What is a triple axel? | Reference.com What is a triple axel? A: Quick Answer A triple Axel is the only figure skating triple jump with a takeoff that starts from a front outside edge. This challenging and physically demanding jump requires three-and-a-half rotations to be performed while the skater is in the air. The Axel jump was invented by Axel Paulsen. Full Answer As of 2014, only six female figure skaters have completed a triple Axel in competition: Midori Ito, Yukari Nakano, Mao Asada, Tonya Harding, Ludmila Nelidina and Kimmie Meisner. Mao Asada is the only female skater to perform three triple Axels in a single competition. Many Olympic-level male figure skaters perform the triple Axel. The International Judging System assigns the triple Axel jump a base value of 8.5 points. figure skating | History & Competitions | Britannica.com Scott Hamilton: Training for Olympic Gold Figure skating, sport in which ice skaters, singly or in pairs, perform freestyle movements of jumps, spins, lifts, and footwork in a graceful manner.

Its name derives from the patterns (or figures) skaters make on the ice, an element that was a major part of the sport until recently. There are various kinds of figure skating, including freestyle, pairs, ice dance, and synchronized team skating. The style of competition, as well as the moves and techniques of the skaters, varies for each category of skating. Figure skating has become one of the most popular sports of the Winter Olympics. Kurt Browning (Canada) performing his winning program at the 1989 World Championships in Paris. Yann Guichaoua—Vandystadt/Allsport History Pioneers of the sport A Treatise on Skating (1772) by Robert Jones , an Englishman, is apparently the first account of figure skating. The sport had a cramped and formal style until American Jackson Haines introduced his free and expressive techniques based on dance movement in the mid-1860s. Although popular in Europe, Haines’s style (called the International style) did not catch on in the United States until long after he had died at the age of 35. In the early 20th century, Americans Irving Brokaw and George H.

Browne helped formalize the style created by Haines by demonstrating it to American audiences. Brokaw, the first American to represent the country at international competitions, participated in the 1908 Olympics, where he finished sixth. Browne, who organized the first U.S. championships in 1914 for men, women, and pairs, wrote two important books on skating and was involved in the establishment of a national skating organization. Canadian Louis Rubenstein , a former student of Jackson Haines, was also instrumental in the development of figure skating. He led the effort to formalize competitions and tests by establishing governing bodies for skating in the United States and Canada . He helped organize the Amateur Skating Association of Canada (now called Skate Canada) and the National Amateur Skating Association of the United States. The latter organization and the International Skating Union of America (founded in 1914), which had American and Canadian members, were the predecessors of the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA), founded in 1921.

Established with only seven skating clubs across the nation, by the 21st century it oversaw more than 400 clubs with some 100,000 members. Similar Topics World War II During the Cold War (1947–89), judges tended to vote in East-West blocs, a practice that influenced the outcomes of some close competitions. The Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Austria often voted as a unit, while the United States, Canada, Japan, Great Britain, and Italy often showed support for athletes from their countries. However, not all the judging that was alleged to have been politically motivated was necessarily so; some preferences were simply a matter of taste. For instance, judges from the eastern bloc countries have long displayed a preference for classical music and balletic choreography over music and dance that contained more pop-cultural themes. Although this situation has moderated since the early 1990s, some voting along political and cultural lines continues. The evolution of increasingly difficult jumps continues to be a hallmark of the sport.

Triple jumps, for example, became significant for men and women in the 1980s, and quadruple jumps became increasingly more important for men in the 1990s. The triple axel, the most difficult triple jump, was first landed in competition by Canadian Vern Taylor at the 1978 World Championships in Ottawa. Eleven years later, at the world championships in Paris, Midori Ito of Japan became the first woman to complete the jump. Canadian Kurt Browning , the first person to complete a quadruple jump, landed a quad toe loop at the 1988 World Championships in Budapest. Elvis Stojko , also a Canadian, holds two records with respect to the quad; he was the first to land a quad in combination with a double toe loop (at the 1991 World Championships in Munich) and with a triple toe loop (at the 1997 Champions Series final in Munich). Timothy Goebel , an American, completed the first quad salchow in 1998 at the Junior Grand Prix finals.

He also was the first to land three quads in one program, two quad salchows and one quad toe loop at the 2001 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Boston. The 1990s were a tumultuous decade for figure skating. The elimination of compulsory figures from competition in 1991 gave an advantage to the more athletic freestyle skaters. Until the late 1980s, skaters who were good at figures could win competitions without having strong freestyle-skating techniques, since compulsory figures were the most important part of the sport. They constituted 60 percent of the total score at national and international championships held in the 1960s but had been reduced to 50 percent by 1968. The short program was introduced in 1973, and at that time figures were reduced to 40 percent of the score. Over the next 17 years, the ISU continued to reduce the weight of figures until they were eliminated completely from international competitions after the 1990 World Championships in Halifax, Nova Scotia .

Proponents of figures said they developed fine edge control, balance, and footwork, while critics thought them boring and mundane , compared with the athleticism and beauty of freestyle skating. Another change occurred in the 1990s with the rules dividing professionals and amateurs. Since then the ISU has allowed amateurs, even at the lower levels of novice and junior, to earn money from endorsements and in ISU-sanctioned events. The ISU created a new system of eligibility: skaters who were “eligible” for ISU-sanctioned events, including worlds and the Olympics, and those who were not (“ineligible”). Ineligible skaters, buoyed by high television ratings, entered professional competitions with prize money and starred in their own professional ice shows. Television became very significant for skating. Nowhere was that more evident than in 1994 when skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the kneecap by an advocate of Kerrigan’s competitor Tonya Harding at the U.S. nationals in Detroit. International interest in the situation translated into high television ratings at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

The women’s short program was watched by millions of spectators as Harding competed against Kerrigan, the eventual Olympic silver-medal winner. As figure skating entered the 21st century, the level of athleticism continued to rise, with more men performing quad jumps in both the short and long programs. Increasingly, the world-level women’s champions were expected to have triple-triple jump combinations (two consecutive triple jumps) in their long programs. However, the top skaters achieved success only by combining difficult jumps with artistic and elegant skating. Some believe that, with the growing emphasis on jumps, good skating is declining. Compulsory figures provided excellent training in edge work and balance, and the difficulty of figures made it hard for skaters to move up quickly through the levels of skating. Today, very few skaters practice figures; a typical eligible skater can look awkward compared with the best ineligible performers, even though he or she may have superior jumping skills. Although there have always been young competitors, the rule changes encouraged younger females to move up the ranks faster, since little girls can achieve triples quickly, thanks to their narrow hips and lightweight bodies.

Lipinski, the youngest ever to win an Olympic gold medal, was only the beginning of this trend, which 16-year-old American Sarah Hughes continued by winning the Olympic gold medal at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City . Although American Michelle Kwan moved up to the senior level at age 12, she did not win her first world championship until 1996, when she was 16. “Older” skaters such as Kwan and Maria Butyrskaya (who at age 27 won a gold medal at the 1999 World Championships in Helsinki) now compete against younger skaters because the great equalizer, compulsory figures, is gone. Wider hips and heavier bodies are harder to control in the air, but what the older women may lack in athleticism they can often make up in elegance and overall skating and competitive experience. Equipment and technique Boots and blades Skaters wear leather boots, sometimes custom-fitted, reinforced with thick padding to brace the ankle and with wide tongues for control and flexibility. The figure skate ’s blade is about 3/16 inch (4 mm) thick.

It is hollow-ground to emphasize its two edges, although the skater usually uses only one edge at a time. The front of the blade, called the toe pick, contains serrations, which are planted into the ice and help the skater in certain jumps. The blade also allows the skater to pivot quickly on the ice in order to perform rapid 360-degree spins. Ice dancers wear skates with shorter blades and looser padding to facilitate quick foot movement. Figure skating and ice dancing Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Figures and moves in the field Figure-skating movements are performed on either the inside (the edge nearer the inside of the foot) or the outside edge of the blade while moving forward or backward. Most movements are based on what are called school figures , the elements of which are curves and turns performed in a precise manner to form two or three connected circles. Figures have many degrees of difficulty and develop edge control, balance, and turning skills on a single skate over a small area of ice called a patch. For mastering figures the USFSA required a skater to complete nine tests. In all there were more than three dozen separate figures to perfect, and many had to be traced with each foot.

The simplest was the outside and inner figure 8, and the most difficult was the paragraph loop or the paragraph double three, which required two complete circles on one foot. “Moves in the field,” instituted after the elimination of figures, are intended to develop balance, power, stroking, extension, and edge skills. Starting with such basic edges as crossovers, spirals, and 3-turns, skaters progress to more intricate moves called mohawks, cross rolls, and edge pulls. However, unlike figures, which were confined to a small patch of ice, moves in the field are performed on the full extent of the ice. In the United States the USFSA requires skaters to complete eight tests of these moves in order to reach the top, or senior, level. Training and injuries Most beginning skaters, whether children or adults, enroll in classes where they learn such basic skills as falling down, standing up, and forward and backward crossovers. As skaters advance in skill level, they turn to private coaches to provide more in-depth instruction. Competitive skaters now spend more time on conditioning and weight training than they did in the 1970s and ’80s.

Because they no longer have to spend up to four hours a day practicing figures, they can now spend that time on freestyle skating. To counterbalance the additional stress, they do more off-ice training, including lifting weights, endurance conditioning, stretching, and dance. On a typical day a skater may spend two or three hours on the ice and two hours in adjunct training. The downside to the increased emphasis on athleticism is the increase in injuries. Skaters are also staying in the sport much longer than in the past, and this accounts for the high rate of injuries seen in male skaters starting in their late 20s. Triple axels and quads are very stressful on skaters’ ankles, knees, and backs. Younger skaters are also injured more frequently because they start attempting triple jumps at much earlier ages. Of course, medical care and technology are much more sophisticated as well, and all athletes are taking advantage of the medical advances. Conditioning, too, is starting at an earlier age, and it is hoped that this will cut down on injury rates. Some injuries will continue to occur, however, such as the fall that U.S. pairs skater Paul Binnebose took in September 1999.

He was practicing a lift with his partner when he fell backward, hitting his head on the ice. The injury nearly cost him his life, but he recovered enough to work as a skating coach. Now there is interest in requiring pairs skaters to wear special helmets in practice to prevent such catastrophic injuries. Page 1 of 3 figure skating - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) A popular form of ice skating, figure skating is a sport in which skaters, singly or in pairs, perform freestyle movements of jumps, spins, lifts, and footwork in a graceful manner. Its name derives from the patterns (or figures) skaters make on the ice, an element that was a major part of the sport until the late 20th century. There are various kinds of figure skating, including freestyle, pairs, ice dance, and synchronized team skating. Figure-skating events, held in the 1908 and 1920 Olympic Games, have constituted part of the Winter Olympics since they were inaugurated in 1924. Article Contributors Lutz or Flutz? The Tricky Physics of Figure Skating - by The Conversation UK Leave a Comment shares Figure skating is at once artistic, athletic and breathtaking.

Here’s a glimpse into the science that makes it so entertaining. — By Deborah King , Ithaca College Figure skating is always the highlight of the Winter Olympics. With the introduction of a team competition this year, there are five figure skating events. And we’ve already seen much drama with records broken and the retirement of veteran showman Evgeni Plushenko. He pulled out after badly landing a triple Axel – one of the sport’s signature jumps. Spectators often take the grace and beauty of figure skating for granted. But many don’t realise the speed, power and strength needed to complete the jumps and spins. Gliding across the ice and then springing into the air to rotate three or four times before landing lightly on a single tiny blade and gliding off again is an exact science. There are many types of jumps and each jump may be done in combination with another, but two fan favourites are the Axel and Lutz. The Axel This is my favourite jump. The Axel is the only jump where the skater faces forward as they take off the ice. They start by gliding backward, but then step forward and jump into the air, driving forward and upward with their arms and leg. It is a powerful jump where athletes gain great heights.

The Axel jump. Because they are facing forward at take-off, the skaters have an extra half revolution to do before they land (all figure skating jumps land backward). So a triple Axel is really three and a half revolutions in the air. To turn so many times it is critical that skaters pull their arms and legs into a tight pencil like position. Crossing their ankles, pressing their legs tightly together and holding their elbows and hands tight against their chest, this minimises the resistance they create with the air. The tighter a skater is, the faster they can rotate. If an arm or foot is sticking out, the mass of the arm or foot is too far from their axis of rotation and slows down the spin. Easy in principle, in reality they have to fight to keep their arms and legs in tight. Skaters must use their muscles to create centripetal force, which pulls objects towards the axis of rotation, keeping them on a circular path. If they relax, their arms and feet will want to keep moving straight and will get flung outward. Men tend to perform triple Axels, women normally doubles. But look out for a triple Axel from Japan’s Mao Asada .

She was the first woman to land a triple Axel in competition and plans to nail it again this year in pursuit of gold in the women’s free program. David Jenkins does a triple Axel for the cameras in 1957 The Lutz Mao Asada mid-Lutz. Shizuo Kambayashi/AP You will see triple and quadruple Lutzes. A feature of the Lutz that makes it challenging from a scientific standpoint is the entry. Skaters must do a long backward glide on the outside edge of one foot as they approach the jump, causing them to arc clockwise if they are on their left foot and anticlockwise if they are on their right. Then, they reach back with the other foot, tap the toe-pick into the ice and vault off it, turning in the opposite direction to the arc in the air. This initial “counter rotation” helps skaters gain angular momentum for the jump. This is the rotational momentum of the skater about their axis of rotation – the imaginary line that runs up and down the centre of the body, which skaters spin around while in the air. Skaters get angular momentum from a twisting push off the ice as they rotate their body and arms when they jump.

In a Lutz, the counter rotation can increase the range of motion the skater turns through helping create more angular momentum for the jump. While this sounds advantageous, there is the added difficulty of staying on the outside edge as they start the counterclockwise rotation. A common problem is a “flutz”. If the skater falls or rolls onto the inside edge, it is not a true Lutz and points will be deducted. A quadruple Lutz As you watch the games, listen to the announcers and see if you can identify the Axel and Lutz. Look for the arm and leg drive in forward take-off Axel that helps create power and jump height. Look for the long backward glide of the Lutz and the skater using the arms and rotation of the body to create angular momentum and rotation speed while staying on the outside edge leaning away from the rotation of the jump. Deborah King has received funding from United State Figure Skating and the United States Olympic Committee. –This article was originally published on The Conversation . –Read the original article . –Photo: AP Has Figure Skating Maxed Out In Difficulty? Has Figure Skating Maxed Out In Difficulty?

Go to permalink At the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, American Evan Lysacek won the men's singles figure skating gold medal without a single quadruple jump, while Russia's Evgeni Plushenko, who did have a quad in his program, took home silver. Four years later, this sort of scenario never materialized: Every top male competitor in Sochi had a quad in his program. Some had more than one. Some did their quads in combination with other jumps. Nearly two decades after Canadian world champion Kurt Browning first performed it, the quad jump has become something of a requirement for any men's figure skater to make it onto a major international podium. So what's next frontier? Advertisement "I can't imagine anyone landing a quad axel," Timothy Goebel told me. Goebel was the 2002 Olympic bronze medalist who was nicknamed the "Quad King" during his career. He performed a long program with three quads and was the first American to land one in competition. A quad axel would entail an extra half turn over its other quad peers and a forward edge takeoff, which greatly ups the difficulty. "I just can't see it happening," he added.

"I think five-revolution jumps are off the table. I just don't see it happening." His implication was that we're approaching the edge of skaters' technical capabilities. If the quad really is the end of the line in terms of jumping difficulty, what would that mean for the sport? In 1984, American Scott Hamilton, now an excitable figure commentator for NBC, won Olympic gold without a triple axel (though others on the Olympic podium that year performed the three-and-half-revolution jump). Hamilton defeated Canada's Brian Orser, who'd won both the short and free skates, on the strength of his figures. The discipline is now a faint and faintly ridiculous relic of a distant era, but the basic concept was simple enough: Skaters would make etchings in the ice with their blades. Figures demanded strong edges and knees, steady nerves, and two days of rink time at major international competitions for performance and evaluation. But it was boring. TV hated figures. Spectators didn't want to buy tickets to this event. Also, figures opened the door for cheating.

Judges promoted their favorites and held others back, precisely because the discipline was so abstruse and never subjected to the scrutiny of a TV audience. Janet Lynn was the best skater of her time but relatively weak at figures and could never win the gold. People thought that she lost gold at the 1972 Winter Olympics when she fell during the long program, but in reality she'd lost it during figures. On the other hand, Peggy Fleming, the sweetheart of 1968, had weak skates in the short and long, but was so far ahead in points from figures that it basically didn't matter what she did in the televised competition. Figures were last held at the 1990 world championships. Almost immediately, the impact of their elimination was felt. Kristi Yamaguchi, who had never been good at figures, won golds at the 1991 world championships and the 1992 Olympics. Midori Ito, the first woman to execute a triple axel, placed second behind Yamaguchi in Albertville.

(Ito was also the 1989 world champion on the strength of her triple axel.) Advertisement Advertisement Time spent on figures—up to four hours a day—was now used to develop jumps and other parts of the skating performance. Nowadays, skaters spend three or four hours on the ice and do the rest of their preparation off the ice. They begin mastering the difficult jumps from a young age. Ito was also the first woman to compete a triple-triple jump combination back in 1982, when she was just a junior skater. Both of her feats—the triple-triple combo and the triple axel—remain the outer limit of jumping difficulty when it comes to women's figure skating. It seems that the women's jumps have plateaued since the days of Ito. In the '90s, France's Surya Bonaly did attempt a quadruple toe loop but never landed it in competition. She also performed a back flip on the ice, a move that is now illegal in figure skating. (But it sure was badass .) Famously, Tonya Harding became the first American woman to do a triple axel, a feat repeated by a handful of other women since, including current contender Mao Asada.

But it's really that triple-triple combo, introduced more than 30 years ago, that is the make-or-break move for today's ladies singles skaters. Those who can't do it have virtually no shot at the podium. Surya Bonaly is the biggest bad ass in Winter Olympics History Surya Bonaly is the biggest bad ass in Winter Olympics History Surya Bonaly is the biggest bad ass in Winter… I mention Surya Bonaly in my post about why I love the Winter Olympics, but since she is so amazing … Read more Read more So why have the women stagnated when it comes to jumping? Puberty is a limiting factor for many female skaters, some of whom never completely regain their form and jumps after going through their growth spurts. After all, they'd learned their most difficult jumps in what was essentially a different body, and now they have to spend valuable time relearning or adjusting their technique. And relearn they must since there are only seven triples to choose from, and every competitive program on the women's side makes use of each one. Unless you're Olympic champion Yuna Kim, you cannot opt out of any of the triples.

Sponsored The men, on the other hand, take a much more linear path up the scale of difficulty. For them, puberty is an asset. In 1986, just two years after Hamilton's triple axel-less gold, Jozef Sabovcik landed a quad toe loop at the 1986 European championships, but it was invalidated three weeks later because his free foot had touched down. And in 1988, Browning performed his quad toe loop at the world championships, a feat that has been ratified and remains in the record books. His fellow Canadian, Elvis Stojko, became the first skater to do the quad in combination in the mid '90s. Yet the quad was not becoming the norm, at least not yet. GIF But in 2002—the last Olympics that used the old " perfect 6" scoring system —every one of the medalists performed a quad. In fact, there were several skaters down in the rankings who performed at least one of these jumps in at least one of their programs, if not in both. Advertisement Advertisement Goebel credits different jump technique and better training methods for the spread of the quad.

"If you watched how people jumped in the '60s, '70s, '80s versus now, skaters rotate more efficiently," he said. Back in the earlier eras, skaters would get more height on some of their jumps and start the revolutions later in the flight arc. (You can't really do both—get height and wrap in twists—at the same time. McKayla Maroney, the female vaulter who gets more air than anyone else, doesn't really start twisting until she's almost at her peak height off the table.) "It used to be in style for people to do these really big jumps where you float on the way up and rotate on the way down," Goebel said. "Now everyone is getting into the rotation a lot faster." This means that skaters start wrapping in the revolutions immediately after takeoff. "I didn't jump nearly as high as a lot of my peers that did quads," he said, "but I rotated so much faster because I got into the rotation quicker." Advertisement Though the competition was full of quads in 2002, 2010 was a different story.

Lysacek won—scandalously, according to some—without the most difficult jumping element in the men's repertoire. The reason was the new scoring system, which discouraged skaters from attempting a quad unless they had very secure, very consistent jumps. The problem, according to Goebel, was that the values of the jumps were assigned based on a linear rather than on an exponential progression. A quad was valued more highly than a triple jump, but not in a way that reflected the actual difference in difficulty between the two. "It made it less desirable for people to do it because it wasn't worth that many more points," he said. "The way the rules were at that point, it was very punitive if you missed. If you hit it, it was of nominal benefit. If you missed it, it was catastrophic." Goebel also cautioned against thinking of the quad singly. It's one element among many that make up a program. To do a program with a quad, footwork, spins, and seven other triple jumps is far more exhausting—both mentally and physically—than doing the same without the vaunted jump. Advertisement Advertisement "Doing a program with triples versus doing a program with seven triples and a quad, the program is a lot harder.

It's not a comparable scale," he said. After 2010, the International Skating Union created a bigger spread between the triples and the quads. They also granted intermediate values—if you did a quad but it wasn't all that good, you at least got partial credit. It wasn't a complete loss. This has encouraged more skaters to compete with quads in their programs. But if we shouldn't think of the quad jumps singly, as an isolated trick, the same can be said for the rest of the skating program. After all, there are other forms of difficulty in skating and they're all taxing. Plushenko pulled off a quad four years ago, but in terms of footwork and artistry, he seemed to rely on athleticism and personal charisma to carry the day. The other elements of his skating are not nearly as impressive (or as tiring) as his jumps. Advertisement The dizzying spins, spiral sequences, and the intricate footwork are all very hard, but deceptively so. Audiences tend to associate difficulty with risk. When skaters launch into their jumps, we hold our breath and wonder if they'll land upright.

We don't, however, expect to see skaters fall on a spin or trip over their feet during footwork regardless of how hard or highly valued a particular spin might be. (Although it can happen: Ashley Wagner fell on her twizzle sequence turning on her non-dominant leg at last year's world championships.) All of these "hidden" forms of difficulty are also consuming to learn and exhausting to perform. And under the new skating rules, every bit of the footwork and every revolution of the spins are appraised. They simply cannot be neglected in order to deflect more time and endurance into the jump portion of the program. Between the incentives of the scoring system and the exhausted physical capabilities of the athletes, figure skating seems to have achieved an equilibrium. It is unlikely that more time devoted to jump development would yield much in terms of positive results. Asking a skater to upgrade from four to five revolutions would be the equivalent of asking a gymnast to go from a double back to a triple back—an exponential increase in difficulty and risk.

(Only a handful of male gymnasts have ever performed a triple back and at present, none is doing it.) Advertisement Advertisement It's not just that athletes cannot do these maneuvers—it's that even training them offers little wiggle room for mistakes. During an interview with Gymcastic , U.S. gymnastics team physician Dr. Larry Nassar pointed to the "narrowing of the margin of error" when it comes to performing increasingly difficult skills. "We're already at the limit of what the human body can structurally sustain if you're mechanically off," he noted. "You can't be off. That's when the forces become multi-factorially higher." As you attempt to wrap in more twists on flips, the chances of landing short of rotation, still twisting in the ground, increases. And for a lot of gymnasts, that means a torn ACL. (Case in point: Russian superstar Aliya Mustafina in 2011.) Skaters mostly learn jumps off ice in harnesses and on surfaces more forgiving than ice. But once they take these elements to the ice, they are in for a world of pounding. Skaters come down on their landing leg with a force equivalent to eight times their body weight.

Hitting a jump, even according to textbook technique, can be injurious. Advertisement And since the learning process is rarely smooth and inevitably entails a lot of falls, some moves are simply too risky to train regularly. Goebel talked about the difference about being off on a triple versus a quad. "You have to be so on [with a quad]," he said. "Timing, height, speed going in—everything has to be in such a narrow parameter." With triple jumps, he could make adjustments midair if something were off. But if anything went awry on his quad, he knew he was going down. The margin of error on that jump is razor-thin to nonexistent. Skaters who were known for quads often end up having to undergo back and hip surgeries at relatively young ages. 2002 Olympic gold medalist Alexei Yagudin had a titanium hip joint implanted in 2007. That Plushenko returned to competition after undergoing several spinal and hip surgeries since the last Olympics is nothing short of miraculous. (He's only 31.) That he had to bow out on Thursday after aggravating a back injury is anything but a surprise. So have we maxed out jumping difficulty in figure skating?

Advertisement Advertisement "I feel relatively confident saying that we're close," said Goebel, though he believes innovation is still possible with quad combinations. "I don't think it's maxed out yet, but we're getting close. I can't imagine someone going out and doing six or seven quads in a program. Physically, training-wise, injury-wise—I think it's a little bit beyond what people are capable of doing." In game-based sports, this wouldn't be an existential issue. The question is not one of innovation, of pushing the envelope, but of winning on a given day. Sure, we all like records—for good or for bad—but evolution isn't necessarily seen as essential to those sports. A basketball fan isn't preoccupied with how many points his team scores in Game 6 of the NBA finals. He's concerned with whether his team scores more than the other team. It's all about the win. For sports that are built around the idea of continuous progress, the end of progress might be troublesome. We expect track stars to break world records, swimmers to shave thousandths of seconds off their times, gymnasts to keep adding flips and twists.

They're competing against history—both their own and their sport's—as surely as they're competing against each other. Advertisement Gymnastics has encouraged this expectation by constantly telling the story of increasing difficulty, which in part, explains the absence of the previous Olympics' stars from competition. The impression given is that they've been left in the dust by youngsters who can tumble circles around them. Figure skating, on the other hand, hasn't been telling this exact story. True, the media hype the newest skaters off the boards—the younger, the better. But the development of jumps over the decades has been slow enough to stymie expectations of ever-increasing jump difficulty. And since most of the skaters have the same basic tools in their toolboxes—especially the women—the competitors are outstripped by their rivals, not by the sport itself. Figure skating doesn't change radically from cycle to cycle, the way gymnastics seems to. Goebel doesn't view the end of technical difficulty's forward march as a crisis for the sport. "I don't think it takes anything away from it," he said. "Everyone has their own style.

Everyone has a unique way of doing a trick—some people spin really fast, some go higher." Advertisement Advertisement Dave Lease, co-founder of The Skating Lesson , pointed out that the roots of the sport are in those now obsolete figures. "It wasn't jump obsessed," he said. The jumps, he continued, were "meant to be highlights, but obviously that is no longer the reality. It is about jumps." Dick Button, the first man to perform a triple jump all the way back in 1952 (and author of the splendidly titled memoir Push Dick's Buttons), has lamented that the sport has turned into "figure jumping." He'd probably welcome the end of this sort of development. Perhaps as figure skating approaches the edge of what the athletes can do in the air, the focus will return to what they can do on the ground. The sport, emphasizing the first half of its name, will revert to the elements on the ice—the edges, the footwork, the artistry, and the performance. Dvora Meyers is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Tablet and elsewhere.

She writes about gymnastics and Judaism at Unorthodox Gymnastics , and she is the author of Heresy on the High Beam: Confessions of an Unbalanced Jewess . She blogs about woman-y stuff over at The Anti-Girlfriend . A Short Glossary of Fun Figure Skating Terms Assorted Ice Skating Terms Every Skater Should Know A Short Glossary of Fun Figure Skating Terms An Attitude Is a Beautiful Figure Skating Move. Drawing Courtesy of Artist Larisa Gendernalik Share By Jo Ann Schneider Farris Attitude: To do an attitude , start off with a one-foot glide, stretching your free leg behind. Bend your free leg slightly, and put one arm up above your head and one arm out to the side. Make sure your free thigh is raised and turned outward. Keep your head up throughout. You should look a bit like a ballerina if you do the move correctly! Axel: An Axel jump is a figure skating jump where the take-off is on a forward outside edge . After jumping forward from that forward edge, the skater makes one and one-half revolutions in the air and lands on the other foot on a back outside edge. It may take years for some skaters to master an Axel.

Once a skater "gets an Axel," double jumps usually come quite easily. Biellmann: To do a Biellmann , a skater holds the free leg's blade with both hands and pulls it back way above the head. The legs become completely split, although the free leg is bent. The free foot must be over the head. The Biellman position is named after Denise Biellmann, a Swiss skating champion. continue reading below our video The Fastest Miles Ever Run Bunny Hop : The bunny hop is one of the first jumps new ice skaters learn and master. To do a bunny hop, glide forward on one foot and then swing the free leg forward. Then land on the toe pick of the swinging leg and glide forward on one foot again. Camel Spin : Camel spins are figure skating spins that are done in same position as the spiral move , which is based on the classic arabesque position from ballet. Like a spiral, the skater's upper body and free leg are held horizontally in the camel spin. The free leg is extended parallel to the ice, and the free foot is turned out. The skater's back should be arched, and the head should be up.

The arms are usually held out to the sides, but other arm variations and positions are acceptable. Crossovers: Every new ice skater looks forward to learning crossovers . Crossovers are the way skaters move around a corner or curve. A skater crosses the outside skate over the skate that is on the inside of the curve. Death Spiral : A death spiral is a figure skating move done in pair skating . The man does a back outside pivot and holds the lady's hand. The woman circles the man on a forward or backward inside or outside edge. The lady's body is in an almost parallel position to the ice and her head is dropped back. Flutz: A flutz is an ice skating nickname for a Lutz jump that is not done correctly. The Lutz's entry edge must remain on the outside edge. If the edge changes to an inside, the lutz jump is considered a flip jump and does not receive full credit. The nickname for this mistake is "flutz." Freestyle: In the ice skating world, the word "Freestyle" has more than one meaning. Freestyle can mean doing jumps, spins, turns, and steps on the ice. A freestyle can also mean a practice session .

Beginning ice skaters usually first practice on public skating sessions , but more advanced figure skaters practice on freestyle sessions. Mohawk: A mohawk is an ice skating turn that is done from same edge to same edge, from either forward to backward or backward to forward. The name "mohawk" for this turn was derived from a cut-like step that was used by the Mohawk Indians in their war dances! Salchow: A Salchow is a figure skating jump done from the back inside edge of one foot to the back outside edge of the other foot. A half revolution is done in the air. The Salchow jump was invented by Ulrich Salchow in 1909. Shoot-the-Duck: The easiest way to learn to do a shoot-the-duck is to first glide forward on two feet and then bend both knees and to squat down into a sitting position. Move as fast as possible. While gliding on two feet, kick one foot forward and keep gliding on one foot. Skating Parent: A skating parent has taken on a very hard job.

He or she must get up early, spend a lot of money, do a lot of driving, and sit in a cold ice arena for hours and hours. Spiral: A spiral is based on the classic arabesque position from ballet. To do the move, a skater glides fon one foot with the chest facing towards the ice and with the free leg stretched back. Swizzles and Twizzles: These terms ryhyme, but they are very different moves. Swizzles are exercises done by beginning ice skaters. Twizzles are multirotational one-foot turns.that move down the ice. A GIF Guide to Figure Skaters' Jumps at the Olympics - The Atlantic The Atlantic See our Newsletters > A GIF Guide to Figure Skaters' Jumps at the Olympics Let's make no bones about it: the headlining sport in the Winter Olympics is figure skating. No other sport comes close to the drama, the athletes, the subplots, and politics that figure skating has. Most Popular This article is from the archive of our partner . via Sherlockspeare on Tumblr. Let's make no bones about it: the headlining sport in the Winter Olympics is figure skating.

No other sport comes close to the drama, the athletes, the subplots, and politics that figure skating has. For skaters, all those hours, jumps and training are boiled down to around six or seven minutes. That's what makes the Olympics' skating competition so wonderful and so heartbreaking: skaters don't necessarily have to be the best, they just have to be the best for seven minutes (see: Lipinski, Tara). That's why we watch. For most of us though, the benchmark of a good skate is not falling (part of the reason people were surprised that Mirai Nagasu didn't make the Olympic team despite skating a clean program). To the untrained eye, a skater just transforms into a spinning blur for a few nanoseconds, and then lands (or doesn't) while we hold our breath. With the power of GIFs, we can now go beyond that to actually see these jumps — what makes the Axel so treacherous or the Lutz so difficult. And we can also tell these jumps apart. The Wire talked to former U.S. Figure Skating National Team member Katrina Hacker to help us explain jumps in plain English.

Here's what we learned: The Basics: The six most common jumps in competitive figure skating can be divided into two categories: toe jumps — the toe loop, the flip, and the Lutz — and edge jumps — the Salchow, loop, and the Axel. The cool names like Salchow, Lutz, and Axel came from the skaters who invented them. "In toe jumps, the skater plants the toe-pick of his free leg and uses it to help launch him into the air. In edge jumps, the skater essentially just uses knee bend to launch," Hacker told The Wire. The takeaway here is that you can start to tell the jumps apart by looking how the skater is taking off. Are they using a pick or an edge? By determining what they're doing (using the toe-pick vs. the knee bend), you can use the process of elimination to narrow down the kind of jump it might be to three. Further, the Axel is the only jump that begins with a forward approach. If someone is facing the jump head-on, you're watching the Axel. Edges? The toe-pick is pretty easy to explain (easier if you've ever watched The Cutting Edge).

You'll see a skater kick the front of their blade into the ice before a toe jump. "Edges" are a bit more difficult to comprehend for a person who's never figure skated before. Thankfully, Hacker has skated before and can explain. "The skating blade has a hollow and therefore two edges: the inside edge and the outside edge. If you stand with your feet parallel, the inside edges are on the inside facing each other, and the outside edges are on the outside," Hacker said. "A skater uses these edges for everything — the edges are essentially what give the blade traction with the ice," she said explaining that skaters are constantly switching between edges throughout a routine. Shifting between edges is as simple as taking a tiny lean or a bit of pressure to the outside or inside of your foot. The Jumps So, right, there are two types of jumps. And we have some idea of what an edge is so we can tell them apart. The final component to the jumps and what differentiates a Salchow from a loop is the take off and landing.

All jumps end with a skater landing on a back outside edge (in skating right-handed skaters usually land on their right foot, jump and spin counter-clockwise, while left-handed skaters land on their left and so on). What sets these jumps apart from one another is how they start. Here are the six jumps in ascending order of difficulty the points they are worth in competition (we hesitate in saying difficulty because some skaters might have an easier time with one type of jump versus another): The Toe Loop This toe-pick assisted jump starts from the back outside edge and lands on the back outside edge of the same foot (if you're right handed, this is taking off from the right foot and landing your right foot). The toe loop above belongs to Russian skater Maxim Kovtun. Salchow If you look at the Salchow that Shizuka Arakawa is performing and scroll up to see Kovtun, you can see the massive difference between an edge jump and a toe jump.

The Salchow starts from the back inside edge (if you were standing straight up, the edges that face each other) and lands on the back outside edge of the opposite foot (if you were right-handed, you'd take off from your left and land on your right). The Loop The loop is another edge jump, where the jumper (in this case, Johnny Weir) takes off from his back outside edge and lands on the back outside edge of the same leg. An easy way to remember this jump is that it's basically a toe loop without the assist of the toe pick. The Flip The flip like the toe-loop, is a pick-assisted jump. The difference between the flip, the toe-loop, and the Lutz is that the take off begins from the back inside edge and is landed with the opposite foot. The Lutz The only difference between a Lutz and a flip is the edge the skater is taking off from. Some skaters "cheat" and take off from the wrong edge when attempting to do a Lutz, which calls for takeoff from the back outside edge and landing on the opposite foot.

What also makes the Lutz difficult is that it's counter-rotated, meaning that the rotation of the jump is the opposite of its entry. The triple Lutz above belongs to 2010 olympic gold medalist Kim Yu-Na, whose strongest jump is her textbook Lutz. Here's a better look at Gracie Gold taking off from her outside edge. The Axel The Axel is the easiest jump to tell apart from the other because of its entry — it looks particularly cool because the skater is taking this jump head-on. The Axel is also the hardest jump. Here's a slow-mo version of Mao Asada, one of the few women in history who has landed the triple Axel and one of the only women who regularly attempts it: What you'll notice is that the jump is actually three-and-a-half rotations. "The axel is a particularly treacherous jump because it's the only one with a forward takeoff, which adds an extra half turn to the jump," Hacker said. That makes it more difficult, and worth more points. What you'll also notice in this replay are Asada's feet— she's taking off with her forward outside edge and landing on the opposite foot.

The Points If the only thing separating one jump from another is the edge and switching edges can be as simple as applying pressure, then it becomes relatively simple to "flutz" (take off with the wrong edge) a Lutz. And with all these different moving parts, edges, legs, landings, revolutions, etc., judges have the tough task of being meticulous with grading. That's why the International Skating Union now has a technical panel which uses instant replay to make sure feet are in the right position and the correct edges are being used. But just meeting the bare minimum isn't the ultimate goal here. In skating, you get bonus for points for jumping beautifully — beautiful means getting major height, covering a lot of ice, going into jumps with the speed of a freight train, and technique/form (see: Kim's triple lutz). That's reflected in the Grade of Execution score, where you can be deducted or gain bonus points depending on how well you do a jump. The Ultimate Goal In order to score the highest amount of points, it's been established that you have to skate beautifully. But landing quad after quad or triple after triple isn't enough.

The only thing better than landing on beautiful jump is landing two beautiful jumps and the only thing better than landing two beautiful difficult jumps is landing two beautiful difficult jumps in a row. Performing a jump after just completing another is what's known as a combination. And combinations, because of their difficulty, are worth a ton of points. There's a lot that goes into one jump, and doing another in rapid-fire succession brings in so many different elements, and so many things that could go wrong. Here's what happened to Ashley Wagner, the top US women's figure skater, at Nationals when she didn't land her first jump the way it was supposed to: That's why you'll usually see a tough jump like a triple Lutz or triple Axel followed by an easier jump. Some men's skaters are capable of incorporating a quad jump followed by a triple. The goal is here to a) land the combination b) land the combination beautifully like Kim does here: Now you are now ready to go wow your colleagues and friends with your knowledge of the Salchow and the Lutz. You get bonus points if you refer to a jump as "treacherous," as analyst and skater Dick Button would say.

The team skating competition (a new event) begins on Thursday, the men's competition begins on February 13, and the women's competition starts on February 19. This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

Question: In which sport might a competitor perform a half Axel?
Answer: Figure skating