Quads and Ladies: Sasha Trusova Special
As the Grand Prix comes to a close, Sasha has again broken records and made history with her every step. With the introduction of her 4F at GPF and comeback of the 4S at Japan Open let’s analyze some of these jumps.
Though her 4Lz has a little too much PR and her 4F has an unclear edge, her 4S and 4T are quite good. They might not be “effortless”, but in terms of PR they abide by the rules.
Even though the landing of this 4S was rather weak, the height and distance it got was INSANE. So insane even Nathan Chen felt the need to compliment it. I cannot wait until Sasha gets her 4S consistent because that will be a gem to see in competition.
Just look at the distance it travels! I can’t wait until someone does calculations of how high it is and how far it travels. Let’s take a deeper look at the takeoff:
In a 4S, the fanmade standard is 180 degrees, and so while Sasha goes a little over, it’s barely noticeable.
The jump is well rotated as well.Take a look at the takeoff and at the landing and notice that the blade is facing opposite directions. That is because of the half a rotation prerotation (that is allowed). When the takeoff blade and the blade at the landing are exact opposites of each other, that is a very clean quad salchow. Sasha’s would be about 40 degrees UR, meaning it is clean.
(sorry this gif is so bad, I have no idea why it keeps on pausing in the middle)
As I have said earlier, her 4Lz is my least favorite quad because of the PR, but it does look pretty effortless doesn’t it? Maybe because the gif above is super choppy, but her 4Lz kind of looks like a triple.
But I do have to compliment how tight Sasha’s rotation is here. It looks so tight and clean.
Sasha at least has a very steady outside edge and she never completely uses the “full blade”. She uses the toepick, and continues to rotate on half the blade until the 190 mark.
Sasha’s jump would be barely clean if we ignored the 90 degrees PR. However, if we consider the fact she only lifts off the ice at 190 degrees, her 4Lz attempts as a general have never been “clean”. I used the Rostelecom attempt because it has the highest GOE out of her 4 (out of 4!) successful attempts this season.
My favorite quad from Sasha is her 4T. The height, the distance, the correct amount of PR! And the fact that she does not only 2 of them, but 2 of them in combo and one in the back half!
(again sorry for bad gif quality)
The takeoff, while not looking effortless, certainly isn’t super labored nor difficult.
The fanmade standard for toe loops is 180 degrees, so Sasha definitely meets the standard. In terms of PR, this jump is fine. What about UR?
The rotation is really quite good as well. I’m not particularly surprised by this result since based off consistency rates and overall jump quality, you can see that the 4T is definitely her best jump. Not only does it reach good height and distance, it has the correct amount of PR and good rotation at the landing.
Now the new quad: 4F! Not taking account technique, her 4F is quite amazing. Good height, distance, rotational speed and a rather difficult transition in! This is her first time attempting it in competition and it was CLEAN and LANDED! How rare is that?
Look at that entrance! She has a lot of flow and speed going in the jump, and while the landing was super effortless, it was pretty steady and even.
From this slow motion I can already tell Sasha is using excessive PR, but again, you can see that she doesn’t but her full blade down as some other ladies (whom we will discuss in Quads and Ladies: Part 3) do. Let’s take a closer look at the takeoff:
Surprisingly, Sasha’s edge is rather unclear. It actually looks slight outside form this frame, but I have her the benefit of the doubt since the back of her blade is still forming a flat edge and from other angles it looks slightly inside.
The PR is rather excessive (sorry you can’t really see her blade, the height statistic thing got in the way). I would say it’s worse than both her 4Lz and 4T, but it is a very new quad for her so I am sure Sasha will improve the takeoff (her 4Lz used to be around 190 too and now its 180 and a little less).
The jump is very barely rotated beyond 90 if you didn’t take into account PR, but if you did then it would be UR. For the first time attempting I think Sasha did an amazing job! Since judges could care less about about PR, we will look at it from the 90 degrees w/o PR line. It would be called clean!
In Conclusion:
Sasha is amazing. She is pushing this sport further and even if her components are lower and her technique isn’t the best, she’s encouraging those with higher components and better technique to try quads too. Let’s not try to drag down a cute 15 year old okay?
Ladies and Quads Part 3 will come after RusNats and Japanese Nationals. I’ll analyze: Shcherbakova’s 4F, Valieva’s 4T, Kihira’s 4S, Tuktamysheva’s 4T, Akatieva’s 4T, Khromykh’s 4S and Zhilina’s 4T. See you then!