Born on April 9, 2000, Kaori Sakamoto is a decorated Japanese figure skater. Her accolades include being a 2022 Olympic bronze medalist, two-time World champion (2022, 2023), 2023–24 Grand Prix Final champion, 2018 Four Continents champion, ISU Grand Prix champion five times over, and a four-time Japanese national champion. She also won bronze in the 2022 Olympic team event and has Junior-level bronze medals from the 2017 World Junior and 2016–17 Junior Grand Prix Final. Sakamoto made history as the first Japanese woman to win the World Championships since Mao Asada in 2014 and the first to win back-to-back world titles. She is among only four women who have won consecutive world titles since 1991.
Can this massive double axel become a triple axel?
The trajectory in the air is too long and not optimized to add an extra revolution. The approximative length is 331cm, and the height is 42cm. The average flight time for a triple axel woman execution is around 0.632s.
What should Kaori do to succeed in a triple axel? She is a powerful jumper and has a fast skating speed. The skating speed is always valuable for the jump, but she must change her launch angle.
The diagram below shows the average trajectory in the air of a triple axel (noted 2) compared to the double axel of Sakamoto (noted 1).
Yes, the height of a triple axel is higher than Kaori’s. But Sofia Muravieva did a triple axel at the last Russian National with an approximate height of 46cm, which is almost similar.
There are different options that Karori can do:
Option 1:
Change her preparation phase to make force production more effective. The preparation is the backward outside edge part. Kaori must create more angular momentum during the forward outside edge part ( force production part). For example, she could have her upper body and hips more open (Her right shoulder and hip more behind). With this posture, she could get a faster angular velocity.
Option 2:
Take-off posture. She could lead her rotational move with her elbow like Alena Kostornaia (Russia). Meanwhile, Kaori could accelerate her vertical velocity to increase her launch angle (def: The angle the skater takes off relative to the horizon). I’m curious if Kaori will work intensively on her triple axel. It is clear that during Beijing 2022, she showed a way other than just doing quad jumps to win.