Aleksandra JANIKOWSKA (POL) | Junior Women Free Skating | Riga 2024

Look ahead to the next competitor, Aleksandra Janikowska, 20th after the short program. A fall yesterday, 15-year-old. And we'll skate to Hallelujah. Aleksandra Janikowska from Poland. A skater who in their International Skating Year biography acknowledges that they only get the opportunity to train 6 hours per week in the low season. And that is an extremely small amount to be able to deliver triple jumps as she did. And she'll be pleased to have landed the triple flip after the fall. And also to train the program. You can see her arms go down to her side. She got really tired and didn't have transitions. It was skating down the rink, preparing for the jump or waiting for energy to come back. So, you know, that's early in the season. She's not in her top shape yet. She will get there, no question. As we say, the time devotion from the coaches and the athlete to be able to land triple jumps. The difficulty of that takes up so much time. But there's constant desire for more evolution as we see that triple flip. Three jump combination there. Not carrying a lot of speed through it, but getting it done. We see the Salchow, watch that right leg, lift up into the air. Right on top of the landing. Up into the double toe loop. That was a nice jump combination. I want to tidy up the landing just a little bit. Here's the triple. That gets all the way around, but the shoulders are forward. Okay, I'm being really critical here, but I'm just analyzing. She's got the elements, just to polish them up a little bit. Better rotation, more clean back outside edge landings than we've seen from so many of the competitors. That's very true. Triple Salchow. Watch that free leg comes forward. Pops into a double. Triple toe a little bit later. So she really did some strong and difficult elements. Because we should acknowledge that probably the primary mistake for most of the competitors will be under-rotated jumps, and that was not something for Alexandra. But that said, we've seen lots more finesse and refinement, which given the limited training time that she does have is hard to amass. So perhaps some more ballet or off-ice training is a part of her future. Eight out of her 11 elements were in the minuses, in the GOE. So just quality-based. That is polishing up stretch free leg, good back, strong arms, you know, those types of things. And flow, obviously. But that'll come in time. This is still early on. We'll see a different skater in a couple weeks, or how many of her weeks, until we see her next. A 74.40. That is first in the free program. That's based on those technical elements. Well done. 113.67. That'll put Alexandra currently into first place.