axels full stop

Kids these days, always trying to be better than their elders. It wasn’t too long ago when Michelle Kwan was the big name in skating and Tara Lipinski was landing triple loop-triple toe loop in Nagano and the best Michelle can do in her combinations was triple lutz and double toe loop. Now Mao Asada can even land a triple axel in combination with a double toe loop and that’s not even enough to beat Kim Yu Na who did a triple lutz-triple toe combo, a higher tariff than a triple axel-double toe loop jump. But women skaters don’t do triple axels . Yet Mao landed three in an Olympic level. I’ve been trying to learn the ISU scoring for a week and despite its reputation for objectivity, it could still be subjective. If both Mao and Kim perform clean programs, Kim would still get the higher score because she's more popular? I’m still puzzled with the component scoring, the five categories are evaluated on a scale of one to ten with five being average. A judge could just press six or eight depending on her mood. Mao wasn’t entirely clean in her free skate and her triple flip was downgraded while Kim was way sharper in her jumps. I’ve never seen the young Korean make mistakes ever since she has taken over from Mao as the best in the world.

The Ice Dancing was really cool though. I get to only watch the free skate but it was magical. The lifts and twezzles were gorgeous. The top two teams are a cut above the rest. I couldn’t wait for the World Championships in March. But the Olympics matter more as it is only held every four years. It has been a great Olympics, for the summary kindly check here.