The result in the Men's event has raised again the question of the value of the quad toe loop, and beyond that all the triple and quad jumps. In the past few days, many a commentator and former skater has weighed in on this topic.
But none of this is new. For several years skaters, coaches and others have been concerned that the SoV for jumps does not correctly reward the true difficulty and risk associated with the triple and quad jumps. For the past two ISU congresses groups of coaches have put forward suggestions to revise the SoV for jumps. These proposals were presented to the Figure Skating Technical Committee in 2008 and again in 2009.
The values proposed by these groups were generated by the author in discussion with many elite international coaches. This proposed SoV was also independently submitted to the U.S. Figure Skating's ISU representative and forwarded to the committee chair Alexender Lakernik in March 2008.
The document Proposed SoV for Jumps contains the proposed scale of values and its technical basis.
The large values for the quads, may give some pause, but when applied to the results from the 2008 World Championships where Jeffery Buttle without a quad still beats Brian Joubert with a quad. So this SoV will not make the Men's event a one jump (quad) event, that it should not become. It does, however, place the SoV for the jumps on a rational footing that more correctly reflects the relative difficulty of the the triple and quad jumps.
Perhaps the attention generated from the Olympics will unfreeze the glacial pace at which technical changes are made within the ISU. A rational SoV for jumps has been sitting on the table at the ISU for nearly two years. Perhaps it is now time to dust it off and seriously discuss putting it into use.
Copyright 2010 by George S. Rossano