwhelming amount of politics and corruption in the sport. I wouldn't shine a light on her successes in any argument other than to illustrate how much of a vice grip Russia has over the figure skating governing body. Her technique was absolutely abysmal in every way imaginable, yet she was rewarded endlessly for it. That isn't something to emulate. That is something the public should demand change from in the ISU.

As for Levito, watching her is like watching skating in 0.25x speed. Her telegraphed jumps are unwatchable to me. She has beautiful spirals and spins, but that's about the extent of her skating that I find palatable. It is very much like watching an Eteri girl minus the quads.

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Mikimao t1_j6d5rgq wrote

>I wouldn't shine a light on her successes in any argument other than to illustrate how much of a vice grip Russia has over the figure skating governing body.

Her success didn't come out of no where. She still went to, skated in, and won all of those events with elements that would be scored that way to the letter of the sport. Her technique isn't my favorite either, it isn't what I personally teach, but I can't deny how they would be called in any competition in the world.

It wasn't like she was missing those elements and winning, whatever corruption there was, and there was plenty, was still predicated on those girls going and landing their programs flawlessly, which in turn means those girls are landing those jumps when the pressure was on.... consistently.

Anyways, again, the point stands. If the complaint against Levito is she jumps like a two time World Champ, you aren't grasping what was really being said in my original comment. My point was, you can rely on her to land her stuff in competition, and the arguments against were splitting hairs because they don't like the lineage of the technique...

Clearly you understand why I, as a professional in the sport, couldn't be using that line of reasoning with say... one of my own athletes. To suggest she isn't going to be fully scored, and well, would be a major disservice to your ability to parse what is actually happening in the competition.

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Lambily t1_j6d6f57 wrote

The Japanese and Canadian ladies all had their Lutz edges miraculously called at the 2018 Olympics. Medvedeva? None. It's magical how judges develop astigmatism any time a Russian skates and 20/20 vision any time anyone else skates.

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Mikimao t1_j6dc78h wrote

>Medvedeva? None.

I mean, I could show you video evidence of exactly why she doesn't get a call. Just because a large group of people online feel a specific way, doesn't mean it's cheating. I am eligible to be on a technical panel, I've seen plenty of examples of her doing a "passable" lutz. It isn't a shock those who are actually on the technical panel see the same thing...

If we really want to talk about cheating, there was literally a doping scandal a year ago, one that directly correlates to two major advantages the Russians have at this moment, but this issue isn't one what is being put out on the ice. They are, for all intents and purposes, putting a lot of effort into ensuring what they do gets by, and they are throwing training time at it... and it shows.

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Lambily t1_j6dekbn wrote

What shows are the results of preferential treatment and rampant doping. Nothing more; nothing less. When you can physically train more because of "grandpa's water", you tend to get more consistent jumps. When a certain coach is taking out ISU judges out to expensive dinners before a competition, subjectivity is called into question.

Regardless, I suspect we won't be seeing eye to eye on this topic. I just threw in my two cents. Have a good one.

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Mikimao t1_j6di9un wrote

>When you can physically train more because of "grandpa's water", you tend to get more consistent jumps.

No disagreement, but then you have to make the next logical conclusion, because you can't have it both ways... They are either doping and it's getting results which then ties the hands of the judges (Hint: it's this one) or you can say they are getting favors that doesn't have to do with their skill... but not both. They wouldn't need to dope if they were getting rampant favors... they dope to ensure they have an advantage come time to look at things with a closer lens.

Then you really have to consider, you don't even know what you don't know. Do you understand how small of a world figure skating is? I am not a major player in the sport, and I personally know 5 of the 9 judges that were on the panel for the Women's free skate, two of which I competed against for years, lol. If some yahoo on reddit who is involved can know half the panel just by happenstance, what are the odds the coaches with people in the actual even know EVERYONE? I can assure you, it's 100%.

Hell, even as a developing skater myself, the number of times an official took me aside and told me things off the record couldn't even be counted on one hand. What you are describing is just part of daily life in the sport. The deeper in you are, the more everyone just knows everyone and who they know... it's just how it is, everywhere.

Do you really think the well connected US coaches, like say Artunian, are just sticking their head in the sand and don't know inside out who the people on the panel are? Or do you maybe think they have done a little greasing of the wheels also, and what Eteri does with the officials she has influence on isn't all that different then what I have personally seen coaches in the US do... you are describing a standard practice, for better or worse. Not a specific offense of the Russians.

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