Olympic Gold/Silver medallists with clean SP and LP

[caseyedwards]

Laura Lepistö and her worlds bronze medal is mainly a doubles performance. She did 3 triples in her sp and 3 in her Lp and all the other jumps were very nice doubles. All plus goe so she won world bronze with 6 triples total

 

[Bigbird]

Vol-Tran were very good in 2014 but she definitely two-footed at least one of the throws in the FS. It didn't distract from the programme but it was not clean.

I don't know if they've ever done two clean programs at a major international tournament. She seemed to almost always two foot a throw. Maybe it had too much juice in it?

 

[timwarpingout]

Bechke & Petrov did not have a clean skate in the LP at the 92 Olympics. Her triple toe was underrotated and badly two footed. I think the single axels they did were supposed to be doubles, but I could see maybe still counting that as clean, but not with the triple toe.

 

[timwarpingout]

It was a strategy that worked that one time, but what a time for it to work. Good for her. I believe Arakawa was winning the practices and she and Morosov observed how nervous Irina/Sasha were. Then the SP happened and she saw that she was seen as equal to them, and was not grouped in with the other competitors, so they had some sort of conservative skate strategy. If it worked, and Sasha and Irina skated the way they felt they may have, then it would lead to gold but if it didn’t and Sasha and Irina skated better than expected from practices, then Shizuka would still have done enough to ensure her a medal. That all being said, I personally think she wanted to do at least 6 triples but doubled up on that loop, which may have been comfortable for her, as it seems she did that multiple times previously that season. Even with the plan, I still think she was genuinely shocked that five triples from her did end up working after all. It was like how a lack of quad being made up elsewhere in the COP in comparison to his competitions ended up being the right strategy for Lysaceck win gold in 2010.

I heard Irina was practicing horribly in Turin, and there was some growing question of her chances before the event even began. Turino is at high altitude and she still had her lingering viral condition.

 

[Frau Muller]

If memory serves, Dorothy Hamill skated clean SP and LP at Innsbruck 1976 (first Olympics with both programs). No triples tried or needed.

 

[briancoogaert]

I heard Irina was practicing horribly in Turin, and there was some growing question of her chances before the event even began. Turino is at high altitude and she still had her lingering viral condition.

What do you mean by high altitude, because Torino is at 239 meters, not that high, not even as high as the Eiffel Tower !

 

[briancoogaert]

Do we count Kerrigan's silver medal in 1994 as clean? SP was definitely clean; LP she doubled an intended 3F, but it was a very nice 2F. Everything else was very good.

Absolutely, I remember the same debate on FSU about what is a "clean" performance.
Clean doesn't necesseraly mean without mistakes. A beautiful double is clean, but not the perfect performance the skater wanted to deliver.

 

[timwarpingout]

Absolutely, I remember the same debate on FSU about what is a "clean" performance.
Clean doesn't necesseraly mean without mistakes. A beautiful double is clean, but not the perfect performance the skater wanted to deliver.

So if a skater does almost all doubles when they were meant to be triples, that is a clean skate?

 

[VGThuy]

So if a skater does almost all doubles when they were meant to be triples, that is a clean skate?

Didn’t Carolina Kostner do something similar at 2009 Worlds and 2010 Olympics? At the time, it felt as though she was having a meltdown and it surely didn’t feel clean.

 

[On My Own]

So if a skater does almost all doubles when they were meant to be triples, that is a clean skate?

I don't think we can make a general statement. It could look mistake-free or it could not.

In the thread, people have brought up Arakawa and Kerrigan. Neither of those two looked like mistakes to me. It didn't show on their face or their body language, and the popped jump looked nice and strong. For me, and doesn't have to apply for anyone else. But I do question in those two cases if anyone would bring up the pops as "mistakes" if they weren't using prior knowledge (Kerrigan was going to do a triple there/Arakawa was going to do a triple there + it was no longer the norm to be attempting a solo 2Lo in the LPs).

This doesn't apply to Kostner's 2009 LP. Right from the first combo, it was evident with the way she was letting her free leg hang and generally looking defeated after popping those jumps, that those were mistakes.

Going along with Kostner, for me, even though people might say her 2014 Olympic skates were "mistake free", even ignoring the dropped step sequence level in the SP, she had clear glitches on the landings of a few of her LP jumps that did distract me from the program and would lead me to call those as mistakes - even though people are more likely to call a UR jump or a pop a mistake.

 

[Seerek]

Linda Fratianne

 

[timwarpingout]

Didn’t Carolina Kostner do something similar at 2009 Worlds and 2010 Olympics? At the time, it felt as though she was having a meltdown and it surely didn’t feel clean.

Exactly. And while 1 popped triple to a double isn't the same thing, it still shows IMO doubling a major solo triple to a double can't really be considered clean. It is like if you can't consider 4 falls clean, you can't consider 1 fall clean.

 

[Marco]

If pops, edge and rotation issues don't count:

Sotnikova in 2014 and Baiul in 1994 are the 2 most recent examples in ladies where the cleaner performance(s) didn't win the night or overall. In 2014 both Kim and Kostner were clean. In 1994 both Kerrigan and Sato were clean (and Chen was close).

 

[SmallFairy]

But Sato popped her lutz into a single in the SP, so she was out of contention of winning. It wasn’t like “unclean Baiul beat clean Sato”. Sato didn’t even skate in the final group. Chen’s SP combo ended in the boards, but she still had a shot at gold, I agree, but she needed lots of “help” from other skaters to win gold. So no clear “not clean beat clean” there either.

Ok, pops shouldn’t be an issue, but a single lutz in the combo is nothing but a clear mistake from an Olympics skater. Combo ending in the boards is most definitely a mistake.

 

[VGThuy]

It definitely would be an error if the required elements in the ladies SP stated the combo had to be made up at least two double jumps at the time.

 

[antmanb]

These days a popped jump looks like an obvious mistake, not least because no skaters are intentionally doing double jumps (except as second/third jumps in a combo), but you can usually tell that something else has gone wrong - off axis in the air, slipped toe pick, or just that their bodies sort of sag and they clearly pull out of the jump. You do see the men in particularly pulling out of quad attempts as double so as not to mess up the zayak rule on their other jumps.

Peng/Jin's SBS salchows sometimes look intentional but sometimes one of them does do a triple so you do wonder if they either both accidentally double or if it's intentional.

 

[jenny12]

Linda Fratianne

Yes! Watched this performance again after your mention and I’m glad I did. Really lovely skating!

 

[Marco]

Oh I was only thinking LP for my last post.

 

[briancoogaert]

So if a skater does almost all doubles when they were meant to be triples, that is a clean skate?

That was the debate few years ago on FSU. It's a very difficult question !
And it depends on what we considere as clean : clean to the eyes, or clean as most difficult without any mistake compared to what was planned ?
Kerrigan in 1994 was clean to the eyes, so was Shizuka Arakawa in 2006.