Why is the quad Axel so undervalued?

[DizzyFrenchie]

Anyway, Yuzuru got the last laugh on his tormentors within the Japanese skating establishment. He has two Olympic gold metals and a few billion yen in the bank.

Just like Sarah Crewe but I wouldn't spoil the read...
And JSF are entering harsh times because they have empty venues, reticent sponsors and lost the 10% share of his endorsements, this while, Figure Skating being the main fund raiser, they had split the expenses as 70% for Speed Skating and 30% for Figure Skating, last year they had to fire a star Dutch coach and it's probably not the end. So, there's reportedly tectonic moves among skaters. Miss Amalias are awaking.

 

[skatingguy]

Sure, but your comment was that in 2018, when the ISU was deciding the BV for 4A, no one thought Yuzuru would try to land it. Meanwhile, Yuzuru made it clear immediately after the Olympics that his goal now was to land 4A. So when the new BV values were announced, it was already known that he is determined to land 4A. And judging by his 3A and his success in landing various quads shortly after he started practicing them, it was assumed that he would also be able to land 4A quite soon.

But the new base values were announced before the 2018 Olympics.

 

[Magill]

But the new base values were announced before the 2018 Olympics.

The updated Scale of Values Communication (for season 2018/2019) was dated May 23, 2018, corrected on June 25, 2018. Clearly after the 2018 Winter Olympics.

https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/rules-regulations/isu-congresses/17142-isu-communication-2168/file

 

[CoyoteChris]

I disagree. Skating fans of all stripes love to argue about all aspects of scoring, regardless. What is the proper factor to balance PCS and TES? How great sholud the penalties be for underrotations and edge calls? How can we improve consistency of judging? How can the scale of values by tweaked to produce a better sport.

Among American fans of men's skating (that vanishing breed), some admire Nathan Chen and his quads, some like Jason Brown. In terms of ISU politics and bullying by powerfaul federations, who are the more powerful and sinister players, the Brownies or the Chenites?

Mathman.

 

[skatingguy]

The updated Scale of Values Communication (for season 2018/2019) was dated May 23, 2018, corrected on June 25, 2018. Clearly after the 2018 Winter Olympics.

https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/rules-regulations/isu-congresses/17142-isu-communication-2168/file

Yes, the ISU issues an updated list every year, and when changes are made. The changes to the value of the quadruple jumps came into affect for the 2018/2019 season, but they were announced well before that.

 

[Magill]

Yes, the ISU issues an updated list every year, and when changes are made. The changes to the value of the quadruple jumps came into affect for the 2018/2019 season, but they were announced well before that.

I recall them announced after the Olympics and the document says the same. They had been generally discussed earlier, but no decisions were made or announced....

 

[skatingguy]

I recall them announced after the Olympics and the document says the same. They have been discussed earlier, but no decisions were made or announced....

Yes, ISU Communications for the next season are always published between the end of one season, and the start of the next season, but the changes were announced in 2017. The point remains the same - they weren't done with any one skater in mind, but a response to the overall trend & increase in the number of quads being performed by skaters in the 2016/17, and 2017/18 seasons.

 

[rabidline]

I think the reason the question is asked more seriously now is because Ilia is landing it in a very consistent manner to the point that he can include it in the SP, and he's still very young in skating years. And this was thought to be an impossible jump until a year ago, and now enough time has passed to make an early judgement that his first landing was not a fluke, and his consistency in competition has increased as months have passed instead of decreasing due to the impossibility of it. But unlike when Boyang brought back the 4Lz and when the 4F and 4Lo were first landed, after a year we are seeing no one else attempting and landing the 4A in competition.

To me, until Ilia started to land it in a consistent manner during competitions and have it appear consistently in his protocols, 4A was more of a concept than a real jump. That it inspired people to attempt it from time to time was ultimately impactless to how the sport works (it inspires other skaters but that's different compared to impacting the technicalities that makes FS a scored sport), because the number of attempts in competition was very low, and was never close to the actual jump being done. So the base value or the lack of it didn't matter much back then and likely was installed there to discourage skaters from attempting them and injuring themselves and taking them out of competition, which for certain star skaters will equal ISU losing money if they are injured and not able to make it to competitions. A similar rule that to me works with a similar purpose is the cap in PCS for falls and serious mistakes, to limit the planned falls and likely reduce attempts of jumps that can land in falls and increase injury potential.

As for the decrease of 4A base value being targeted on Yuzuru, maybe it was. Maybe all the sponsors who have been benefitting from his star power came together and ask ISU on how they can prolong his health and longevity especially when competitions where he withdrew from due to injuries are showing lack of ticket sales and audience interest. And maybe ISU thought by decreasing the BV of 4A it would discourage Yuzuru from training it and injuring himself further than he already was. Who knows.

 

[Baron Vladimir]

Yes, ISU Communications for the next season are always published between the end of one season, and the start of the next season, but the changes were announced in 2017. The point remains the same - they weren't done with any one skater in mind, but a response to the overall trend & increase in the number of quads being performed by skaters in the 2016/17, and 2017/18 seasons.

They were talking about it because Sochi's men competition was painful to watch, to be fair... Retrospectively, they rised the BV of quads when Lysacek won Olympics without attempting any quad and Mao's 3A didn't worth a lot... Then, they made the new system where harder jumps were 'appreciated' more... Then they saw skaters attempting quads and falling at Sochi.... Olympics at Korea were very good figure skating expirience for that matter... And the system (base values of the elements, evaluations of the levels and components) is changing depending on how all group of skaters perform at prior Olympic, or how Olympic competition as a whole and performances of their medalists looked for the casual viewers... I'm sometimes sorry for the top level athletes these days, but the point of the sport event never was to 'decide a rightful winner', but for the viewers to enjoy that event...

 

[Magill]

Yes, ISU Communications for the next season are always published between the end of one season, and the start of the next season, but the changes were announced in 2017. The point remains the same - they weren't done with any one skater in mind, but a response to the overall trend & increase in the number of quads being performed by skaters in the 2016/17, and 2017/18 seasons.

I do not think they had been announced earlier, just discussed with no decisions made. But, of course, I may be mistaken. In such a case, would you please link the announcement and let's stop here?

 

[skatingguy]

I do not think they had been announced earlier, just discussed with no decisions made. But, of course, I may be mistaken. In such a case, would you please link the announcement and let's stop here?

I wish I could, but between the ISU website update to accommodate tablets, and the lose of Ice Network's archives the information is mostly lost. This is as close as I can get - the list of jump values are at the bottom of the article.

ISU proposes "radical change" to rebalance figure skating's artistry and athleticism — Globetrotting by Philip Hersh

A top official at the International Skating Union said the organization is looking at "radical change" in figure skating in order to achieve a better balance between the athletic and artistic sides of the sport. The change would involve substantially lowering the base values of quadruple

www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com

 

[Magill]

I wish I could, but between the ISU website update to accommodate tablets, and the lose of Ice Network's archives the information is mostly lost. This is as close as I can get - the list of jump values are at the bottom of the article.

ISU proposes "radical change" to rebalance figure skating's artistry and athleticism — Globetrotting by Philip Hersh

A top official at the International Skating Union said the organization is looking at "radical change" in figure skating in order to achieve a better balance between the athletic and artistic sides of the sport. The change would involve substantially lowering the base values of quadruple

www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com

Yes, this is a proposal, correct. No decision. That's what I have been saying all the time.
Just like with the recent change of minimum age for seniors - it was discussed for the long time but until the decision was made, no one knew if and what exactly it would be. This is the difference between discussing proposals and announcing decisions.
BTW, this was a part of the same proposal (quoting from your link):
"Everything is possible," Bianchetti wrote. "At the moment, it is absolutely too early to say anything. The intention is to have three different medals: one for technical, one for artistic and one all-around, but how it will be for sure is impossible to say now."
See? Has it ever come around yet? Could have happened to any part of it just as well.
But let's just stop it here

 

[icetug]

Let's assume that we would stay at the previous BV for 4A, i.e. 15. With the new GOE scale, a perfect jump would get 22.5 points. I don't know if you remember when Samarin landed 4Lz+3T and thus became the record holder for the highest TES of a jumping element after the introduction of the new BV and GOE. It was 21.12 (and now Ilia probably holds the record, for 4Lz+3S seq). Then I thought: he got more points for one jump element than for all non-jump elements combined, i.e. 3 spins, StSq and ChSq. Well, Samarin wasn't known as an all-round skater, so I checked: at the Olympics in Seoul, the highest collective TES for these 5 elements was 21.8 (which Yuzuru got with 18 max GOE). At last Worlds Shoma got 24.53 TES (16 max GOE), a bit more, but it's still only 2 points more (for 5 elements!) than for 4A with the former BV and new GOE.
If BV for jumps remained so high, how could skaters be encouraged to work on non-jumping elements?

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Yes, ISU Communications for the next season are always published between the end of one season, and the start of the next season, but the changes were announced in 2017. The point remains the same - they weren't done with any one skater in mind, but a response to the overall trend & increase in the number of quads being performed by skaters in the 2016/17, and 2017/18 seasons.

May I recall that Yuzuru Hanyu had stated his objective of landing a 4A as early as 2007, that it was known that he was practising it way before PyeongChang, and that in that very 2016-2017 season he had just as clearly become the marked man in Men Figure Skating?
That's why there's a suspicion. Meanwhile, he wasn't at all in a good place because he saw the growth of discrepancies between his scoring and others'. It worsened after PyeongChang of course.

 

[Mathman]

Let's assume that we would stay at the previous BV for 4A, i.e. 15. With the new GOE scale, a perfect jump would get 22.5 points.

Sometimes it seems to me thqt the judges use GOEs exactly for that purpose, to give an extra bonus for jumps of very high difficulty whose base values alone don't get the job done. Not every quad is of outstanding quality. But we almost never see a successful quad get a zero GOE (aduquate, but not exceptional).

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Sometimes it seems to me thqt the judges use GOEs exactly for that purpose, to give an extra bonus for jumps of very high difficulty whose base values alone don't get the job done. Not every quad is of outstanding quality. But we almost never see a successful quad get a zero GOE (aduquate, but not exceptional).

Do you mean, these two last seasons? I haven't been close enough to the score sheets, and it could be. And as I said, it could be too that calling rotated an underrotated 4A brings it to a virtual rotated value of 15.625, which is the same principle.
But in the past Olympic cycle, the way I saw GOEs was exactly as calls, to reward preferred athletes and to drown unwanted ones, irrespective of the real quality of the jump. Of course, initially the narrative for going into +5/-5 was rewarding quality, but it isn't how it happened.

 

[eppen]

When the 4A still had a higher BV, it was attempted once, by Artur Dmitriev at the Russian Cup Final in February 2018. After the new score was used, it was attempted by Dmitriev 3 times and by Hanyu twice. Malinin has now 11 4A attempts in his pocket.

The number of skaters who have revealed that they have at some point trained is also quite low, 6: Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko, Alexei Yagudin, Brandon Mroz, Brendan Kerry and Keegan Messing. There must have been more, but hard to know if they don't talk about it.

The 4A is surely the most difficult jump at the moment, but now that it has been cracked, I could imagine that in some time there will be others who will start working on it and attempting it in competions also. It will not happen right away, but let's wait and see.

Thinking of the scoring of quads, I actually think the current system actually encourages quads. This is obvious when you look at their history. From the first attempt until 1996, the quad was a marginal element, attempted by some, but not something that everyone strived to get. Something changed in judging before the 1996-7 season, because that season marks a change with more pops and poor attempts than ever before. In addition to the 4T and 4S, 4Lz and 4Lo were attempted. The increase in attempts and skaters attempting quads continued until the start of the IJS.

That was followed by stagnation that lasted until the early 2010s. This is IMO because the jump scoring was pretty harsh under the early IJS. A poor attempt was more often than not deemed downgraded - no underrrotation until 2010 - and you would end up with a very low score for your efforts. The BV for 4T for example went up from 8 to 9 to 9,80 from 2003 until 2010, but that did not encourage skaters to attempt more of them, actually the number of attempts went down from 164 to 129. Though the BV was higher, the negative GOEs got factored with 1,60 so that getting a very low score was even more likely than before.

The big overhaul starting with the 2010-11 season introduced even higher BVs BUT more importantly also underrotations in addition to downgrades. It encouraged risk-taking considerably compared to early IJS. In addition, two quads in the short were allowed which made having multiple quads also worthwhile. This change started to get results, ie more attempts, more skaters attempting quads and also attempting multiple quad types only a few years laters, starting from roughly 2014-5 onwards.

Since then the scoring has gradually gotten harsher again, but that has not been enough to discourage more skaters going for quads.

This table shows the changes in 4T and 4S scoring in the IJS period.

Period	4T BV​	GOE​	Min​	Max​	4S BV​	GOE​	Min​	Max​
2003–04	8,00​	+-3​	5,00​	11,00​	8,50​	+-3​	5,50​	11,50​
2004–08	9,00​	+-3​	6,00​	12,00​	9,50​	+-3​	6,50​	12,50​
2008–10*	9,80​	-4,80–+3​	5,00​	12,80​	10,30​	-4,80–+3​	5,50​	13,30​
2010–15	10,30​	+-3​	7,30​	13,30​	10,50​	+-3​	7,50​	13,50​
2015–18**	10,30​	-4,00–+3​	6,30​	13,30​	10,50​	-4,00–+3​	6,50​	13,50​
2018–23	9,50​	+-4,75​	4,75​	14,25​	9,70​	+-4,85​	4,85​	14,45​

*Negative GOE multiplied with a factor of 1,60.
**Negative GOE -1 and -2 multiplied with a factor of 1,2 and -3 with ca. 1,33.

Thinking still about the history and how the jumps get done in reality, I think that the order of difficulty should be this: 4T, 4S, 4Lz, 4F, 4Lo, and 4A. I would like to see the BVs also reflect this.

The 4Lz was the third quad type to get attempted already starting from 1995. It is also the third most common quad type attempted - more than 900 attempts in the IJS era (almost 9000 for 4T and 4100 for 4S). Its history and popularity indicates that it is perhaps not that difficult and that it could be regarded as slightly overscored.

The order of 4F and 4Lo is just about interchangeable, the 4Lo got attempted in the late 1990s, the 4F only in 2010, both were first landed in 2016. 357 flips and 313 loops have been attempted since 2010. The 4F gets put into combos these days, but 4Lo combo is still a big rarity. I say give more points to these two jumps, they would deserve some encouragement.

Btw, a 0.00 GOE quad is already a pretty good one. The stats for this fall so far in order of frequency
4T 680 attempts, average GOE -0,72, 315 or 46% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4S 409 attempts, average GOE -0,62, 192 or 47% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4Lz 129 attempts, average GOE -0,50, 61 or 47% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4Lo 48 attempts, average GOE -0,93, 17 or 35% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4F 31 attempts, average GOE -1,10, 13 or 37% got 0,00 or higher GOE

Somehow I find it unlikely that a high BV on its own would be enough to encourage attempts for some jump type. There are so any factors to consider and different skaters have very different sets of motivations... I hope Malinin stopped complaining about the low scores of the 4A and would concentrate on showing with his jumps that it is possible - that is probably the more important motivation for others to follow him than the individual scores.

 

[icewhite]

When the 4A still had a higher BV, it was attempted once, by Artur Dmitriev at the Russian Cup Final in February 2018. After the new score was used, it was attempted by Dmitriev 3 times and by Hanyu twice. Malinin has now 11 4A attempts in his pocket.

The number of skaters who have revealed that they have at some point trained is also quite low, 6: Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko, Alexei Yagudin, Brandon Mroz, Brendan Kerry and Keegan Messing. There must have been more, but hard to know if they don't talk about it.

The 4A is surely the most difficult jump at the moment, but now that it has been cracked, I could imagine that in some time there will be others who will start working on it and attempting it in competions also. It will not happen right away, but let's wait and see.

Thinking of the scoring of quads, I actually think the current system actually encourages quads. This is obvious when you look at their history. From the first attempt until 1996, the quad was a marginal element, attempted by some, but not something that everyone strived to get. Something changed in judging before the 1996-7 season, because that season marks a change with more pops and poor attempts than ever before. In addition to the 4T and 4S, 4Lz and 4Lo were attempted. The increase in attempts and skaters attempting quads continued until the start of the IJS.

That was followed by stagnation that lasted until the early 2010s. This is IMO because the jump scoring was pretty harsh under the early IJS. A poor attempt was more often than not deemed downgraded - no underrrotation until 2010 - and you would end up with a very low score for your efforts. The BV for 4T for example went up from 8 to 9 to 9,80 from 2003 until 2010, but that did not encourage skaters to attempt more of them, actually the number of attempts went down from 164 to 129. Though the BV was higher, the negative GOEs got factored with 1,60 so that getting a very low score was even more likely than before.

The big overhaul starting with the 2010-11 season introduced even higher BVs BUT more importantly also underrotations in addition to downgrades. It encouraged risk-taking considerably compared to early IJS. In addition, two quads in the short were allowed which made having multiple quads also worthwhile. This change started to get results, ie more attempts, more skaters attempting quads and also attempting multiple quad types only a few years laters, starting from roughly 2014-5 onwards.

Since then the scoring has gradually gotten harsher again, but that has not been enough to discourage more skaters going for quads.

This table shows the changes in 4T and 4S scoring in the IJS period.

Period	4T BV​	GOE​	Min​	Max​	4S BV​	GOE​	Min​	Max​
2003–04	8,00​	+-3​	5,00​	11,00​	8,50​	+-3​	5,50​	11,50​
2004–08	9,00​	+-3​	6,00​	12,00​	9,50​	+-3​	6,50​	12,50​
2008–10*	9,80​	-4,80–+3​	5,00​	12,80​	10,30​	-4,80–+3​	5,50​	13,30​
2010–15	10,30​	+-3​	7,30​	13,30​	10,50​	+-3​	7,50​	13,50​
2015–18**	10,30​	-4,00–+3​	6,30​	13,30​	10,50​	-4,00–+3​	6,50​	13,50​
2018–23	9,50​	+-4,75​	4,75​	14,25​	9,70​	+-4,85​	4,85​	14,45​

*Negative GOE multiplied with a factor of 1,60.
**Negative GOE -1 and -2 multiplied with a factor of 1,2 and -3 with ca. 1,33.

Thinking still about the history and how the jumps get done in reality, I think that the order of difficulty should be this: 4T, 4S, 4Lz, 4F, 4Lo, and 4A. I would like to see the BVs also reflect this.

The 4Lz was the third quad type to get attempted already starting from 1995. It is also the third most common quad type attempted - more than 900 attempts in the IJS era (almost 9000 for 4T and 4100 for 4S). Its history and popularity indicates that it is perhaps not that difficult and that it could be regarded as slightly overscored.

The order of 4F and 4Lo is just about interchangeable, the 4Lo got attempted in the late 1990s, the 4F only in 2010, both were first landed in 2016. 357 flips and 313 loops have been attempted since 2010. The 4F gets put into combos these days, but 4Lo combo is still a big rarity. I say give more points to these two jumps, they would deserve some encouragement.

Btw, a 0.00 GOE quad is already a pretty good one. The stats for this fall so far in order of frequency
4T 680 attempts, average GOE -0,72, 315 or 46% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4S 409 attempts, average GOE -0,62, 192 or 47% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4Lz 129 attempts, average GOE -0,50, 61 or 47% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4Lo 48 attempts, average GOE -0,93, 17 or 35% got 0,00 or higher GOE
4F 31 attempts, average GOE -1,10, 13 or 37% got 0,00 or higher GOE

Somehow I find it unlikely that a high BV on its own would be enough to encourage attempts for some jump type. There are so any factors to consider and different skaters have very different sets of motivations... I hope Malinin stopped complaining about the low scores of the 4A and would concentrate on showing with his jumps that it is possible - that is probably the more important motivation for others to follow him than the individual scores.

There has been the thought in the Russians threads that the 4Lo gets attempted more often by Russian men - indeed they like to go for it. Why is not so clear. The 4Lz is also popular. Hardly anybody does the 4F. Does that mean the 4F is more difficult? Maybe. There is almost nobody who is able to jump it with clean technique. But then I would think that's also because if you train for either 4Lz or 4F and they are roughly equally difficult, you will go for Lz because it's worth slightly more. So maybe they are just equally difficult? As a non-top skater, ehem, I can't say.
Could also be that the 4Lz is, in theory, more difficult, but, for those who are already extremely good at high rotation, it's easier.
Could be that certain coaching techniques favour certain jumps while the jump itself is not harder or easier in general.

At the moment it seems to me that the 4Lo, 4F and 4Lz should all get the same bv. But I think it's extremely difficult to tell as an amateur from the outside. It's probably more helpful to ask high profile skaters who are actually training, attempting, and even landing these jumps cleanly.

 

[4everchan]

@eppen
I recall Camden Pulkinen also talking about the 4a, to add to your list.

It's funny how some fans easily forget that most skaters do train harder elements but do not necessarily end up trying them in competition... or even mentioning them.... just because some skaters have been verbal about their goals at landing a specific jump, it doesn't mean that others aren't trying them.

As a matter of fact, there are rumours that Patrick Chan had a fabulous 4flip done in training... considering how pretty his 3flip was, I would have loved for him to show us an instagram post of this jump.

 

[gkelly]

Thinking of the scoring of quads, I actually think the current system actually encourages quads. This is obvious when you look at their history. From the first attempt until 1996, the quad was a marginal element, attempted by some, but not something that everyone strived to get. Something changed in judging before the 1996-7 season, because that season marks a change with more pops and poor attempts than ever before. In addition to the 4T and 4S, 4Lz and 4Lo were attempted. The increase in attempts and skaters attempting quads continued until the start of the IJS.

I don't think that the scoring changed in 1996-97 so much as that the perception that it would be necessary to win medals, or for younger skaters still aiming to make a name for themselves to stand out from the pack as potential medalists, because there were enough other skaters who were landing them.

Stojko had been chasing the 4T+3T for a few years and finally succeeded at the 1997 Champions Series Final, along with Kulik landing his first clean quad and Urmanov his first in five years (also his last). Guo landed two 4T at Worlds that year. But Eldredge, for example, was still able to do pretty well for himself without one.

So most skaters who had already been attempting quads in practice started getting more serious about putting them out in competition. And others started practicing even if they had previously felt they could score just as well without one.

The big change in the scoring came in the 1999 season, when quads were first allowed in the short program (but only as the solo jump out of steps -- the preceding steps requirement probably kept some skaters from trying it there who were otherwise capable), and then a couple years later either as the solo jump or in the combination.