Former U.S. figure skating champion Gracie Gold will spend her offseason learning new jumps -- a triple Axel and quadruple Salchow, according to IceNetwork.com.
“In two weeks, [coach] Frank [Carroll] and I are going to start working on triple Axel and quad [Salchow],” Gold said, according to the report. “It was our plan after Sochi to start working on it, but when we looked at the plate, with [the Stars on Ice] tour, we just never really had the chance. We were constantly trying to recover and catch up.”
The comments echoed what Gold said last April.
“Frank and I do want to work on a triple Axel, and we definitely would like to play around with -- it seems silly when women talk about it -- but a quad toe loop,” Gold told the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. “Right now, unless we add in a second triple-triple (combination jump), I’m kind of reaching the technical limit, and that means we really have to enhance the artistic component.”
Gold, 19, was the top U.S. woman at the Sochi Olympics (fourth), 2014 World Championships (fifth) and 2015 World Championships (fourth).
No U.S. woman has won an individual medal at the Olympics or World Championships since 2006, the longest drought since World War I.
Russian World champion Elizaveta Tuktamysheva is the only active elite woman performing a triple Axel in competition.
No elites are doing quads in competition. Tuktamysheva said after winning Worlds last month that she may try to learn a quad toe loop but had no immediate plans of adding it to her competitive programs.