How One Skater Feels about Quad Jumps

[singerskates]

https://youtu.be/VX3fQUnc0cA

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[Bill_S]

I wish he could have gotten to the point earlier. I bailed after a few minutes and never learned of his opinion.

There's no art in that rambling presentation.

[icepixie]

I think he misses the point about quads being damaging to skaters' health by focusing on accidents that can happen.  The real problem, as I understand it, is the cumulative damage to their joints, particularly the landing hip.  I wonder how many quad jumpers have different opinions about them at 30 or 40 than they did at 19.

[Nate]

I think he misses the point about quads being damaging to skaters' health by focusing on accidents that can happen.  The real problem, as I understand it, is the cumulative damage to their joints, particularly the landing hip.  I wonder how many quad jumpers have different opinions about them at 30 or 40 than they did at 19.

No.  The point is that skating is, generally, not that dangerous of a sport - in the grand scheme of things.  Risk is a part of any athletic sport.  If you want to succeed in it, you have to accept the risk, otherwise you will be paralyzed by the fear of its possibility (I'm sure many of us Adult Skaters can relate to that).  There are a lot of other sports that have just as many "long term training effects" on the body as skating, and are more dangerous to compete in.


Also, the perspective of the skaters participating in this "quad revolution" is generally something we are rarely graced with.  Usually, it's just fans talking to each other about it on Social Media.  If we do get input from skaters talking about the rising technical ceiling of the sport, they're either retired athletes or "athletically capped" skaters like Wagner, Brown, or Rippon.

[The Sacred Voice]

No.  The point is that skating is, generally, not that dangerous of a sport - in the grand scheme of things.  Risk is a part of any athletic sport.  If you want to succeed in it, you have to accept the risk, otherwise you will be paralyzed by the fear of its possibility (I'm sure many of us Adult Skaters can relate to that).  There are a lot of other sports that have just as many "long term training effects" on the body as skating, and are more dangerous to compete in.


Also, the perspective of the skaters participating in this "quad revolution" is generally something we are rarely graced with.  Usually, it's just fans talking to each other about it on Social Media.  If we do get input from skaters talking about the rising technical ceiling of the sport, they're either retired athletes or "athletically capped" skaters like Wagner, Brown, or Rippon.

Disagree entirely. You can dismiss the opinion of my coach as a retired athlete if you like, but I spoke to her about her take on the development of quads, as she was one of the first females in my country to be doing a triple Lutz and she says that the problems her body has now are not insignificant - and we're only talking about triples here.

You believe that young skaters are accepting the long term damage/risk to their bodies involved in doing quads and thus it's fine to continue to allow them, however I completely disagree that their acceptance is even necessarily valid for two reasons. For one, I don't think you can really say they're heeding what they're accepting into. When you're 18-20 and you know you've got to quad to remain competitive then, yes, that may be very exciting, but you're not thinking about "oh in 20 years time I'm going to have hip and ankle troubles" or "my back's going to be a mess then." As a young skater then you're thinking "gotta quad, it's expected, I'm excited" and I don't think you stop to consider that later impact because of how far away it is - and you have to remember these people are having to make these decisions at such a young age - were you wise and level-headed enough to make a decision like that when you were 18 or younger? Can you truly say the long term risk is being accepted in those moments? Another thing my coach pointed out was that the physical development young skaters have to go through in order to prepare to do quad jumps at the height of their career is largely taking place when they're 12-15 as their bodies are developing and so the damage being caused is having the most impact in the long run because their bodies aren't yet mature. If they don't start that physical development at that point then they won't necessarily be able to make those quads as effectively. I'm not saying they're incapable of making that decision, but the build up to doing quad jumps takes place over many years leading up to the point at which a skater is doing them, and it can kinda sneak up on them without any specific moment of "I was asked if I was getting into this." At the very least, a lot of information needs to be made available to these skaters to help inform their decision so some sort of due diligence can be said to have been done, although you can easily say this'll just become a formality if it were to exist because of the competitive edge made available by the quad, which brings me on to point two.

Secondly, the prevalence of the quad in competitive programs now is the ISU's tacit acceptance that it is fine to do, there's scoring guidelines for them. As long as those exist then there's a strong incentive to do them as they're worth big points and you can't pass up that kind of edge in a competitive format. Moves that involve a high degree of risk, such as the headbanger and backflip (admittedly these often represented immediate risk, rather than long term), have been banned in the past and you can't deny that they're impressive, but their risk is so big and any scoring system would have to award a high set of points to it to compensate for that risk. If you assign a high amount of points then competitive skaters have to do it, or they're passing up an edge. Obviously, those illegal moves have immediate risk that no one wants to see go wrong live on TV, so you can see why they were banned, but should the quad jump's delayed damage receive a pass just because its damage/risk isn't instant?

Just because other sports can also have long term effects on the top level participants doesn't mean that the ISU and other skating organisations have to let it get to that point in this sport. In other sports, like tennis, it's comparatively very hard to regulate people's training (and thus their long term damage) because you can't monitor them all the time for specific activities that may be detrimental to their long term health. But for skating, it's simple, the ISU just has to say that quads won't be awarded points and that source of damage to the athletes instantly evaporates (well, it still exists for triples, but presumably to a lesser extent) as there's no longer an incentive to learn/do them. I don't think the ISU are going to stop awarding points for quads any time soon, after all, the damage of a few skaters doesn't outweigh the drama and interest that thousands of people have watching the sport and quads are certainly fun to watch, but it doesn't mean the conversation as to whether they should be allowed doesn't have to happen.

[Nate]

Disagree entirely. You can dismiss the opinion of my coach as a retired athlete if you like, but I spoke to her about her take on the development of quads, as she was one of the first females in my country to be doing a triple Lutz and she says that the problems her body has now are not insignificant - and we're only talking about triples here.

You believe that young skaters are accepting the long term damage/risk to their bodies involved in doing quads and thus it's fine to continue to allow them, however I completely disagree that their acceptance is even necessarily valid for two reasons. For one, I don't think you can really say they're heeding what they're accepting into. When you're 18-20 and you know you've got to quad to remain competitive then, yes, that may be very exciting, but you're not thinking about "oh in 20 years time I'm going to have hip and ankle troubles" or "my back's going to be a mess then." As a young skater then you're thinking "gotta quad, it's expected, I'm excited" and I don't think you stop to consider that later impact because of how far away it is - and you have to remember these people are having to make these decisions at such a young age - were you wise and level-headed enough to make a decision like that when you were 18 or younger? Can you truly say the long term risk is being accepted in those moments? Another thing my coach pointed out was that the physical development young skaters have to go through in order to prepare to do quad jumps at the height of their career is largely taking place when they're 12-15 as their bodies are developing and so the damage being caused is having the most impact in the long run because their bodies aren't yet mature. If they don't start that physical development at that point then they won't necessarily be able to make those quads as effectively. I'm not saying they're incapable of making that decision, but the build up to doing quad jumps takes place over many years leading up to the point at which a skater is doing them, and it can kinda sneak up on them without any specific moment of "I was asked if I was getting into this." At the very least, a lot of information needs to be made available to these skaters to help inform their decision so some sort of due diligence can be said to have been done, although you can easily say this'll just become a formality if it were to exist because of the competitive edge made available by the quad, which brings me on to point two.

Secondly, the prevalence of the quad in competitive programs now is the ISU's tacit acceptance that it is fine to do, there's scoring guidelines for them. As long as those exist then there's a strong incentive to do them as they're worth big points and you can't pass up that kind of edge in a competitive format. Moves that involve a high degree of risk, such as the headbanger and backflip (admittedly these often represented immediate risk, rather than long term), have been banned in the past and you can't deny that they're impressive, but their risk is so big and any scoring system would have to award a high set of points to it to compensate for that risk. If you assign a high amount of points then competitive skaters have to do it, or they're passing up an edge. Obviously, those illegal moves have immediate risk that no one wants to see go wrong live on TV, so you can see why they were banned, but should the quad jump's delayed damage receive a pass just because its damage/risk isn't instant?

Just because other sports can also have long term effects on the top level participants doesn't mean that the ISU and other skating organisations have to let it get to that point in this sport. In other sports, like tennis, it's comparatively very hard to regulate people's training (and thus their long term damage) because you can't monitor them all the time for specific activities that may be detrimental to their long term health. But for skating, it's simple, the ISU just has to say that quads won't be awarded points and that source of damage to the athletes instantly evaporates (well, it still exists for triples, but presumably to a lesser extent) as there's no longer an incentive to learn/do them. I don't think the ISU are going to stop awarding points for quads any time soon, after all, the damage of a few skaters doesn't outweigh the drama and interest that thousands of people have watching the sport and quads are certainly fun to watch, but it doesn't mean the conversation as to whether they should be allowed doesn't have to happen.

No one says the physical effects of training quads were insignificant. What you're citing is an anecdote. Also, I find you leading with the assumption that I would "dismiss anyone's experience" blatantly offensive and exploitative (for obvious reasons).

I said that in the grand scheme of things skating isn't that bad. I think that's objectively verifiable.

That doesn't means skating is devoid of risk or lingering effects as a result of training those elements. Far from it. It just means that fans of skating often overstate that risk.

Gymnasts, Skiers, Snowboarders, Tennis players, etc. all accept risks to compete at the upper echelon of their sports. If this apprehension was determining the advancement of the sport, then progression would have been heavily (removed).

Gymnastics has banned some elements deemed too dangerous for competition.

The reason why we have quads today is because one day, when someone thought it too dangerous, someone dared to do a double.

This happens in many sports.

People were doing triple backs in Gymnastics when their was no mathematical rationale for it, because virtuosity counts for something in athletic sports.

It's the athletes choice on whether or not they want to train it. You aren't obligated to be competitive at the top of your sport. That's a choice you make, and something you work to achieve. If you don't have the athleticism to train and compete these elements, or the means to train them (as) safely (as possible), protect yourself and don't.

The only problem with quads that I have, is how much you can get for a fall. A quad with a fall is still basically a triple flip, lutz, or axel with +GOE. There doesn't seem to be a workable middle ground between rewarding the attempt and punishing the failures. As long as you can at least rotate, it's still a win - even if you've literally never landed one (even in practice). I see this as a sort of loophole in the system.

If they can close this, then I feel the system will work itself out.

For example if every -GOE element took 0.10 off your perf/exec score and every fall took 0.25 off of it. I think that could sway people more towards favoring cleanliness over number crunching.

I have a big beef with how awful men's events are becoming, because falling on quads is still worth more than a clean triple (of any type). The falls also increase risk of injury (like concussions).

[Doubletoe]

The only problem with quads that I have, is how much you can get for a fall. A quad with a fall is still basically a triple flip, lutz, or axel with +GOE. There doesn't seem to be a workable middle ground between rewarding the attempt and punishing the failures. As long as you can at least rotate, it's still a win - even if you've literally never landed one (even in practice). I see this as a sort of loophole in the system.

I have a big beef with how awful men's events are becoming, because falling on quads is still worth more than a clean triple (of any type). The falls also increase risk of injury (like concussions).

This is why they have increased the penalty for falls.  In Senior Singles events, the first two falls still get a -1 deduction each, but then the deduction goes up to -2 on the third fall, and -3 for the 5th fall.  Also, when a skater falls on a quad jump, it is often due to under-rotation, so the points received for the jump are considerably less than a clean triple.  For example, Adam Rippon's quad lutz at Skate America this season got him a total of 2.9 points (plus a shoulder injury), thanks to the << call, -3 GOE and -1 fall deduction.  As a result, he has taken the quad lutz out of his program.  Looking at the scoresheets for the same competition, you will see that a 4T<  (under-rotated but not downgraded) with a fall gets a total of 3 points after the -GOE and fall deduction, compared to 4.3 points for a 3T.  These falls also hurt the PCS marks, particularly the Transitions mark and Performance & Execution mark.

To me, the biggest risks are being taken by female pairs skaters, who not only land jumps from a higher height (look at Meagan Duhamel's throw quad salchow), but also suffer concussions on a regular basis due to the nature of pairs elements.  I find it amazing that top female pairs skaters like Aljona Savchenko actually tend to have longer competitive careers than female singles skaters!