This was an interesting quote, about landing three quads in his LP at Cup of Russia:
"At the competition, I was first after the short program, and I was the last skater to take the ice for the free skate. I knew that all of the skaters before me did not skate clean, which left some room to attempt the third quad and even fail at it and still win. When I took the ice, I was focused only on the first two quad jumps, the toe and the salchow. As I was approaching the point in the program where I could insert the third quad, I remember thinking, 'Do it. Even if you miss it, you have nothing to lose. Nobody else was clean, you can still win.'"
I have never really liked the strategy of modifying your program on the spot in response to what someone else did or didn't do. If you're THE MAN, then you skate your program the way you prepared it and let the others adjust to you. Plushenko never put in an extra jump or left one out because of what someone else did or might do. He just skated his program as if he were the only one in the competition and no one else existed.
Michelle Kwan, in her middle years, had a strategy where if she hit her triple-triple, then she would end with a split jump. But if she doubled the second half of her 3/3, then she would do an extra triple toe in that spot at the end to bring her quota of jumps back up to seven.
But this is reacting to her own performance, not giving the opposition any say in the matter.
Brian needs to go out there with the attitude, "I'm Brian Joubert, you're not."
hwell:
:agree:
. I just hope he keeps it up. That is, I hope he has the confidence to go into Europeans determined to do everything he practiced, come what may. :agree:
........
