The 24th Winter Olympic Games will kick off in Beijing on February 4, 2022.
The Sports Department of Chinanews.com has launched a series of column "Hundred Questions about the Winter Olympics", which aims to popularize the knowledge of the Winter Olympics, answer hot questions, share interesting stories about ice and snow, and help everyone have a better viewing experience at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
106th Winter Olympics Questions | What is the "4A" of figure skating?
Before introducing the "4A", let's first introduce how the jumping action of figure skating is named.
Taking 4A as an example, the number in front represents the number of turns in the air, and the letters after it represent the names of different jumping techniques, which are:
Axel, Toe loop, Flip, Loop, Salchow, Hook ( Lutz).
The "4A" that figure skaters and fans call "4A" is a very difficult movement - the Axel quadruple jump.
Japanese player Yuzuru Hanyu once completed the "4A" in the pre-competition open training competition of the All-Japan Figure Skating Championships and the Beijing Winter Olympics Trials, which caused heated discussions.
Why is "4A" more difficult than the other four-week moves?
It starts with the "Axel Jump".
Compared with other jumping movements, the iconic movement of the "Axel Jump" is to jump forward and drop the ice backwards, while other movements are all jumping backwards and dropping the ice backwards.
Therefore, for the same number of jumps, the "Axel Jump" needs to rotate half a circle more.
According to calculations, in order to complete "4A", the body speed in the air needs to reach 6.5 cycles per second, which is equivalent to the wheel speed of a car driving to 50 kilometers per hour.
In addition, in the competition, although the basic score of "4A" is higher than other movements, it is easy to be injured when training this movement, so most athletes are reluctant to use it in competitions.