Axel jump

The Axel is a jump in figure skating, named after the Norwegian skater Axel Paulsen (1855-1938) who was the first to perform it in 1882. A single axel consists of 1 and 1/2 rotations in the air. For a jump with counterclockwise rotation, it has a takeoff from the left forward outside edge and a landing on the right back outside edge; this can be reversed for a clockwise jump. The axel can also be done as a double jump with 2 1/2 rotations, or as a triple with 3 1/2 rotations. No skater has yet accomplished a quadruple axel.

Usage note

Some people who are unfamiliar with the details of figure skating mistakenly think that all figure skating jumps are called "axels". This has occasionally led to extreme gaffes in press coverage of figure skating events by inexperienced sports reporters.

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