http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... ostpopularBy Alice Park / Vancouver Friday, Feb. 19, 2010To Quad or Not to Quad: For U.S. Gold Medalist Evan Lysacek, Never a QuestionWhat would the Flying Tomato do? If Shaun White traded in his baggies for spandex, and his board for a pair of quarter inch blades (and maybe cut his hair) to compete in men's figure skating, would he do it? Would he do the quad?
Uh, yes. No question. This is the man who had clinched the gold on Wednesday and bettered his winning run with a second drop-in featuring the daring, innovative and wow-inducing Double McTwist 1260. He didn't have to do it. But he did. Because he wanted to. Because it's the Olympics. Because that's the kind of competitor he is.
Where was that sense of daring and anxiety-triggering anticipation in men's figure skating final on Thursday? It certainly wasn't much in evidence on the ice in the Pacific Coliseum. There was great skating, certainly — American Evan Lysacek skated a solid, clean program that earned him enough points to skate past heavy favorite Evgeny Plushenko of Russia, to cinch the gold. The right man won, no doubt. B
ut the entire night I felt as something was missing....
Something was missing, something that must have gotten stuck somewhere in new computers the judges use to punch in their elements scores, and their skating skills scores, and their transition/linking footwork marks, and their performance/execution scores — and let's not forget that catch – all assessment of 'interpretation.'
Don't get me wrong. Unlike many who follow the sport (and even some skaters themselves) I'm actually a fan of the new scoring system, or 'code of points,' first used in Torino. I think it's raised the level of skating skill to impressive levels, in ways that don't always come across on television. The edges are sharper and deeper, the footwork is cleaner and crisper, and the spins are tighter, and frankly, more like spins than the squats that some skaters were getting away with for years.
But one casualty of raising the technical precision of the sport is the spontaneity that makes sports exciting. Athletes at this level live on the edge of control and chaos, and it's the collective 'wow' of moments when they butt themselves up against that line that take our breath away and keep bringing us back to watch. "It's important for any sport to continue to raise the bar and move forward," Paul Wylie, 1992 silver medalist told me after the men's short programs. "I have to admit as a performer who did two triple axels in my program in Albertville, I am surprised that more guys aren't doing the quad."
Ah, yes, the quad. It's been hot topic among skating fans the entire week — the entire season, really — as the arguments go back and forth over whether a quadruple jump of any kind is necessary in the men's program, or amounts to nothing but show-boating. Lysacek decided coming into Vancouver not to include one in his program; he tried it at the U.S. nationals in January and fell. But he's the only skater among the top competitors who made that decision, sparking all kinds of buzz among the skating cognescenti about whether he was pushing the sport back.
Regardless of where you weigh in on the debate, that's the thing that should be worrying skating officials and athletes alike —
that the scoring system may be sucking out the drive and inspiration for innovating and evolving the sport that jumps like the quad represent. The stricter scrutiny that the system places on the execution of elements is biasing skaters to play it safe and skate programs that are constructed — move for move, from fingertip to toe point — with an almost passionless precision.
As a skater, the reason for the quad-queasiness is simple. If you can't land it, it's not worth even trying under the current scoring system. A quadruple toe loop jump, the most popular version of a four-revolution jump, gives you a base score of 9.8 points. You can pile on a point or two for performing it well, or lose a few points for bobbling the landing, but 9.8 is what the judges start with. A triple-triple jump combination yields 10 base points, and without the hammering on your ankles and the added angst of launching yourself into four revolutions over a sheet of unforgiving ice. Plus, if you fall on the quad, it's an automatic 1.0 deduction, plus a downgrading of the jump to however many rotations you actually completed, not to mention those deductions for not executing the jump.
"What it would take to make it less risky and more rewarding for people to try it would be not penalizing them for falling or under rotating the jump as much as they do," says Wylie.
The quad is only the most glamorous example of what the sport might be losing if the penalties for trying one aren't reduced somehow, either by awarding four-revolution jumps higher base points, or by penalizing skaters who try, and flub them, less. Plushenko, one of the most consistent quad jumpers around, landed a quadruple toe loop jump in the early seconds of his program and still came up short of gold on Thursday to earn a silver. He has been outspoken all week about how he feels about the quad jump.
"I believe that the quad is the future of figure skating. The quad is necessary... Not doing the quad will be going backwards in time," he said after the men's short program on Tuesday, in which he was the only skater to land a quad cleanly. Following his silver medal finish on Thursday,
he was pessimistic about the place that the quad would have in the new system, but remained adamant that such innovations be recognized and rewarded. "I was sure that I had won my second Olympic Games," he said. "But my basic position and attitude is that movement must go forward — never stop, never go back."Bronze medalist Daisuke Takahashi agreed.
"For me, the ideal skate would have to include a quad on my part," he said after his medal winning performance in Vancouver. "Although I did attempt the quad and it wasn't successful, I do not regret it at all. It's a challenge to me, and good experience."The reality, however, is that the past two world champions have earned their titles without a quad, and now, after three consecutive Olympic champions won with programs that included a successfully landed a quad, Lysacek wins without one. It's no coincidence that all of these titles were won under the new scoring system. And Lysacek himself couldn't have articulated better how the new rules may be pushing elements like the quad into the deep freeze. "I used to really enjoy training the quad, and I thought it was really important to try it in every competition," Lysacek said after the short program on Tuesday. "But several times I fell. Then I broke my foot and it became less fun and more scary. [Now] the risk of injury is definitely there. So I decided to lay off that pressure on the left foot and try to make it through these Games successfully."
It was a strategy that certainly paid off on Thursday, earning him a gold and making him the U.S.'s first Olympic men's skating champion since Brian Boitano in 1988.
But at some point, amidst all that calculating and constructing you start to miss the good old fashioned bravado that's a big part of any competition. "When you show up to a figure skating event, if you don't have the hardest jump, from the time you're a little boy, you are apologizing a little bit," says Wylie. "I remember being little and showing up at competitions and everyone asked, 'What jumps do you have?'" What answer will skating have in another four years?