Skip to main content
figure skating

Patrick Chan of Canada performs in the men's free skating programme at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Cup of Russia in Moscow on November 20, 2010.YURI KADOBNOV/AFP / Getty Images

Although Evan Lysacek won the Olympic gold medal without attempting a quadruple jump at the Vancouver 2010 Games, this season, figure skaters all over the world are scurrying to add the move to their repertoire.

They are heartened that quads are now worth more points than ever, while the penalties for failing to rotate the jump fully are far-more forgiving.

The International Skating Union adjusted the scoring rules to encourage the return of the difficult four-rotation jump. So far, it's working.

Canadian champion Patrick Chan of Toronto introduced a quad jump into both his short and long programs this season. At the Canadian championships this weekend, he is expected to up the ante by attempting two quads in the long program, as well as one in the short.

"I was shocked at how fast the transition happened [after the rule change]" said Patricia Chafe, a consultant to Skate Canada whose company, Jump Beyond, creates strategies for skaters to take advantage of the judging system.

She said it usually takes a couple of years before skaters need to use new techniques to win a world title, but judging by the pace of quad integration into routines during the Grand Prix circuit, it may be essential this year in order to win a gold at Tokyo in March. Nobunari Oda, a Japanese skater who did no quads last season, landed a quad-triple combination in the risky short program at the Grand Prix Final in December.

"It's a testament to how talented these guys are," Chafe said.

And the quad jump will certainly be essential by the time of the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

The downside of the rule change is that for now, spectators will be seeing a lot of falling skaters. During the Grand Prix season, Chan fell a total of eight times, twice while attempting a quad jump.

"People are all upset that skaters are on the podium with falls right now," Chafe said.

Last February in Vancouver, Lysacek of the United States narrowly outskated Evgeny Plushenko of Russia, who had won the previous Olympic gold utilizing a quad jump. Plushenko promptly declared that anybody who won an Olympic gold medal without the jump was unworthy of the title.

Last season, the risk of attempting a quad - and failing - just wasn't worth the reward. A quad was worth a base mark of 9.8 points versus 10.3 points this year, not counting bonus points for how well it's executed.

But the major incentive for skaters to start including the jump is the reduction of penalties for at least trying it. Last year, a skater who fell on a quad would get about five or six points, so long as he completed the full four rotations. If he underrotated, the punishment was far more severe - he could end up with only one point for his trouble, even if he didn't fall.

This year, there's a two-tier system for underrotation, depending on how serious it is.

The penalty is still severe if the jump just goes bad, and a skater falls short by half a rotation or more. But if the underrotation is slight, by less than one-quarter of a rotation - something oft invisible to even an experienced observer - the skater still gets to keep about 70 per cent of the points, a reward for a valiant effort.

Kevin Reynolds of Coquitlam, B.C., has been doing the jumps for years. But he also suffered under the penalty system of previous years.

Last year, at the Cup of China, he underrotated and fell on a quadruple Salchow, got only 1.5 points for it and ended up out of the top 10.

This year, Reynolds has been making his quads count. He became the first man to land two quads in the short program (allowed for the first time this year) at Skate Canada in Kingston last October. Those two jump passes earned him more than half his points for the short program.

SCORING ADJUSTMENTS

Jump Values in 2009-10……………………………2010-2011

Triple toe loop…. 4.00………………………………4.10

Triple Salchow…. 4.50……………………………...4.20

Triple loop ………5.00…….………………………..5.10

Triple Axel……… 8.20…….………………………..8.50

Quad toe loop…….9.80……………………………..10.3

Quad Salchow…..10.30…….………………………..10.5

Interact with The Globe