The Chaotic History of Menning

Nobunari Oda taking a tumble at the 2009 World Championships. Photo courtesy Silvie Touchette.

If you have spent any time engaging in online figure skating discussions over the past few years, you may have come across the term "Menning."

In today's figure skating pop culture, "Menning" refers to the tendency for men's events to produce chaotic and unpredictable results. It's the short program where no one seems to be able to stay on their feet. It's the free skate where there seem to be more Waxels than Axels. It's the skater who lands everything all season and then unravels at the biggest competition of the year. It’s the standings that look nothing like the expected podium after the short program. In short, when the men’s event refuses to behave logically, today's generation of fans shrugs and says: "That’s menning."

The lingo isn't meant as an insult so much as affectionate exasperation. Men's singles has long had a reputation for volatility. As they say, "ice is slippery", and with huge risk comes the greater potential for failure. While the discipline has produced extraordinary champions and historic programs, it has also produced a not insignificant number of dramatic defeats, surprise medallists, and head-scratching final standings.

In today's blog, I'll look at a few historical examples that helped cement the idea of "Menning" in skating culture. Then, because anecdotes are fun but data is better, I have compiled a chart tracking instances of "menning" since the introduction of the International Judging System (IJS). I've focused on the IJS era because it allows for more consistent technical comparisons and clearer statistical patterns. As for the 6.0 era? That would require rewatching approximately a million programs - and as a wise woman named Sweet Brown once said, "Ain't nobody got time for that." 

Let's look back at the history of how the men have, well... menned.

Jack Ferguson Page. Photo courtesy "Skating World" magazine.

In 1927, the World Figure Skating Championships were held in Davos, Switzerland. The entire competition was skated in a blinding blizzard. Eight men competed, and Manchester-born British skater Jack Ferguson Page was the only one of them who didn't fall in the compulsory figures and free skating. All of the other competitors fell at least once in the figures and once or twice in the free skating. The weather clearly played a factor, but interestingly enough, Page finished fourth in both phases of the competition and fourth overall. In the days before the "one judge per country" rule, a trio of Austrian skaters swept the podium, thanks to a bloc of three Austrian judges. The British judge reported the matter to the UK's National Skating Association and kicked up a fuss with the press. The media attention surrounding this incident, coupled with a similar one in that year's World Championships for women in Oslo, helped change the ISU's rules, but it didn't stop men from menning.

Newspaper clipping about the men's competition at the 1963 World Championships, courtesy "Buffalo Evening News" 

At the 1963 World Figure Skating Championships, the men's free skate devolved into a midnight survival test that perfectly exemplified "men menning." Skated in temperatures plunging to minus twenty Celsius, with the final group beginning shortly before midnight on splinter-hard, brittle ice, the event saw contender after contender falter. Spectators watched in disbelief as skater after skater struggled on jumps they could do every day in practice. The leader after the compulsory figures, Manfred Schnelldorfer of West Germany, "fell so badly backwards that he lost a lot of time to get up again," recalled his mother. "In those seconds, he wondered whether to give up. He did not want it anymore and had to leave some difficulties out. He jumped only simple jumps, no more doubles and dragged to the end. It was cruel." Czechoslovakia's Karol Divín, second in figures, skated cautiously. Donald McPherson and Alain Calmat both fell on triple loop attempts, but moved up to finish first and second overall. Backstage, no one could confidently predict the podium after a competition defined less by brilliance than by widespread falls, fatigue, and freezing temperatures.

Medallists at the 1982 World Figure Skating Championships. Photo courtesy "Canadian Skater" magazine.

Two decades later, at the 1982 World Championships in Copenhagen, skater after skater seemingly tumbled on cue during the short program. Half of the top ten skaters after the figures (Jean-Christophe Simond, David Santee, Igor Bobrin, Brian Pockar and Fumio Igarashi) fell on the required combination, which had to include a double flip that year. The standings were all over the place. Brian Orser, twelfth in figures, was third in the short program. David Santee, third in figures, was sixteenth in the short program. The unpredictable skating led to some unpredictable results. Fortuitously for Canada, when the marks were tabulated, Brian Pockar became the first Canadian man to win a medal at the World Championships since Toller Cranston in 1976, despite finishing outside of the top three in all three phases of the competition. 

Results from the 1982 World Figure Skating Champions, courtesy "A Complete History of the World Figure Skating Championships"

Before we quantify menning in the IJS era, it's worth acknowledging a fundamental truth: technical progress in men's figure skating has never moved in a straight line. Yes, technical difficulty has constantly increased over time, but breakthroughs have rarely produced instant revolutions or inspired a "monkey see, monkey do" mentality of other skaters rushing out to put history-making jumps in their programs right away. 

When Donald Jackson landed the first triple Lutz at the 1962 World Figure Skating Championships, it did not trigger a stampede of triple Lutz attempts the following season. Skaters included the jumps they needed to in order to succeed under the judging system of their era - no more, no less. In fact, the next World Champion to include a triple Lutz in his winning program was Jan Hoffmann more than a decade later, at the 1974 World Figure Skating Championships. The same pattern appeared with Vern Taylor's historic triple Axel at the 1978 World Championships - it was not the culmination of years of failed attempts by the entire field, but an outlier moment that did not instantly redefine "the gold standard." 

Even in the modern era, Ilia Malinin's quadruple Axel stands as an example of how one skater's extraordinary ability isn't necessarily the setting of a new "goal post" that every skater needs to achieve to win. That said, as the standard of technical difficulty accelerates faster than consistency can keep up, the result is often volatility. 

In order to take a look at how the men have menned over the last twenty plus years, I had to come up with some way of quantifying "menning". The Skate Guard Blog Menning Index™ measures how chaotic and risk-heavy major competitions were by focusing primarily on quad attempts. It calculates how many quads are attempted versus how many are landed to determine a "chaos rate", then factors in total falls per segment as an amplifier of that risk, and finally adds a small adjustment for placement volatility. Quad efficiency drives 70% of the score since it is the main engine of modern men's technical risk, falls account for 25% because they indicate unpredictability, and result swings contribute 5% as confirmation of competitive turbulence, producing a 0–100 scale where lower numbers indicate a competition that was mostly smooth sailing and higher numbers suggest a competition that was unpredictable at best. By no means is this system foolproof - skaters could have landed every quad and missed every triple Axel, as an example. However, it does give a decent indication of which events went particularly awry.

I divided the scores into 3 categories:

🚗 Start The Car! - 0-35% - A competition with a high reward vs. risk ratio on quads and/or a lower percentage of falls

😐 Chaotic Neutral - 35-50% - A competition with a medium reward .vs. risk ratio on quads and/or a lower percentage of falls

🧴 Tequila and Holy Water Needed (shout out to The Runthrough Podcast!) - Break out the strong stuff and call a priest. If you're rewatching this competition, brace yourself for some serious menning!

Year	Event	Quads Tried  (SP)	Quads with 0/+ GOE (SP)	Quads Tried  (FS)	Quads with 0/+ GOE (FS)	Falls (SP)	Falls (FS)	# of SP Top 3 Who Didn't Medal	# of FS Top 3 Who Didn't Medal	Score	Menning Level
2005	Euros	5	2	7	5	9	7	1	0	43.8	Chaotic Neutral
2005	4CC	5	3	8	2	10	17	1	0	66.8	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2005	Worlds	10	3	12	9	14	16	1	1	59.3	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2006	Euros	5	2	8	3	14	20	0	0	68.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2006	4CC	4	2	1	1	8	13	0	1	46.8	Chaotic Neutral
2006	Olympics	6	3	14	5	8	18	1	1	66.2	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2006	Worlds	7	5	13	9	5	8	2	0	34.3	Start The Car!
2007	Euros	4	0	7	3	10	20	1	0	77.2	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2007	4CC	2	0	4	2	7	13	1	1	65.8	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2007	Worlds	4	1	11	4	14	13	1	0	70.4	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2008	Euros	4	1	9	2	12	19	0	1	80.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2008	4CC	3	2	6	3	6	14	0	0	47.8	Chaotic Neutral
2008	Worlds	5	3	12	5	12	12	1	1	59.6	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2009	Euros	3	3	6	3	9	5	1	1	37.5	Chaotic Neutral
2009	4CC	1	0	5	2	13	16	0	1	72.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2009	Worlds	4	1	8	6	12	8	0	0	45.8	Chaotic Neutral
2010	Euros	5	3	10	4	9	5	1	0	50.3	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2010	4CC	1	1	5	2	17	12	2	1	62.9	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2010	Olympics	4	1	11	3	4	13	0	1	66.8	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2010	Worlds	6	3	13	7	15	14	0	1	58.6	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2011	Euros	4	2	9	7	9	9	2	0	39	Chaotic Neutral
2011	4CC	2	0	7	1	5	11	0	1	76.8	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2011	Worlds	8	3	15	10	9	14	2	0	52.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2012	Euros	7	3	10	5	7	12	1	0	54.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2012	4CC	7	1	9	3	16	23	1	1	80	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2012	Worlds	11	5	22	10	11	10	1	0	56.9	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2013	Euros	9	5	11	9	9	6	1	0	34.8	Start The Car!
2013	4CC	10	5	16	9	4	13	1	1	49	Chaotic Neutral
2013	Worlds	13	7	23	10	7	13	1	1	56.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2014	Euros	12	4	18	7	12	13	1	0	66.4	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2014	4CC	7	2	11	3	8	8	1	0	65.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2014	Olympics	17	6	23	11	10	13	1	0	60.7	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2014	Worlds	17	8	19	11	11	6	0	0	47.2	Chaotic Neutral
2015	Euros	8	4	13	4	12	15	1	0	67.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2015	4CC	9	4	15	6	8	11	1	1	59.2	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2015	Worlds	17	3	21	10	8	15	0	0	65.2	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2016	Euros	10	5	16	9	15	9	1	2	56.1	Tequila and Holy Water
2016	4CC	13	4	20	11	13	20	1	0	64.4	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2016	Worlds	20	8	29	13	14	11	1	0	62.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2017	Euros	14	8	20	8	9	14	1	0	57.5	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2017	4CC	15	8	33	17	7	22	0	0	57.7	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2017	Worlds	27	17	47	30	10	14	1	0	46.8	Chaotic Neutral
2018	Euros	16	3	23	9	17	15	1	0	74.7	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2018	4CC	14	5	30	13	6	15	1	0	60.1	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2018	Olympics	27	16	45	28	12	18	0	1	53.5	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2018	Worlds	27	11	44	15	13	17	1	1	71.9	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2019	Euros	17	13	25	9	14	19	1	0	59.6	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2019	4CC	13	8	23	11	5	12	1	1	49.7	Chaotic Neutral
2019	Worlds	30	16	44	24	13	12	1	0	54.3	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2020	Euros	17	5	26	14	8	11	1	1	57.4	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2020	4CC	14	12	23	14	6	16	1	0	40.4	Chaotic Neutral
2020	Worlds	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Menning Occurred In Self-Isolation
2021	Euros	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Menning Occurred In Self-Isolation
2021	4CC	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Menning Occurred In Self-Isolation
2021	Worlds	19	15	44	27	13	14	0	1	47.1	Chaotic Neutral
2022	Euros	20	10	26	16	9	15	2	0	52.9	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2022	4CC	13	7	23	11	9	13	0	0	53.3	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2022	Olympics	32	21	49	33	5	13	0	1	39.6	Chaotic Neutral
2022	Worlds	22	17	44	23	5	16	1	1	47.6	Chaotic Neutral
2023	Euros	16	8	19	6	6	14	1	0	59.9	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2023	4CC	15	7	25	14	8	17	1	0	55.3	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2023	Worlds	30	13	47	24	11	9	0	0	53	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2024	Euros	14	5	23	14	11	13	1	0	55.3	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2024	4CC	17	12	29	17	10	15	0	0	46.7	Chaotic Neutral
2024	Worlds	30	16	45	32	8	11	1	0	42.3	Chaotic Neutral
2025	Euros	18	9	29	13	9	15	2	0	59.7	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2025	4CC	17	4	28	15	13	12	1	0	62.5	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2025	Worlds	28	13	47	27	14	11	0	1	54.8	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2026	Euros	18	8	29	14	7	16	2	0	58.9	Tequila and Holy Water Needed
2026	4CC	21	17	27	20	5	10	1	1	31	Start The Car!
2026	Olympics	34	21	59	31	5	14	3	1	51.7	Tequila and Holy Water Needed

A couple of interesting takeaways here:

• While the men's free skate at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina stood out for its utter chaos, the success rate for quadruple jumps was actually quite high. 21 of the 34 quads attempted in the short program received a GOE of 0.00 or higher, and 31 of the 59 quads attempted in the free skate received the same. There were fewer falls in both the short program and free skate than there were at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
• We should definitely get nervous whenever a skating competition is being held at the Taipei Arena. All four times the Four Continents Championships were held in Taipei, serious menning occurred.
• In terms of a low risk vs. reward ratio on quadruple jumps and a high number of falls, the most chaotic men's event at a senior ISU Championship or Olympics since the introduction of IJS was the 2012 Four Continents Championships in Colorado Springs. This event also had the most falls in the free skate of any of the competitions studied. The least chaotic, by the same metrics, were this year's Four Continents Championships in Beijing.

And so the story of menning in figure skating continues to unfold. By the time the dust settles at the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, perhaps the judges, skaters, and statisticians will all agree on one thing: the ice is still slippery, jumps are still extremely hard, and pressure is absolutely a thing. Until then, we'll keep crossing our fingers that everyone stays upright.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of eight fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.