Back to Cali (in Review): To Quad or Not to Quad-- Is That Really The Question?

So I’ve been thinking about this quad thing…

Wait—first, to stay consistent, here’s how my predictions for the men at Worlds shaped up:

Men:
I predicted Joubert for gold… he won bronze
I predicted Chan for silver… he won silver!!!
I predicted Ponsero for bronze… he finished way, waaaaay off the podium (16th, to be precise)

2 out of 3 for the podium; 1 correct placement. (And sorry Evan Lysacek; I had you as a possible spoiler but didn’t have enough confidence in you to predict you for any podium slot, let alone gold. Shame on me!)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this quad thing. For the past decade or so we’ve had the same line droned in… if a man competing in singles doesn’t have a quad jump in his arsenal his chances of making the podium (at Worlds or the Olympics), let alone actually winning, are minimal.

Yet we look at this year, and we see not only gold and silver medals worn by guys who skated quadless… but a bronze worn by a guy who did have a quad, but ironically blew any chance of winning with a flipout on a triple axel… as well as a belly flop on, of all things, a double axel.

And we look at last year, and we see that same quad guy on the podium, but surrounded yet again by two North American guys (two other North American guys) who skated quad-free as I recall.

What’s the deal? Where did all these lofty, master-a-quad-or-you’re-toast notions come from?

In three words: TWO. RUSSIAN. SUPERSTARS.

To be honest, it really started with Elvis Stojko… he won Worlds in ’97 with a FS that included a quad toe/triple toe (hereafter known as a 4T/3T); Alexei Yagudin, barely 17 at the time, claimed the bronze.

A year later, Yagudin won Worlds in one of those tired, post-Olympic letdowns we often see… during which he’d planned a quad, but blew it into a double. Another Russian upstart in the form of Evgeny Plushenko claimed silver.

In ’99, Yagudin won with a successful quad; Plushenko held silver once again.

In ’00, Yagudin won with a successful quad yet again; this time Stojko had silver.

In ’01, Plushenko won with a successful quad combo (the 4T/3T/2Loop!); Yagudin settled for silver.

In ’02, Quad man Yagudin regained his title (and an Olympic title too) while the U.S. Quad King,, Timothy Goebel, took silver.

In ’03, with Yagudin in retirement, Plushenko nailed his quad combo again and won while Goebel repeated his silver medal work (with, dare I say, more quads).

In ’04, Plushenko won his third Worlds, quad intact. Up-and-comer Joubert took silver.

In ’05, Stephane Lambiel ended the 7-year Russian domination with his victory, but yes, a 4T/3T helped him win.

’06 and ’07 saw Plushenko win Olympics, Lambiel win ’06 Worlds, and Joubert win ’07 Worlds… all with successful quads.

So there’s a flurry of names there, particularly near the end of the list, but here’s my point: during a solid 8-year span (1997-2004), of the 24 worlds medals for men handed out during that time, 11 of them—nearly half—were won by just two men. Two Russian superstars, when all was said and done.

And they didn’t just win on the technical difficulty of their jumps… they were arguably brilliant all-around skaters; Yagudin, in particular, frequently found himself smothered with 6.0s in presentation for his considerable efforts.

We just have to face facts—no matter what neck of the woods a skater is from, the bar was raised impeccably high for all of them, for a mighty long time, because of Yagudin and Plushenko. Respect it, and strive for it, but please don’t make a pissing contest out of it, fellas. The ice is slippery enough for everyone.

With that said, here’s Yagudin’s Free Skate From the 2002 Olympics as the Clip of the Day.