Happy Valentine's Day! Valentine's Day always occurs during the Winter Olympics, so if I were in Sochi, I'd be wearing at least a half dozen heart-shaped pins. They always trade well!
My favorite story for the day comes from Women's Aerials. Aerials is typically a young person's sport because of the number of horrific injuries that these athletes seem to acquire during their careers of falling out of the sky onto a steep landing zone while performing all kinds of twists and flips. The oldest athlete in the competition was 34 year old Belorussian Alla Tsuper. Alla was born in Ukraine and competed for Ukraine in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, but has competed for Belarus since. Overall, her career has had mixed results. She was rated in the top three in the world in 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2007, but came into Sochi rated 13th. Sochi was her fifth Winter Olympics. She finished 5th in Nagano, 9th in Salt Lake City, 10th in Torino and 8th in Vancouver. Not to demean Alla's career, but this is the profile of an athlete playing out the string - good enough to qualify for her country, but no longer good enough to contend.
Alla's jump in the first qualification run was a Back Lay Tuck Full. This means that she was going to make two flips, the first in the layout position and the second one tucked including a full twist. This jump has a pretty high degree of difficulty - 3.500. Alla looked pretty good in the air, but flipped a little too far and landed far on the back of her skis. She managed to bounce back up, but caught one ski in the mush in the landing zone and shot off to her left before crashing. By not crashing immediately, she did get some points for the landing, but the relatively low score from the judges of 18.9 times the degree of difficulty gave her only 66.15 points (compared to first round leader Ashley Caldwell of the US with 101.25 points). This put her 14th out of 22 competitors. The top 6 in this round went immediately to the finals while the other 16 went to a second qualification round.
Australian athletes Lydia Lassila and Laura Peel started the 2nd round with great jumps and clearly took two of the remaining six spots in the finals. Russian Veronica Korsunova landed a Back Full Full to take the third of the six spots. Then it was Alla's turn. While most of the women chose to do jumps with degrees of difficulty around 3.1, Alla chose to do a Back Lay Full Full (one flip in a layout position followed by two more flips, each with a full twist) with a degree of difficulty of 3.800. Otherwise, the jump was nearly a carbon copy of the previous one - good in the air followed by a near crash. The only difference was that this time she shot off the course in the opposite direction. It was not looking good for Alla. Her air and form scores were slightly higher than in her first run as were her landing scores. This resulted in a judges score of 20.4 times 3.8 degree of difficulty for 77.52 points. This put her in fourth place. Then the waiting began. First up was Chinese athlete Xin Zhang, ranked number 2 in the world. Zhang landed her Back Full Full and got 24.6 from the judges. However, the 3.150 gave her only 77.49 points - 0.03 behind Alla. Two jumpers later, Kazakh Zhanbota Aldabergenova also landed a Back Full Full, but got slightly higher points from the judges and moved into fourth place with 78.12 points. Two jumpers after that a Chinese skier, 3rd world ranked aerialist Mengtao Xu landed a Back Lay Tuck Full, the same jump that Alla has used in the first round. Her score of 87.15 points moved her into 2nd place and pushed Alla into the sixth and final qualifying spot. If any of the three remaining competitors scored higher than 77.52 points, her Olympic dream was over. Fortunately for Alla, all three fell short and she was into the finals!
As the lowest ranked aerialist in the finals, Alla went first. I had thought that no one could use the same jump twice, but apparently, what they did during qualifications did not carry over. As a result, Alla went back to the same Back Lay Full Full that she used in the second qualification round. This time, she landed it perfectly. The judges gave her 26.1 times the 3.800 degree of difficulty for 99.12 points. The remaining eleven competitors could not match Alla's score and she finished the round in first place. Alla and the next seven highest placed women moved on to the second finals round and Alla was assured her best Olympic finish in 16 years.
In the second round, the eight competitors are cut down to the final four. As the top qualifier, Alla got to go last. I don't know if this was a good thing because Mengtao Xu landed a Back Lay Full Full, Lydia Lassila landed a Back Full Full Full, Nana Li from China (ranked #1 in the world) landed a Back Double Full Full and Shuang Cheng from China landed a Back Full Double Full. Alla needed 87.42 points to get into the medals round. Alla chose a Back Full Tuck Full (3 twists, 2 flips) with a difficulty of 3.750. This requires a flip with a twist, a flip with no twist and another flip with a twist. She over-rotated just a little bit, but managed to hang on to the landing. It was a long wait for the judges to decide her fate, but finally, she got 23.6 from the judges times 3.750 for 88.50 points. She was into her first Olympic finals after five tries!
As the last qualifier again, Alla went first. She chose her toughest trick - a Back Full Full Full - three flips, each with a full 360 degree twist for a 4.050 degree of difficulty. Up in the air she went and this time, Alla stuck the landing. The announcer pointed out on the replay several points in the air where she was not perfect, but she stuck the landing and her first Olympic medal in her 21 year career looked possible. Next up was Nana Li. She chose a Back Double Full Double Full. I thought this a surprising choice because the degree of difficulty was "only" 3.900. Clearly, she was choosing an easier jump with a higher probability of doing it perfectly. Unfortunately, she did not get high enough up in the air and therefore landed too far forward and ended up falling face first. Alla was going to win a medal! Now, what color would it be? Next was defending Gold medalist Lydia Lassila. She chose to do a Back Full Double Full Full - a triple flip, each with a full twist except that the first one has a double twist for a ridiculous difficulty rating of 4.250. She looked great in the air. She landed on her skis (impressive given all of the twists and flips), but bounced backwards and could not pull out the landing. Last up was Mengtao Xu from China with a Back Lay Double Full Full with a 4.175 degree of difficulty. She also looked great in the air, but barely hung onto the landing as she touched down with her hands after not being able to stop rotating. This was going to be pretty close - the landing is only 30% of the scoring and Mengtao had a higher degree of difficulty. Finally, the scores came up: 20.0 from the judges times 4.175 for 83.50 points and the gold was Alla's!
I cannot imagine what drives a person to keep competing for nearly a decade after she was last one of the world's top-rated aerialists. How many times must she have asked herself what was she doing out here with all of these teenagers. But Alla Tsuper persevered and that is why tonight she is an Olympic Gold medalist.
As the last qualifier again, Alla went first. She chose her toughest trick - a Back Full Full Full - three flips, each with a full 360 degree twist for a 4.050 degree of difficulty. Up in the air she went and this time, Alla stuck the landing. The announcer pointed out on the replay several points in the air where she was not perfect, but she stuck the landing and her first Olympic medal in her 21 year career looked possible. Next up was Nana Li. She chose a Back Double Full Double Full. I thought this a surprising choice because the degree of difficulty was "only" 3.900. Clearly, she was choosing an easier jump with a higher probability of doing it perfectly. Unfortunately, she did not get high enough up in the air and therefore landed too far forward and ended up falling face first. Alla was going to win a medal! Now, what color would it be? Next was defending Gold medalist Lydia Lassila. She chose to do a Back Full Double Full Full - a triple flip, each with a full twist except that the first one has a double twist for a ridiculous difficulty rating of 4.250. She looked great in the air. She landed on her skis (impressive given all of the twists and flips), but bounced backwards and could not pull out the landing. Last up was Mengtao Xu from China with a Back Lay Double Full Full with a 4.175 degree of difficulty. She also looked great in the air, but barely hung onto the landing as she touched down with her hands after not being able to stop rotating. This was going to be pretty close - the landing is only 30% of the scoring and Mengtao had a higher degree of difficulty. Finally, the scores came up: 20.0 from the judges times 4.175 for 83.50 points and the gold was Alla's!
I cannot imagine what drives a person to keep competing for nearly a decade after she was last one of the world's top-rated aerialists. How many times must she have asked herself what was she doing out here with all of these teenagers. But Alla Tsuper persevered and that is why tonight she is an Olympic Gold medalist.
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