I am wondering if Jeff's recent back injury is a result of the quad. He has been working on this jump. If Jeff never did a quad it would be okay by me. I love his skating as it is. I hate to see artistic skaters like Jeff Buttle and Johnny Weir injuring themselves in order to land the quad.
I wish Jeff a speedy recovery and sure hope he will be at Skate Canada. I am looking forward to seeing his new programs.
I can't help wondering the same thing. He has been crashing to the ice trying that quad for the past 3 years, and he is soooo skinny that there isn't an ounce of padding on his body. I was loading my TiVo to tape last week, and watched his Worlds 2006 FS. He looked so worn out and fragile, and he could barely skate.
His body is telling him something. I hope he will listen and take enough time off for his back to heal, or he won't be around for the next Olympics.
Jeff suffered a relatively serious back injury a number of years ago. Initially, he was off the ice, and when he finally returned he could do nothing more than spins and footwork for many months. Jeff has often said, he thinks he became a strong spinner because all he could practice for months on end were spins, spins and spins. I was wondering if his current back injury (a fracture) stems from the pre-existing condition due to his earlier injury, and now exacerbated by the non-stop repetitive pounding from all the jumps, not just his attempts at the quad and axel.
Last edited by lotusland; 10-16-2006 at 04:29 PM.
Pre existing back problems, I can relate! That is a possiblility. Back problems are hard to deal with. I really feel for Jeff. I would rather see him take some time off to heal than further injur himself. What a gifted skater he is. All the best to him.
Sorry to hear about the injury and I really hope to see him this season. The thing about the quad is, he needs it. I'm all for the artistic skaters, but to be in contention for the gold, you've still got to have the quad. Otherwise you'll always be looking at those other two spots on the podium and the possibility of the top one will always rely on the meltdown of another skater. To have the competition in your control, you've got to have all the technical difficulty.
Yuck, I hate quads (as I've written so many times before). Let's take a count on how many people would prefer:
1) skimpy choreography with no inbetweens centered around jumping passes with a quad or two thrown in
2) full choreography with lots of inbetweens and some triples, combos and (dare I write) sequences, but no quads
It hasn't been officially announced yet, but the word is Buttle has withdrawn from his GP events. That may be the best thing for him at this point.
I hope the rest will enable him heal completely, and he will be able to compete at Nationals and Worlds.
Here is the official announcement from the Skate Canada site today.
http://www.skatecanada.ca/en/news_vi...06/oct16_2.cfm
And I don't disagree with you. The point of my post re: Buttle needing the quad, is more about the competitive reality as it is now than what I'd prefer personally. Right now, for example, in spite of having what is largely recognized as some of the best choreography in the biz and many other fine technical elements, Buttle is less of a contender at any given event for the top spot on the podium than say Lambiel or Plushenko. The difference? The quad.Originally Posted by Mafke
The Olympics clearly demonstrated that the judges are willing to inflate choreograpy marks in the face of relative technical prowess, as we saw with Plushenko's winning FS, which was a choreographic dead zone. COP has made things a little better (no longer are we seeing three-quad programs with nothing in between winning over superior programs), but it still isn't perfect, and the quad still has a certain glamour.
I dont think the judges inflate Plushenko's PCS scores has much if anything to do with doing the quad. Others who do quads have nowhere near as high of PCS even Lambiel or Joubert. Buttle will not suddenly get Plushenko-like PCS if he masters a quad I think, nobody will. The judges simply love Plushenko's overall skating much more then many fans do, and his presence, command of the ice, and power overshadow his bare choreography and lack of transitions I suppose as well.
Actually, you needn't have waited to watch the 2006 Olympics to see the judging panel ingnore the fact that a competitor's program was literally a choreographic wasteland, and inflate the PC marks based on the jumping strength of individual skater. That little trick has been happening from day one. CoP or 6.0, it makes no difference ... land the most jumps (triples/quads) or the most difficult jumps (triples/quads) and you have always been deemed to have had superior skating skills. Inspite of the fact skaters were supposed to have been rewarded under their technical mark, judges have been determined to reward the skater a second time under their component/presentation mark. There is nothing new in that traditition. I will say though, IMHO, Jeff has done better than many other competitors in getting the judges to reward him for his true skating skills even when he has had difficulties with his jumping passes.
The knife cuts both ways. I have seen Jeff performances where he fell on the quad and either fell on or botched at least one 3A attempt, but got exactly the SAME raw PCS scores he got for a clean SP.
Jeff's jumping is not on the same level as his spins and footwork, and the falls and bobbles disrupt the flow of the program, yet he gets higher SS and PE scores than other top skaters get for clean programs. I could see why Jeff's TR, CH and IN scores should be considerably higher than other top men, but not the SS and PE scores. Those should be lower.
So sad to hear Jeff is out of his GP events. Makes me a little less eager to see mens.
On the other hand, I'm always wary of skaters who don't take enough time to heal themselves well and just end up injured worse because of it. So I just hope to see him healthy and competing as soon as he can.
Must be very disappointing for him not to be in it like he planned.....
You see that with alot of the top skaters though, not just Jeff. Lambiel's PCS scores for his Olympics free skate, which was a semi-disaester and had multiple major disruptive mistakes, were only about .2 per category lower then his two World Championship long programs(qualifying and final long) which were greatly improved performances. Lysacek got the same PCS scores almost exactly for his shaky qualifying round performance at Worlds as his final free program at Worlds which was a far better performance. Joubert had higher PCS IIRC at Europeans for his shaky performance, then Worlds his best free skate by far since 2004.
I am talking about scores within the same competition. You can't compare Europeans scores to World scores because Euros are often wildly overmarked.
The PCS problem is that the judges keep the scores closely aligned (if one score is high, nearly all of the scores are within .25-75 of that mark) AND they frequently base the scores on skater reputation (protocol judging), not on the performance in front of them.
Only after a skater has had a series of poor performances will the PCS scores get dropped. Julia Sebestyen continued to get fairly high scores for a while, but recently they have slipped to match her performances.
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