You know Ms. Midori ITO who will ignite the sacred fire in the Nagano Olympic Games?
She became the world champion of figure skating in 1989 for the first time as Japanese.
She won a silver medal in the Albertville Olympic Games in 1992.
Ms. Ito Midori is also the first female skater in the world that successfully completed the difficult jump of the Triple Axel Paulsen jump.
Figure skating jump is categorized according to the take off motion and number of rotation in the air.
The Triple Axel Paulsen jump is one of the extremely difficult jumps.
The skater takes off on the outside edge of the left forward leg, completes three and a half revolution in the air, and lands on the outside edge of the right backward leg.
Judges watch the take-off motion, the rotation in the air, and the posture at landing.
They then decide what kind of jump is done and whether it is successful.
You may find the jump wonderful but you may not find what kind of jump or how many turns have been made.
With the help of two high speed cameras located in two places, the scientists analyzed Ito Midori's Triple Axel Paulsen jump tree-dimensionally.
They found that the air time is only 0.73 second and the turning speed is as quick as five times per second.
As you can see in the table, the more turns she make, the longer the air time is and the quicker the turns are.
Her approaching speed is about 8 meters/second (29 kilometers/hour) before the Triple Axel Paulsen jump and she jumped 66 cm high.
The higher jump makes it possible to stay in the air longer and turn in the air many times.
The analysis showed that the higher jump is produced by the faster approach.
The jump that you find “amazing” needs fast skating, high jumping, and quick turning.
The skaters with vdry high skill level can only perform the amazing jumps.
The skaters with slow speed and low jump can never make wonderful jumps and can never get good scores.
