Top skaters must learn how to handle dizzying spins
| Source: |
Plattsburgh Press-Republican |
| Date: |
November 23, 2002 |
| Author: |
Ned P. Rauch |
LAKE PLACID - Of all the amazing tricks world-class figure skaters
perform, perhaps none is more confounding than their ability to defy
dizziness.
The flips, the jumps, the skating backwards really fast - they all
elicit well-earned gasps from audiences. But those spins, the ones in
which skaters disappear into whirling, sequined blurs, only to
re-emerge as focused and sure-footed as ever, are what really separate
the stars on the ice from the spectators in the stands.
It must be trick, right? Perhaps a quirk of evolution? If
figure-skating legend Scott Hamilton and several other skaters on the
Stars on Ice tour are to be believed, the answer's surprising simple.
"You really do get dizzy," Hamilton said.
Kurt Browning said his first few spins after taking time off from
skating leave him stumbling around like a drunk.
What keeps him from doing that in a show is practice. Skaters just
get used to a certain kind of dizziness and eventually, they can
handle it.
Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the Canadian pair who won gold in
Salt Lake City, called it "muscle memory." It's only when that memory
is rattled that dizziness can debilitate a skater.
"I spin counter-clockwise," Hamilton explained. "If I do 30 to 40
rotations counterclockwise, I can recover."
Spin him around five times in the other direction, however, "I'm
done," Hamilton said.
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