Hi, it's Ira Flato, and you're listening to Science Friday. Today on the podcast, we're in training for the final events in figure skating at the Olympics. When I watch the athlete spin and jump and glide while balancing on a razor-thin skate blade, I wonder how some of these seem to defy the laws of physics.

And they test the limits of what the human body can do, don't they?

Especially the quadruple axle and the backflip performed by Ilya Malinant.

Well, here to guide us through the biomechanics of the fantastic feats on ice is Dr. Debra

King. She's a professor of exercise science and athletic training at Ithaca College in

Ithaca, New York. Welcome back to Science Friday. Thank you, Ira. Happy to be here.

Nice to have you. Let me just ask, do you skate yourself? I am not a figure skater. No. I grew up just skating around like outdoor rinks or ponds, but it was never a sport I participated in.

Me neither. I did a couple of times on ice, but I don't even want to talk about what the results were.

So to non-skaters, I mean, don't they make all these

difficult jumps seem so effortless? I have a difficult time telling the hard elements from the

easy elements. So that's why you're here. What's the hardest skill for a figure skater to do

physically? Today, in mence figure skating specifically, the hardest

technical skill that's being done is the quadruple axle, which is only being done in competition

by Ilya Malanin. Describe what that is. Okay, so the quadruple axle is a jump that is unique in that as an axle jump, the skaters

steps forward and is facing forward when they jump into the air.

And people might not have noticed this when they're watching the Olympics, but if you pay

a little attention to the landings, you'll notice they're always landing their jumps backwards.

So that means if you're jumping off forward and doing a quadruple jump,

there's actually an extra half revolution you have to complete so that you're facing backwards.

So it's a four and a half revolution jump compared to the other quadruple jumps,

which in and of themselves are very difficult, but require four revolutions because they take off backwards.

You do four revolutions and land backwards.

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