Our mind is conditioned by preconceptions. Even if we do our best (and not everyone tries), the external factors that affect us are many, and cheering is one of them. If we like an athlete, what he does is right, especially in a sport like figure skating where personal judgment plays a very important role. Therefore, the athlete I support has correct technique, his rivals do not.

This is not how it should work, yet this is how it works. Not too long ago on Twitter I posted the montage of a series of screenshots with only a few words of comment on the screenshots themselves. I saw the video, so I can judge what the skater di better than who saw only my screenshots. The montage was this:

I have not written the name of the skater nor made any further considerations, but for those who know figure skating a little it is clear who he is. As for the technique… I leave the judgments to you. Most people are horrified, for someone the mistake (I suppose an intentional mistake) was mine:

Yes, I see the writing on the board, I also see the different bending of the knee, which is why the upper body is in a slightly different position, and I also see the inclination of the skate. Now my doubt is: who jump without giving himself a push with his ankles? That foot is horizontal, it hasn’t given any push. Does the skater have so much leeway at landing that he deliberately pushes less than he should to not make an overrotated jump?

I have not replied to this comment, I have long since learned not to enter into what would certainly be sterile discussions. Instead I decided to do an experiment. I did some screenshot of some skaters and, as far as possible, made their identity impossible to understand. Yes, maybe some of you are able to identify the competition from that piece of rink that remains visible, or the skater from that piece of costume, but for the most part I have obscured details that, for the purposes of my experiment, would be harmful. I removed the color from the photos and eliminated the skaters’ heads. I’m sure someone can recognize at least some of the skaters, but this makes it easier to focus on what the skaters are doing, and that’s exactly what I would like you to do. I don’t care who the skater is, I’ interested in how the skaters jumps.

I structured my experiment in the form of a test. The quality of the images and the number of screenshots varies from the type of video I have worked on. My computer skills are very limited, with some types of videos I can take more screenshots, with others less, but the screenshots are in sequence – for my convenience in making the image the reading order is always from left to right, top to bottom – and are not retouched. In this case, I concentrated on the take off. I took several screenshots on the landing as well, but since I did a lot of images, I leave the landing for another post. They are almost all men, I took a couple of screenshots related to female skaters, but given the culture we live in, I’m afraid that posting legs can attract a kind of attention that I don’t want to attract.

I ask those who cannot distinguish one jump from another to refrain from answering. To try to reduce external influences as much as possible I have deliberately used both jumps that are skating textbooks and jumps that I have some doubts about, and the order in which I entered them is random. In a few days I will tell you which jumps it is. With what you can see, what jump is it?

Edit: you can find the answers here.

Jump 1

Jump 2

Jump 3

Jump 4

Jump 5

Jump 6

Jump 7

Jump 8

Jump 9

Jump 10

Jump 11

No jump 12, in this case I checked only the landing.

Jump 13

Jump 14

Jump 15

I took several more screenshots, but I’ll post the other jumps at another time.