page_title: Figure skating jumps
section_title: Axel jump
hierarchical_section_title: Figure skating jumps / Types of jumps / Axel jump
caption_attribution_description: English: Mirai Nagasu at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
context_page_description: Figure skating jumps are an element of three competitive figure skating disciplines—men's singles, ladies' singles, and pair skating but not ice dancing. Jumping in figure skating is "relatively recent". They were originally individual compulsory figures, and sometimes special figures; many jumps were named after the skaters who invented them or from the figures from which they were developed. It was not until the early part of the twentieth century, well after the establishment of organized skating competitions, when jumps with the potential of being completed with multiple revolutions were invented and when jumps were formally categorized. In the 1920s, Austrian skaters began to perform the first double jumps in practice. Skaters experimented with jumps, and by the end of the period, the modern repertoire of jumps had been developed. Jumps did not have a major role in free skating programs during international competitions until the 1930s. During the post-war period and into the 1950s and early 1960s, triple jumps became more common for both male and female skaters, and a full repertoire of two-revolution jumps had been fully developed.
context_section_description: The Axel jump, also called the Axel Paulsen jump for its creator, Norwegian figure skater Axel Paulsen, is an edge jump.  It is figure skating's oldest and most difficult jump.  The Axel jump is the most studied jump in figure skating.  It is the only jump that begins with a forward takeoff, which makes it the easiest jump to identify.  A double or triple Axel is required in both the short programs and free skating programs for junior and senior single skaters in all ISU competitions.
  The Axel has an extra half rotation, which, as figure skating expert Hannah Robbins states, makes a triple Axel "more a quadruple jump than a triple".  Sports reporter Nora Princiotti states, about the triple Axel, "It takes incredible strength and body control for a skater to get enough height and to get into the jump fast enough to complete all the rotations before landing with a strong enough base to absorb the force generated".  According to American skater Mirai Nagasu, "falling on the triple Axel is really brutal".
  In competitions, the base value of a single Axel is 1.10; the base value of a double Axel is 3.30; the base value of a triple Axel is 8.00; and the base value of a quadruple Axel is 12.50. According to The New York Times, the triple Axel "has become more common for male skaters" to perform, although the quadruple Axel has not yet been successfully completed in competition.  As of 2019, 11 women have successfully completed the triple Axel in competition.
caption: American figure skater Mirai Nagasu, in 2010
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