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Raising the bar Figure skating jumps to greater difficulty
Posted: Monday January 17, 2000 02:51 PM
LYON, France (AP) -- Now that the technical limit for male figure skaters has been raised, it's time for the women to play catchup. And Michelle Kwan might play a major role in that. The quadruple jump for men is almost commonplace, as all six men in the Grand Prix Final attempted it at least once. Yet only winner Yevgeny Plushchenko did it successfully in all three phases of the competition. Irina Slutskaya and the Russian women showed that triple-triples might now be needed for the women. Kwan must prepare something more difficult to challenge Slutskaya's triple-triples when the two meet again at the world championships in March in Nice, France. Kwan, who finished second to Slutskaya, has rarely done triple-triples and sticks to the simplest toe loop combinations. She said she has worked on more difficult combinations in practice, but not consistently enough to put in her programs yet. "Now the other skaters are doing it and I have to push myself harder," Kwan said. "I know what I have to do when I go home is to push myself because the technical difficulty is getting stronger and higher. I have to satisfy that demand." Maria Butyrskaya - who beat an ailing Kwan at the world championships last March for the world title - and Julia Soldatova all had triple-triples planned for their programs but cut the second part of their combinations to doubles. Slutskaya was the only one to complete hers, and she did it twice. She completed a jump combination that had never before been successfully done by a woman to beat Kwan in the final. Slutskaya became the first woman to do a triple lutz-triple loop combination. Seconds later, she added a triple salchow-triple loop and even added a triple-double later. She earned a rare 6.0 for technical merit. Slutskaya is not planning to rest either. She said she is thinking about another triple-triple combination. "Why not? I think I can do it," she said. "It is a good idea." Slutskaya nearly quit skating last year when she failed to make the Russian team after being second in the world in 1998. But she came back to take the Russian title over Butyrskaya last month. The women's event was the highlight of the competition, which brought together the top scorers in the four events from the six-meet series between October and December. It also had a new format where the top skaters competed three times within 24 hours, the last round being a head-to-head matchup for first and second. That also eliminated others from challenging for the gold medal, even if they skated well. Tim Goebel of the United States ended up with the bronze medal in the men's event, although he outscored Elvis Stojko, who lost to Plushchenko in the gold-medal faceoff. Goebel completed a quad salchow-triple toe loop combination twice, but faltered on four other quad attempts. China's Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo won the pairs event, as world champions Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze came in third, gradually improving throughout the three rounds. Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, skating in their hometown, took the ice dance event, leading from start to finish. They beat Italians Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio in the final. The next major championships for the skaters are the European championships in Vienna and the U.S. Championships in Cleveland, both the week of Feb. 6-13.
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