Patrick Chan, New World Champ and Record Holder, Can he reach 300 score?

[jettasian]

First of all, congratulation to Patrick Chan for winning the World Title in recording breaking fashion! Totally deserved it.

To the Chan haters/bashers, there are many threads out there you can bash/moan about Chan's over marked etc. to your heart's content, can you please do not infect this thread as well? Thanks.

This thread is for the people who like Chan's skating, appreciate his skill and technique. Now that he has achieved his goal. What will his next goal be? 300? Can he do it? And what should he do to get there?

What much did his LP 3A step-out cost him?

I think he will need another quad combo if he wants to get to 300, lol, and I think it's achievable.

[Bluebonnet]

Well, he wants to dominate men's figure skating. So most importantly, he needs consistency. He's improved his consistency quite remarkably this season. I think it's realistically possible for him to dominate for a while.

If he skates more quad jumps than 3, of course he could reach 300. But he has to learn different kind of quad other than quad toe. Does he have it? It might be too soon for next season.

[janetfan]

I think he will need another quad combo if he wants to get to 300

Either that or he could take up bowling.

[Blades of Passion]

How much did his LP 3A step-out cost him?

Not enough. Should be a mandatory -2 GOE for that kind of mistake, as it was an ungainly stepout, and many judges only gave -1. The points lost for -GOE are also not nearly as high as they should be. The rule changes for this season reward messy jumps as long as they are rotated within a 1/4 turn. Patrick lost -1.57 points for his mistake on the Triple Axel. In reality it should have been at least double that amount.

Can he reach 300? Well, I would argue that it doesn't matter. The actual score becomes meaningless when put into the context of how much points everything is worth and how wildly inaccurate the +GOE scores and PCS given out are. We saw an increase in base values for the big jumps this season and an increase in the GOE and PCS being handed out.

That said, if this kind of terrible scoring continues and Patrick Chan puts a 3rd Quad in his LP and skates to the level of his SP from Worlds and his LP from Nationals, then he could break 300.

[wallylutz]

If he skates more quad jumps than 3, of course he could reach 300. But he has to learn different kind of quad other than quad toe. Does he have it? It might be too soon for next season.

Team Chan has been suggesting that the next type of Quad that would be a natural fit for him is the Quad Flip. According to Dartfish analysis of his jumps, his teams believes that he is more than capable of doing Quad Flip and get it fully rotated. This is the same analysis they have done on his Quad Toe as well. Chan is the type of skater who favors toe jumps, whereas he tends to be a little weaker on his edge jumps. Seeing how he almost never misses his Triple Flips and the ease which they were executed, I believe Quad Flip is next for him. When will it be ready? I don't know. Chan seems surprised that he can do Quad Flip, though that's what his Dartfish entourage is telling him and he said he trusts their scientific analysis. So if a scientific analysis of his jumps show he can do Quad Flip, then I think this is real.

More than just aiming for the 300 points goal, I do think he will eventually need more than just Quad Toe. By 2013, my expectation is that 2 Quads will be fairly routine among Men's LP. In order to continue to stand out and sustain the kind of leads he has, there is no doubt in my mind he will need to continue to persevere, otherwise he risk being taken over by other men shooting for him. Men's sport has always been very cutthorat, much more so than women's.

My guess is if he does include a 3rd Quad in his LP, it will likely be replacing his Double Axel jumping pass, the last jump element in his LP. And the 3 Quads will be executed as the first 3 jump elements of the LP, likely as 4T, then 4F, and 4T+3T. If he does that, I think the 300 points barrier is reachable, though the rest of the jumping passes may need to be revised as well. I was surprised by Javier Fernandez's overall BV in his LP today - he actually had a higher total BV than Chan, which was really intriguing. I haven't studied it yet in details but what's interesting is that it's not entirely due to the inclusion of a 4S as opposed to another 4T. In short, the possibility is endless for Chan going forward, I hope to see him doing well in the future.

[blue_idealist]

He doesn't currently do a 3A-3T or a second 3A, does he? I'm pretty sure he doesn't do the first but I can't recall if there is a second 3A in his program, I'm thinking no though

It would be good if he could master the quad-triple-double like Plushenko.. or what about a 3-3-3? Could it be done? lol

[wallylutz]

He doesn't currently do a 3A-3T or a second 3A, does he? I'm pretty sure he doesn't do the first but I can't recall if there is a second 3A in his program, I'm thinking no though

He doesn't have the space to do a 2nd 3A in his LP because he is repeating 4T and 3Lz. He could potentially replace one of the 3Lz for a 3A but for strategic reasons, his team chose to repeat the 3Lz instead, likely because his Lutz is far more consistent than his Axel and the point differential is not tremendous.

It would be good if he could master the quad-triple-double like Plushenko.. or what about a 3-3-3? Could it be done? lol

There is almost no benefit for him or most other people to go for such combo. Granted the show factor is interesting but that's about it. Given that a skater is only allowed one 3 jump combo in the entire LP, doing a 4-3-2 or 4-3-3 a la Kevin van der Perren will disallow his ability to do a 3Lz/3S combo and that would mean the loss of a jumping pass, which will end up lowering his overall BV. It would be even more costly should he decide to have 3 Quads in his LP as a jumping pass would worth even more then. KVDP's 4-3-3 is nice to look at but the design of his jumping layout fails to maximize the BV for him and in fact, worked against him.

[Blades of Passion]

There is almost no benefit for him or most other people to go for such combo. [Quad-Triple-Doube or Triple-Triple-Triple

Correct, and it's yet another flaw in the current scoring system. Combinations should be given bonuses and that bonus should be proportional to the difficulty of the combination.

[bibi24]

Congrats Patrick! I really admire and am jealous of his training regime + environment. This dedication has probably contributed to much of his consistency.

I read he models his 4T after Plushenko via the Dartfish software. However no one has done the 4F, so who can he model it after? TIA.

[pangtongfan]

To get over 300 would definitely require doing 2 different quads in the short program and probably atleast 4 quads in the long. So he would need to learn alot of new quads. Really it isnt a realistic target I dont think. He is a long way from that even now skating at his max which is far beyond anything else at the moment, and his step out of the triple axel hardly cost him anything in the marks so wouldnt have even been close to it without that. And furthermore it isnt neccessary. None of his competitors will be capable of coming near 300 let alone cracking it, even if they show huge improvements, so he doesnt need to do that either.

[wallylutz]

I read he models his 4T after Plushenko via the Dartfish software. However no one has done the 4F, so who can he model it after? TIA.

I guess he will just have to create a new model using himself. He can also get assistance from a skating partner, doing it the way women learn to do pair throw jump. Ladies have to be able to do the intended throw jump without assistance first. Then, with help from the momentum provided by the man, she can vault into the air doing jumps she otherwise can't do as a single skater. To see how Chan could do a 4F, he could in fact mimic this trick that female pair skaters use, with the assistance of a partner to begin with. Once they have the necessary video data to analyze, they can go from there.

The ball needs to start rolling somewhere, he will just have to start experimenting with 4F and see how it goes. In any event, he is not the type who can do 4S or 4Lo so 4F really is his best bet other than the 4T.

[wallylutz]

To get over 300 would definitely require doing 2 different quads in the short program and probably atleast 4 quads in the long. So he would need to learn alot of new quads. Really it isnt a realistic target I dont think. He is a long way from that even now skating at his max which is far beyond anything else at the moment, and his step out of the triple axel hardly cost him anything in the marks so wouldnt have even been close to it without that. And furthermore it isnt neccessary. None of his competitors will be capable of coming near 300 let alone cracking it, even if they show huge improvements, so he doesnt need to do that either.

Your statement is incorrect.

He is about 19 points short of 300.

1) Switching from 3F to 3Lz in the SP would add +0.7 BV
2) Getting Level 4 on CCSp in the SP would add another +0.5 BV
3) Doing one 3A in LP properly and getting an average of +2 GOE, means it goes from -1.57 to +2 = +3.6
4) Getting Level 4 on SlSt in the LP would add +0.60 in BV and doubles the GOE -> +1.29
5) Getting Level 4 on CSSp in the LP would add +0.40 in BV
6) Improve GOE on the 3Lo in the LP to an average of +2, means it goes from +0.1 to +1.4 = +1.3
7) Adding a 4F, replacing the 2A = +12.3 - 2A* (3.3 X 1.1) + 3Lz* (6 X 1.1) - 3Lz (6) = +9.27 in BV. GOE increases from +0.5 to +2.0 assuming +2 GOE = +1.5

Total Improvement = +19.16

280.98 + 19.16 > 300

See, he only needs to add one Quad Flip to the LP. No need to do even 2 Quads in the SP, which is too risky in my opinion - only desperate men would adopt such strategy at this time in the SP.

[bibi24]

The partner way seems like a good alternative to the old tradition harness!

Plushenko also does not get much height on the edge jumps (except for axel), and he's attempted the 4Lutz many moons ago. Recently he's been able to pull off 4S and 4Loop in training, but they don't look impressive at all compared to the monstrous 4S we saw from Brezina and Javier last night. No one has been able to pull off 4F/4Lutz despite many attempts since they are extremely difficult.... so we shall see

[Blades of Passion]

To get over 300 would definitely require doing 2 different quads in the short program and probably at least 4 quads in the long.

No it wouldn't. Chan's LP performance at Worlds lost about 4.5 points from the mistake on the Axel and the step sequence only being called as Level 3. If that had been different, his total score at this competition would have been 285.5 / furthing adding a Quad Flip to the program (instead of the Double Axel) and getting +2 GOE on it would give him 11 more points, putting him at 296.5 / further upgrading his second Triple Lutz to a very well executed Triple Axel would push him up to 300. He'd probably get even higher PCS for such a performance as well and just for kicks he could also change his 2Toe in combination to a 2Axel in sequence, adding a few extra tenths of a point to the program, and putting him safely past 300.

[wallylutz]

The partner way seems like a good alternative to the old tradition harness!

Well, I didn't come up with this idea so can't take credit for it. The funny thing is if Ryan Bradley, a training mate of Chan, would continue his training, he could well be an ideal partner for Patrick's 4F throw experimentation because the difference in height between the two is about right and Ryan is big. But I don't think Ryan will continue training though, not after what happened at the Worlds this week - even the American fans seem to have given up on Bradley.

Plushenko also does not get much height on the edge jumps (except for axel), and he's attempted the 4Lutz many moons ago. Recently he's been able to pull off 4S and 4Loop in training, but they don't look impressive at all compared to the monstrous 4S we saw from Brezina and Javier last night. No one has been able to pull off 4F/4Lutz despite many attempts since they are extremely difficult.... so we shall see

Michael Weiss of the United States at one point did land a Quad Lutz in competition but it was later discredited due to a 2 foot landing from a slight touch down of the free foot. The record was revoked after the competition based on their video tape review of that jump. Weiss was very unhappy about that post-competition nullification of his achievement.

See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09FJ5QGbvgg