Now, any other Olympic skating controversy has gripped die-hard and informal enthusiasts alike.
Valieva used to be allowed to compete for extra gold within the Olympic ladies’s particular person determine skating match. Her regimen for the loose skate — the general portion of the ladies’s pageant — options quadruple jumps which are untouchable by way of maximum of her competition.
Here is how the game has advanced in recent times to praise higher athleticism and stamina:
Harder jumps = extra issues
In 2004, the Global Skating Union ditched the subjective “6.0” scoring device for the extra rubric-based Global Judging Gadget that provides positive base issues for jumps relying on their level of problem and the way repeatedly the skater rotates within the air.
As an example, a quadruple Lutz — during which a skater makes 4 revolutions within the air — carries extra base issues than a triple Lutz.
However a triple Lutz carries extra base issues than easier triples, reminiscent of a triple loop or a triple Salchow.
After each and every soar, skaters can acquire or lose issues from the bottom price relying at the grade of execution — how neatly or poorly they done the soar.
However in recent times, skaters had been in a position to win competitions in large part because of issues racked up from leaping — with quadruple jumps enjoying a bigger position in males’s and girls’s skating.
Why higher stamina can win skaters extra issues
In ladies’s determine skating, athletes carry out two routines: the quick program, which is ready 2 mins and 40 seconds lengthy, and the loose skate, which is ready 4 mins lengthy.
With the present scoring device, jumps carried out in the second one part of the loose skate can get a ten% bonus as a result of it is harder to accomplish them on drained legs.
2018 Olympic champion Alina Zagitova, who used to be additionally coached by way of Tutberidze, capitalized in this and put all her triple jumps in the second one part of her loose skate. The 15-year-old Russian received Olympic gold and used to be celebrated by way of President Vladimir Putin.
However critics denounced Zagitova’s approach of successful, announcing the teenager’s efficiency lacked artistry or relied too closely on jumps filled in the second one part of the regimen to maximise issues.
Because the ultimate Olympics, ladies’s determine skating has been ruled by way of Russian youngsters reminiscent of Kamila Valieva, Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova.
All 3 have received global championships after including quadruple jumps of their routines — a huge athletic feat.
Valieva become the primary particular person feminine skater to land a quad on the Olympics when she helped Russian skaters win the group match ultimate week.
But when Valieva puts first after the ladies’s ultimate, she would possibly now not get an Olympic medal round her neck for some time — if in any respect.
CNN’s Simone McCarthy, Hannah Ritchie and George Ramsay contributed to this record.
