Ice skating, for all its grace, it’s a brutal sport.
Men practicing Quad Axel Jump, 4A, 4.5 Revolutions on ice
Men practicing Quintuple Toe jump, 5T (5 Revolutions on ice).
Since the last Olympic Games, snowboarders and skiiers had perfected a trick called the
Quad Cork.
It’s 5 full spins and 4 full flips all in a span of about 3 seconds, which raises an
interesting question – Are we at the limit of how much a human can turn and flip through
the air?
As amazing as the Quad Cork is, it might not be the limit because snowboarders and skiiers
get hang time of close to 3 seconds.
That might not sound like much, but you know who spins a lot faster than that in way less time? -- Figure skaters!
Spectators could be heard screaming and gasping asking him not to hurt himself.
He has the most beautiful Triple Axel Jump (3A, 3.5 Rotations in the air)
New Challenge for Yuzuru Hanyu (2 times Olympic Gold Medalist)
To land a Quad Axel (4A), the most difficult Quad jump.
Hanyu: In order to land 4A, you have to jump higher than 3A.
Besides, you have to jump with such force as if your body will be blown away.
That’s the first hurdle.
It takes a lot of composition to land a Quad Axel.
Hence, we haven’t seen 4A being landed in the competition until now.
My next motivation is definitely to land a 4A in a major competition.
(He mentioned World Championship 2020 because that was an interview he did after 4CC 2020. However the WC2020 had been cancelled due to COVID-19).
The Quintuple jump, is it possible?
To pull off a Quint would involve even faster speeds.
Clearly, the quintuple remains a thus far, elusive feat.
So we are probably not gonna see a quint anytime soon.
What the hell did you just say?
You want to know what 5 Rotations feel like?
A skater landed a quint (5 Rotations in the air) in practice in harness [Recorded in April 2019]
Quint Toe (5T) | ft. Maxim Belyavsky | Russian
Hanyu, who majored in Human Information Science at Waseda University, the Top Private in Japan, enrolled in their e-learning degree program,
had been balancing between skating and studying at the same time.
He was writing his graduation thesis.
It’s about how Motion Capture Technology can be applied in figure skating.
And it’s a paper that summarises what kind of prospects there are for these applications, basically.
This is Hanyu’s graduation thesis.
Research on Jumping Practice on land using 3D Motion Capture Technology.
He applied motion capture to his own body and studied it by actually jumping on land.
This is the digital version of his work.
You can see the detailed movement of different body parts during a 3A Jump (It’s actually 4A if you count the rotation by yourself. Not sure if the announcer said it wrongly or Yuzu really wanted to jump 4A that he made the animated version jump it).
Hanyu being the top skater himself is the only person who could do this kind of research.
He also presented a research direction of judging using AI and hopes his research would help improving the technical ability of future skaters and help development of the skating world.
Because of the reduced training time (due to COVID-19), I could really concentrate on my study and complete my thesis.
I think that’s a step forward for me.
Hanyu finished is graduation thesis at the end of July (2020).
He’s now back to focus on training.
He said he is training for 4A as he wants to be the first to land a Quad Axel
If you have ever seen a skater spin, you got the idea.
They start with their arms extended.
And as they pull their arms in, it causes the rotation to speed up.
Same thing when they are in the air.
That’s because of something called the conservation of angular momentum.
Angular momentum depends on both the speed of the skater’s rotation and the position
of the skater’s body routed to the axis, that’s the center of their rotation.
The closer the body parts are to the axis of rotation, the faster they spin.
And then of course, there’s the landing.
Which skaters had attempted Quad Axel (4A) – 4.5 Rotations in the air?
(This is not an exhaustive list ofbecause there might be some skaters secretly training for 4A and not publicised it. Or some skaters who had attempted but we couldn’t find it. For instance, words are Max Aaron from the US had landed 4A. But we couldn’t find any video recording of it).
Artur Dmitriev | Russia
He attempted 4A in Rostelecom Cup 2018.
He fell. Also, it was not fully rotated and it was judged as a downgrade.
However, he did land a 4A in a Plushenko Show
It is questionable whether it’s fully rotated from the video as it’s unclear. Most likely it’s still an under-rotation
Good job though
Chafik Besseghier | France He attempted 4A in harness
Keegan Messing | Canada
He attempted 4A in harness and landed perfectly
Takahito Mura | Japan
He attempted 4A in a skating show
and of course!
Yuzuru Hanyu | Japan
He is the most vocal skater who declared that he wants to land 4A in competitions.
Mind you, these are some of the world’s best athletes.
Wow!
That’s crazy.
When you see people spinning, and they make it look really easy, remember that it really really is not.
In fact, It’s right at the edge, of what is humanly possible.