It has become the perennial question of Men's figure skating championships, can skaters without a quad jump beat skaters with a quad jump, and should they. "I believe that the future of figure skating is quad jumps," said Evgeni Plushenko following the Men's Short Program in Vancouver. To focus on other thing, he said "would be going backwards in time."
"I think in the future we need to make quad Sow, quad flip, quad Lutz, but in the future. Of course we need transitions, we need spins, we need steps, harder and harder. But, I don't know, triples, we did this, I don't know, I make triples in 94." He went on to say in other sports, speed skating, biathlon, etc. performance continues to improve, and so it should in skating.
But can it, at least where quad jumps are concerned?
At the dawn of the Olympic Winter Games, skaters were executing single jumps. By the middle of the 20th century it was double jumps. By 1980 the goal for the men was to reach triple Lutz. In the 80s it was the triple Axel. By 1990 a handful of men were executing quad toe. For the last 20 years progress in quads has been limited to quad toe loop combinations and a handful of successful quad Salchows. In 1994 Carlo Fasso told us a Junior man he trained would be the first skater to land a quad loop jump. That skater never reached that goal nor has any skater for that matter. Skaters have worked quad flip and Lutz for many years, none have been landed in competition.
In the Men's Short Program press conference, Evan Lysacek described how he looked forward to training the quad, and how he felt it was important to attempt it in every competition, even if he did not land it every time. Until he broke his left foot a year ago. He described how the foot still gives him some pain, and how it was now more important to him to stay healthy for this season and to be the best well rounded skater he could be.
Lysacek is not the first skater, and will not be the last, who had some command of a quad jump for a limited period of time. Many skaters who have landed a quad have only been able to sustain that skill for 12-18 months, only to see the skill evaporate, never to return with consistency. Plushenko is a the rare phenomenon who has kept command of a quad jump for many years, and even he has not been able to extend that command to a full set of quad jumps. If the strongest most consistent quad toe skater cannot get past that jump to a full set of quads, can anyone?
Compared to 100 years ago, performance standards in all sports have increased tremendously, but in mature sports like figure skating, incremental performance improvements now are modest at best. Many sports are now near the limits of human capability, and perhaps with quad toe loop and quad Salchow skating is near its limit. It is difficult to imagine that without some unforeseen revolutionary changes in training methods or equipment that including a full set of quads will become the norm in skating. And perhaps that is a good thing.
Copyright 2010 by George S. Rossano