Beauty and Grace on Ice

Scoring a record (combined short program and free skate) 228.56, South Korean superstar Kim "Queen" Yu-Na, took home a gold medal in women's figure skating, a first for her country. Her scores for both the programs set new records, although it was her brilliant performance in the short program that set the tone for her competitors. She scored so well, in fact, that it was speculated she could have two major mistakes in the free skate and still have a good chance to win gold.

Unfortunately, the only videos of this year's Olympic performances by Kim can be found on NBC, which may only be viewable to people in the United States.

But we've found some older videos of this superstar (as well as other figure skaters) for you to enjoy. This video includes some nice slow motion and zoomed-in enhancements which allow for a more detailed analysis. With figure skating videos, it's difficult to accurately calculate angles and distances, as the camera and skater are rarely positioned perfectly at the key positions of the movements; but the poster of this video does his best.

The 2010 Winter Olympics will be ending soon, but we've certainly enjoyed watching all these amazing athletes performing at the highest level. Despite facing some additional natural challenges (e.g., poor weather), this year's Olympians have put together some terrific runs that we'll be able to enjoy watching for many years.

Shaun White: McMission Accomplished!

King of the Hill. Master of the Half-Pipe. Call him what you will; Shaun White defended his 2006 Olympic title with a series of dominating performances in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games.

His first run scored so high that he didn't even need to break out the stunt he'd been working so hard on - the double McTwist 1260. But having locked up the gold medal, he decided to throw in this amazing trick at the end of his second run, much to the delight of the crowd. With just barely enough speed, he launched himself into the air, performed the two flips, and just barely came around on the last of the 3 1/2 spins. An analysis of the double McTwist 1260 can be found here.

After reading the analysis, check out a replay of both White's 2010 Olympic performances.
or below:

Shaun White's Gold Medal Winning Half Pipe Run [2010 Olympics] - Watch more Sports Videos at Vodpod.

For more information on this year's team representing the USA, please visit: http://teamusanews.org/.

Go USA!!! Go World!!! (but mainly, Go USA!) :)

Winning on the Turns in Speed Skating

His win in Vancouver makes Shani Davis the first male long track speed skater to repeat in an event at the Winter Olympics.

Watch the event here

All the experts say that Shani has the best turns in speed skating. He definitely looks like he can go faster than anyone else on the bends.

We decided to take a look at some video of Shani breaking the World Record for the 1500m in Salt Lake City in December 2009.



The high definition quality of this video allows us to look closely at his turns.

There are 3 things to look out for:

1. In both the inside turn and the outside turn Shani increases his step rate (cadence) than that on the straight. He needs to do this so that he can make the turn, but the increase in step rate also ensures that he maintains his speed from the straight away and into the next straight.
2. As his step rate increases his right arm swings in rhythm with his steps. This means that his arm swing rate also increases. In all sprinting sports, pumping your arms helps to maintain balance but it also powers you forward in the sprint.
3. His inside leg pushes to the outside of the track with each step. As he pushes this left leg goes underneath the right leg, allowing him to apply more force to his push off for longer.

OK, so all of the top speed skaters skate like this right. What makes Shani so much better in the turns?

Shani at 6' 2" is a little taller than some of his closest rivals like American team mate Chad Hedrick at 5'11" and Dutch skater Sven Kramer at 6'1". Taller athletes will generally have longer legs. Leg length can definitely help when taking the turns. The extra leg length can add that little bit of extra time during the push on the ice.

But leg length is not going to help you if you don't use it to your advantage.
In the turns, it is also important to have great flexibility so that your inside leg can cross under the outside leg and keep pushing for longer. Shani seems to have gymnastics like flexibility and is able to push his inside leg far under his outside leg giving him more time on the ice than his competitors to push in the turn.

Flexibility though is of no use in speed skating without incredible strength. Shani's powerful legs allow him to continue pushing hard even when his legs are crossed over.

So Shani is the best skater on the turns because he uses his long legs, flawless technique and exceptional flexibility and strength.

Some athletes may never have the perfect physiology or anatomy to be the best, but one thing we can all work on is flawless technique. Video Analysis can help us achieve that.

What it takes to compete in Freestyle Aerials

In our previous posting, we discussed the technique used by Freestyle Aerialist Anton Kushnir. In such a challenging and potentially dangerous event, it takes a variety of skills for an athlete to be successful.

One of Team USA's hopefuls this year is Olympic veteran Emily Cook. Growing up, Emily participated in gymnastics and skiing events; when she learned about the Freestyle Aerial event, she recognized her chance to combine her passion for both sports. There's a nice interview with her at: http://www.teamusa.org/video (search for Emily Cook).

We've also found a really nice compilation of videos that shows Emily's progression over the years. While Emily's gymnastics background undoubtedly helped her succeed in this sport, the video shows it's taken her almost an entire lifetime of hard work and practice to make it to the Olympic level.



We wish Emily and the rest of this year's winter Olympians the best of luck in Vancouver, and look forward to watching all of the events! Go Team USA!

The Triple Axel in Slow Motion

Performing a spinning jump in figure skating is all about proper mechanics. As we look forward to the Winter Olympics 2010 in Vancouver, we found some video of Stephen Carriere performing a Triple Axel on the Discovery Channel's Time Warp program.

A triple axel is a figure skating jump that takes off facing forward and jumping forward, the skater then rotates 3.5 times and lands on the opposite foot skating backward.

As this video is from Discovery Channel it cannot be embedded, but please watch it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aixweBf9qFY .

Time Warp explains that Stephen skates at a speed approaching 20 miles per hour and takes off at an angle of 45 degrees. Unfortunately the camera view used in the video makes it difficult for us to measure these values. However there are many other mechanical aspects of the jump that we can analyze with this video.

The first part is the take off. From this high speed video we can see how Stephen Carriere creates the rotational speed necessary to complete the three and a half twists.

Stephen is jumping off his left leg and as he prepares for the jump he bends his left knee and allows his right leg to drag behind him. From this position he swings his right leg in a small arc around his body. At the end of the spin he drives the right leg up and simultaneously jumps off his left leg. The combination of spinning and jumping at take off gives him the height and rotation necessary to complete the quad axel.

Once he is in the air Stephen keeps in a tight twisting position. Notice how his chin is tucked down toward his left shoulder (in the direction of his spin), his arms are pulled into his chest and his legs are crossed making sure they stay tightly together.

Athletes who get less height than Stephen often have to spin faster and do this by turning their heads and arms further in the direction of the spin. We can see that as Stephen enters his third rotation he does turn his head further in the direction of his spin.

The video also gives us some insight into the landing. To land, Stephen needs to slow down his spin and stop his head from rotating so that he does not fall. He opens his arms out to slow the spin and stops his head. This allows him to "spot" the position for the landing. "Spotting the position" does not mean he looks at his feet to see where he is going to land, but rather that he has chosen an object at eye level that will inform him of his position prior to landing. "Spotting" is an important aspect for all spinning moves.

In the video we can also see that Stephen starts moving his left leg away from his right landing leg just before touch down. Landing with his legs crossed would not allow him to absorb the impact of landing and skate out of the jump. On landing he bends his right knee to absorb the impact and swings his left leg in a wide arc, opening up his body and slowing his rotation.

Unfortunately we won't be seeing Stephen Carriere at the 2010 Olympics as he recovers from an injury, but we will see others performing this trick and hopefully can get more slow motion video.

Using high speed video can definitely assist in analyzing your performance. If you are looking for assistance with using video to analyze your sport, please contact us. We look forward to your comments.

Breaking Down Shaun White's Double McTwist 12

The Vancouver Winter Olympics are rapidly approaching now. One event I am personally looking forward to is the Men's Half Pipe Snowboarding event on February 17th.

We all know that in this event, Shaun White is the man to beat. The defending men's half pipe champion recently unveiled a new trick that he will likely perform at the Olympics, the Double McTwist 12.

Sounds really complicated, but what exactly is it? Below is a video of Shaun white performing this crazy trick. We can use the video to break the trick down and understand it better.



We can start with the obvious, the 12 in the trick name refers to the number of twists. Shaun is rotating 3 and half full twists or 1260 degrees. It is pretty hard to pick that up as he needs to twist so quickly to finish the trick.

A McTwist is a 540 degree spin (or one and half rotations) with a flip in the middle. Double the McTwist would be a total of 3 rotations and 2 flips.

Therefore the Double McTwist 1260 can be broken down as a half pipe aerial with 2 flips and 3 and a half twists. If you watch the slow motion replays of the trick you can pick out the two flips and spot the beginning of each twist.

Look out for this trick on February 17th in Vancouver and possibly other new tricks by Shaun's competitors.

We love to hear comments on our posts.
Please also contact us if you have any sports video, biomechanics or motion analysis needs.

Analyzing Ski Jumping Video

The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics starts February 12.

One of my favorite events to watch is the ski jump. The athlete takes off down a long steep ramp and launches off the end off the ramp in attempt to gain maximum distance. Athlete's are also scored on their style on take-off, through the air and on final landing.

What I enjoy most about watching ski jumping is the ease with which this sport can be analyzed and technique improved using simple video analysis. Most of the analysis of pro athletes can even come directly from TV broadcasts, because the best views to watch the sport are often also the best angles to analyze it.

Below we have some video of Janne Ahonen, of Finland jumping a huge jump at World Cup in 2009.


Note particularly in the replay that the broadcast uses a front on view of the jumper. We Can see how he pushes off for the take off and how he corrects his body position through the air, both for style and to obtain maximum jumping distance. Finally we can see him prepare for the Telemark landing. The Telemark is a landing style with one foot in front of the other and scores higher style points for the jumper.

We look forward to a great year of sports and video sports analysis in 2010. Look out for more features during the Winter Olympics.

Carving Time for a Ski Slalom Analysis

Based in southern California, it's sometimes easy to focus our attention solely on sports that take place in the yearlong sunshine we are lucky to enjoy. However, there are some amazing locations not too far from here that offer top-notch conditions for winter sport lovers. And with the 2010 Winter Olympics just around the corner (Feb 2010 in Vancouver), we'd like to take a closer look at what some athletes are doing to prepare for their events.

The Ski Slalom event is a test of an athlete's ability to control their speed and agility, as they navigate their way around flexible poles/flags placed along a downhill course. Lowering one's center of mass through a turn allows the skier to change his/her direction quickly, while keeping their balance (and reducing their wind resistance). As it's a timed event, the skier needs to come out of each turn quickly, and immediately make their way towards the next flag. Using proper form as they enter and come out of each turn is critical to recording a competitive time.

Professional athletes and their coaches use video to closely examine the athlete's form throughout a race. An option featured in some software packages allows the user to create freeze-frame shots at multiple points during the video, allowing us to see how the athletes positioned themselves at critical points of an event. This option was featured heavily during the gymnastics and diving portions of the 2008 Summer Olympics (note: although it's used by almost all professional and college teams, many software packages offer this feature at a price that's affordable to most weekend warriors). The video below shows how the feature can be applied to a skier weaving their way through a slalom course.


As you can see, the skier gets quite low to the ground as he rounds each turn. Freezing all these shots along the entire race gives us the opportunity to look at his form as he progresses through the course. Playing the video and seeing these frames frozen and overlaid on the video is also very entertaining, besides being useful for detailed analysis by the coach and athlete.

If you have any questions on this feature, the software it's available through, or how it can be used to analyze a sporting event, just let us know and we'll be happy to point you in the right direction.