You're very right! Part of the reasons to do a quad is that it gives you more room for greater permutation of jumps and jump combinations. I think my main point is that a quad ALONE, in and of itself is insufficient to be unbeatable. A good example of that at the moment is Elizabet, who has a 4S and her jump layout is otherwise fairly standard.
Beyond that, there's also a lot of other factors to consider.
1. Like I mentioned, high risk and high reward nature of the quad; falling on a quad is one thing, a fall on a 4Lz (-5 GOE) is one thing, but there is very high risk of underrotation or downgrades +/- a fall. We've seen it happen with Trusova and with Shcherbakova at points. For example, Shcherbakova's 1st 4Lz at GPF was both a fall and downgraded; her BV for that jump was 5.90. With a -5 GOE as per falls in this new protocol, her score for that jump was 2.95.
2. GOEs make a huge difference. Don't forget NEGATIVE base value. In a fall thats half the original base value. If its a downgrade or underrotation, that's negative GOE on top of the reduced GOE. If its a fall, that's half the base value of the downgraded jump. See above with Anna's <<4Lz. On the other hand, your competitors are getting positive GOEs on their jumps. Which is to say a 3Lz with +4 GOE is getting 8.26 for the same jump VS 2.95 – a 6 point difference. A <4Lz with a -3 GOE (6.04) or a fully rotated 4Lz with a fall (5.90) will still be disadvantaged against a well executed 3Lz.
3. In theory harder jump combinations, yes. But in practice the opportunity cost of attempting the quad is high. The inherent difficulty of the Quad, and the amount of power/energy required to attempt the jump means that ceteris paribus, you'll have less energy for the rest of your jumps; on tired legs, the skater may NOT necessarily be able to execute the higher value jumps PLUS the chances of messing up other jumps after the quad is not an insignificant one due to tired legs. A skater doing triples will inevitably have greater reserves to execute combination jumps in the bonus as well. The base value difference with the harder permutation jumps are really only about 2 or 3 points, a gap not insurmountable in the face of competitors positive GOE and (theoretically) putting all higher value combination jumping passes in the bonus. Also, while Shcherbakova's programme includes harder combinations, Elizabet's (with a quad) does not. So the inclusion of harder jump combinations really only go as far as the skater's ability to execute them consistently.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Quads, and I think it's great that Russian girls are really pushing the frontier with it BUT as there are benefits to including them, there are also downsides. Quads do not make the skater unbeatable by far; land the quad, and you'll wipe the floor and will almost surely win, but failing to do so, and its more or less fair game for everyone else – the probability of either happening is equally high. Alina with no quads was able to surpass Rika who had 5 BV higher at Worlds, Alena beat out Sasha who had a 19 point BV gap. There's no guarantee with quads.
The efficacy of a program with quads will come down to the ability to balance risk and benefit. Team Tutberidtze's decision to change up Shcherbakova's program to cut back on the quads (multiple) mid-season really helped to increase the stability of landing the jump and maximised the use of a quad in Anna's case.
I guess this was a lengthy post but I guess tldr is that
- In theory YES QUADS.
- In practice, much more complicated than that.
Actually, on Lizzy's quad...
I would say she had another advantage from it: PCs.
To start with, judges love high TES. See Zagitova her first senior year. See Kihira. For same reason, i have no doubt that Trusova's PCs will rise next year.
But for skaters from noname feds, a quad is a way to get noticed.
Tursynbaeva's PCs across the season
SC 31.52 + 60.91
Rostelecom 30.75 + 61.65
4CC 31.20 + 64.40 (4S fall)
Universiade 32.68 + 68.08 (4S fall)
Worlds 34.18 + 69.83 (4S landed)
On GOE
Lets look at Anna again =)
Jump BV + GOE, not counting the 4Lz so 1 jumping pass left: 45,51 + 7,53 = 53,04 at junior worlds
at senior worlds
Zagitova: 47,84 + 9,54 = 57,38. 4,34 points difference, any 4Lz will beat this.
Kihira: 52,65 + 7,82 = 60,47. 7,43 points difference, so the 4Lz should be not too messed up (still, negative GOE would beat this)
Medvedeva: 45,28 + 9,26 = 54,54. 1,5 points difference, literally anything except not jumping at all would give Anna higher TES+GOE
So even if she makes mistakes, the negative GOE will not put her that much behind the other top competitors. In fact, she may still beat them in TES+GOE, even with mistakes. Even if her quad was downgraded and she fell on it like in GPF, she would be quite near Alina in TES (a 1 point or so difference), ahead of Zhenya in TES, and just 4 points behind Kihira in TES.
Now, if she is clean, she will be easily like 10+ points ahead of them in TES.
Actually, imho, as long as a skater is able to skate clean everything else, regardless of what happens on the quad, a quad is not a high risc element. Even with mistakes, you still get a decent score, because of the overall harder possible layout.
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