New article about Lina Johansson

[aservin]

Here is the link:

http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/sport/did_6694396.asp#

I will try to write down the most imoportant in English.


LINA´S GOAL IS TO BE BEST IN THE WORLD

She is only 15 years old but already on her way to establish herself among the best in the world. Lina take the whole figureskating world with storm. But she is 89 days to young to go to world and europeans this year.

- It is the olympics 2006 who is the most important. My goal is to be best in the world.

Already last year she proved her talent with her 8th place finish at junior Worlds. This season she has already taken much bigger turns.

- Her development is fantastic. She is already number 21 on the world ranking among the junior and seniors, her coach Ela Magnusson says.

Everybody in Sweden has waited on a talent like Lina. She has the potential to be one of the biggest sport stars in the country.

- Outside of Sweden Lina is much more known than in her own country. People talk very much about Lina now, especially after her 2nd place finish in the JGP final, Ela says.

It was two weeks ago Lina was number two after Miki Ando, who was the first lady in the world to do a quad, in the JGP final. Lina was in the lead after the short program. In the freeskating she did 7 tripplejumps and among them a 3loop- half loop-3loop combination.

- It was very fun to skate for the homecrowd. I wasn´t nervous at all.

Lina practise to learn more difficult jumps for the future. She has already been close to 3 axel and in january she will put her energy on quads.

-Lina has a chance to do the quads in the future. She is little and rotates very fast and she jumps very high, Ela says.

Lina is to young to compete in the europeans and worlds. And because of the age rule she couldn´t compete in Senior nationals either. The federation didn´want to give her dispens. But strange things happens, I am allowed to compete in the Nordic championship there I will compete against the best finnish girls. The most important competition this season is junior worlds in Haag. There is her goal to take home the gold medal to Sweden.

To prepare for the championship Lina will go to Russia in January to practise for Viktor Kudriatsev.

-Viktor help us much and that is very important for us, he has so much knowledge and experience.

In Januari she also will go to the Globe in Stockholm to the sportgala . Lina is one of the candidates to the category "New sport star of the year." She is still young and promised, but in a few years she could be the superstar in the biggest sport in the winter olymics. This spring she was welcomed to the swedish olymic commites talent program.

- I don´t like to speculate, but I think that Lina has good chances to take a medal in future championships, Ela says. She has the physical and psycolical elements and she is goal oriented, hard working, a nice girl to other people and she know what she has to do to be the best.

To compete in the olymics 2006 Lina has to be top 24 on worlds 2005. Many people thinks that she alredy this year could have been top 10 in the world, if she was allowed to compete.

- Her time comes, Ela says. Maybe it is good in the long run that she can´t compete this year, even if she need some experiences to Olympics 2006 who is coming very fast. Now we have time to practise instead.

She got the little award achivement gold medal 2002. and Carolina Kluft who got it the year before is already best in the world in athletics and she got the big award achivement medal this year. Lina want very much to care this tradition forward.

[Schmeck]

aservin, thank you for the translation!

One question, why is she doing 3loop/1/2loop/3loop? That just seems like an odd sequence to me - there is no need (and is it possible?) to do a 1/2 loop between the 3loops? Doesn't the half loop just get a skater onto the proper foot to do the second part of the sequence?

[Magz]

Originally posted by Schmeck
aservin, thank you for the translation!

One question, why is she doing 3loop/1/2loop/3loop? That just seems like an odd sequence to me - there is no need (and is it possible?) to do a 1/2 loop between the 3loops? Doesn't the half loop just get a skater onto the proper foot to do the second part of the sequence?
That's what I was thinking. It isn't possible for one to do a 3loop/.5loop/3loop.

[Schmeck]

My daughter has a weird single toe loop/half loop/single toe loop opposite direction in her pre-pre program, but I don't think Ando is doing 3loop in both directins, is she?

[icenut84]

You can do 3loop-half loop-3loop if you change feet again immediately after the half loop (I assume that would still count as a jump sequence), which would put you on the right foot for the second loop. Liz Manley did a 2flip-half loop-2toe in her Olympic LP, and did that by changing feet after the half loop in order to do the toe loop.

Thanks for the article :)

[aservin]

After the half loop Lina change leg so that she can jump a 3 loop. It is a little bit easier this was than a 3+3.

[Schmeck]

First - I've got Ando on the mind - I meant Lina in my previous post :oops:

I wonder how this change of foot, after doing a half loop to begin with, would affect the quality/difficulty of the jump sequence? Is it really a sequence, or is it more like doing two 3loops with footwork in between? Any reference to it in any ISU guides?

Edited to add: I'm really interested in how each part of a program is scored in CoP,etc. I'm not trying to belittle the importance of this jump, or Lina. I'm glad that skaters are getting more inventive, because I'm getting a bit bored with 3lutz/2toe combinations!

[Tony Wheeler]

It's still a sequence to do the 3loop/.5loop/3loop, and yes it is possible. Elena Sokolova, I believe, did a 3sal/.5loop/3loop in her 1998 Olympic free skate, for anyone who needs to see an example.

[icenut84]

Originally posted by Schmeck
I wonder how this change of foot, after doing a half loop to begin with, would affect the quality/difficulty of the jump sequence? Is it really a sequence, or is it more like doing two 3loops with footwork in between?

AFAIK, it would still be a sequence. Like in pairs programmes, when they often do a jump, a couple of steps/turns, then another jump, and it's counted as a sequence. I don't know the specific rule about this, but I assume that as long as you haven't got *too many* steps between them, they can be counted as a sequence.

As for difficulty, I'd say it isn't quite as difficult as doing a straight 3loop-3loop. In this combo, the landing of the first jump has to be perfect for the second jump to work. By putting a hop or a step between the two, you give yourself a little margin for error, such as you can fix your body position if the first jump landing is not perfect, so you're in the proper position for takeoff. In a loop-loop, you can't alter anything before jumping again, so if the first landing isn't right, you can't do it.