Should quads per program be limited to balance artistry?

[Magill]

The skater who fell on two quads and won the Olympics wasn't Patrick Chan who himself landed his two beautiful quad toes.

I am sorry but it is simply not true, and in more ways than one.

In Sochi FS, as that's what is being referred here, Patrick Chan did land beautifully one quad toe and had two hands down on the ice on the other quad toe which can hardly be considered a beautiful landing - and so thought the judges handing him negative GOE of -1.57 on the +3/-3 scale. He also almost fell on his 3A, saving his buttocks from touching the ice by a nail with his two hands on the ice again, hardly a beautiful landing either. He got -3 GOE - that is the maximum penalty, just like for a fall - from 5 of 9 judges, and -2.57 in total.

The "skater who won the Olympics" - that is, Yuzuru Hanyu - fell on 4S indeed but landed 4T beautifully with GOE of 2.14 on the +3/-3 scale.
He fell again on 3F - in a manner very similar to what Patrick did on his 3A, with two hands on the ice, but here it was considered a fall - but, unlike Patrick, Yuzu landed his both 3As - one beautifully, one just ok.

In the end of the day, Yuzu won the Free Skate with 2 falls - one on a quad and one on a triple - for which he received -3 GOE and 2 points deduction - over Patrick's skate with two hands on the ice twice, once on a quad and once on a triple - just because he had better overall TES on the remaining elements and these remaining elements were more difficult.

That was not the greatest competition segment from either of them but Yuzu won this segment, too, adding to his decisive win in SP with a program which has become legendary - and winning OGM at 19 against the 3-time World Champion.
The rest is history.

https://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/owg14_Men_FS_Scores.pdf

ETA It would be just fair to add that Patrick himself had won competitions with falls and multiple falls earlier on, both on quads and triples, once he had even 3 falls in SP, 4 in the whole competition, and won anyway.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I am sorry but it is simply not true, and in more ways than one.

In Sochi FS, as that's what is being referred here, Patrick Chan did land beautifully one quad toe and had two hands down on the ice on the other quad toe which can hardly be considered a beautiful landing - and so thought the judges handing him negative GOE of -1.57 on the +3/-3 scale. He also almost fell on his 3A, saving his buttocks from touching the ice by a nail with his two hands on the ice again, hardly a beautiful landing either. He got -3 GOE - that is the maximum penalty, just like for a fall - from 5 of 9 judges, and -2.57 in total.

The "skater who won the Olympics" - that is, Yuzuru Hanyu - fell on 4S indeed but landed 4T beautifully with GOE of 2.14 on the +3/-3 scale.
He fell again on 3F - in a manner very similar to what Patrick did on his 3A, with two hands on the ice, but here it was considered a fall - but, unlike Patrick, Yuzu landed his both 3As - one beautifully, one just ok.

In the end of the day, Yuzu won the Free Skate with 2 falls - one on a quad and one on a triple - for which he received -3 GOE and 2 points deduction - over Patrick's skate with two hands on the ice twice, once on a quad and once on a triple - just because he had better overall TES on the remaining elements and these remaining elements were more difficult.

That was not the greatest competition segment from either of them but Yuzu won this segment, too, adding to his decisive win in SP with a program which has become legendary - and winning OGM at 19 against the 3-time World Champion.
The rest is history.

https://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/owg14_Men_FS_Scores.pdf

While there were a good number of falls and "extreme saves" in the Free, I find that overall the Men (Short and Free) at Sochi Olympics are still a pleasure to rewatch, with beautiful programs beautifully skated by beautiful skaters (posture, costumes...)

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[Isk]

I think that in general the ISU often outsmarts itself in terms of micro-managing. When Evan Lyacek won the Olympics without a quad the powers that be decided that what viewers want to see is more quads. So they changed the rules to give greater rewards and less risk. This led to the era of the "choreographed fall" when skaters figured out that falling on a quad got them more points rthan succeeding on a triple.

When Patrick Chan was criticized for winning championships by falling on quads, the rules were changed again, under the assumption that spectators didn't like it.

Other elements, too. The people demand Biellmann spins. Give bonus points for Biellmanns. Oops -- now everyone is doing a crappy Biellmann, take away the bonus right quick.

People don't like programs that are front-loaded with weak 2nd halfs. Solution, give a second half bonus. Oops -- now everyone is backloading as much as humanly possible. No, no, no, that's not what we meant at all. Change the rules.

I think a lot of it is somebody pushing for some immediate change to put someone else at a disadvantage. I assume at least some of these decisions are taken by voting or under pressure from federations. But instead of making a solid argument why it would be good to stick it out and make changes only when it is really necessary, they just change the rules whenever someone is unhappy about someone else. And once people figure out how to take advantage of the new rules, they change them again. The fundamental problem might not be the rules themselves, rather the difference in selection pool, training conditions, policies and restrictions, skating traditions in different places at different times. Treating them with rule changes is not going to cure them.
The change to 1 and 3 bonus jumps was completely unnecessary IMO. Changing them to 2 and 5 might be enough, and we might see more program variety, and it might encourage skaters to work on stamina to do jumps during the last minute of their programs. Or they could restrict the short all they wanted and let the free be more free. Not everyone backloaded their programs anyway. Men never did 0+8. Usually it was 2+5, 3+4, 3+5, sometimes 2+6. Front-loading was a signal that a skater is optimizing because of some issues: body changes, injuries, learning new jumps, so they have not much reserve. Now almost everyone front-loads the first 1/2 of the programs, waits for mid-point and front-loads the second 1/2, and this is not a balanced program composition. The other result was 15 y.o. girls doing more ultra C's to compensate the loss of bonus points. So they fixed this by age restriction, but why go all the way to 17 y.o., why not just add a year and see what happens. Going to 16 would have solved the pressing protected athlete issue.

 

[Isk]

You mean, “should quads be limited so that favourites can get by with errors or poor content, and politicked judges can give them 9.5’s and gold medals regardless of how they do, and armchair figure skating enthusiasts can ‘justify’ their faves with low tech content winning?”

“It’s called figure skating not figure jumping is the usual tired retort”… but you know it’s also not called figure showskating either. If you don’t like the big elements that define the sport you can always watch the gala — or watch YouTube videos from the 80s and 90s.

There is also this misconception that devaluing the tech side will suddenly spur on skaters to unearth beautiful artistic qualities and incredibly choreographed programs that they would never have been able to showcase if not for quads hampering them. Artistic marks are controlled by the judges - if skaters do the tech the judges have no choice but to give them the base value but judges can do whatever the heck they want when it comes to PCS/ artistic impression. A wonderful skater from some minor unknown country will be given de facto 6’s and 7’s because in the judge’s opinion that’s all they’re supposed to get. And you wanna magnify that by diminishing tech further?

I mean, geez Jason Brown is still skating. Just enjoy it.

I am actually not a fan of Jason's skating. I think conceptually his programs and skating style are not classically refined and sometimes feel a bit garish. But I can't deny his skating ability and attention to choreography, it does feel like a breath of fresh air nowadays. One thing I have to say though: I am positive that no skater nowadays would be able to skate Patrick Chan's 2013-2014 free program with only 2 quads. Maybe Yuma could. It is just really difficult, requires a lot of stamina and skills that skaters nowadays don't develop. It's a good question what's more difficult - telegraphing 5 front-loaded quads in an empty program and then going all out in the ChSq, or maintaining power on high-quality complex transitions throughout the program with a strong, although perhaps not outstanding jump content. In my mind there is no doubt what's more enjoyable. Patrick is not a bad jumper actually. He didn't learn 4Lo, 4F and 4Lz, but his 4T-3T was pretty good and reliable, his 3Lz was a proper Lz, he learned and added a 4S at 25-26 y.o. This just doesn't sound like a bad jumper. He did struggle with 3A a bit, so did Lambiel, many people did. He always had his vision, maybe it was not always the correct one, but imagine him doing 5 quads and no transitions. I kinda don't want to think this thought any further. I don't think that restricting quads per se will bring skating back to a higher level. One has to keep skaters busy doing other things: school figures, early IJS level features and transitions, anything that would hopefully encourage working on skating and limit practice time spent on jumping. Then in a few years the paradigm will shift to these other things' relative importance.

 

[4everchan]

I am sorry but it is simply not true, and in more ways than one.

In Sochi FS, as that's what is being referred here, Patrick Chan did land beautifully one quad toe and had two hands down on the ice on the other quad toe which can hardly be considered a beautiful landing - and so thought the judges handing him negative GOE of -1.57 on the +3/-3 scale. He also almost fell on his 3A, saving his buttocks from touching the ice by a nail with his two hands on the ice again, hardly a beautiful landing either. He got -3 GOE - that is the maximum penalty, just like for a fall - from 5 of 9 judges, and -2.57 in total.

I said two and not three. Patrick landed his 4toe combo in the SP and one quad toe was perfect in the LP too. Sure, he had what is called a minor mistake on his third quad.
The other mistakes on other jumps are not relevant if we are discussing the change of rules for quads.

ETA It would be just fair to add that Patrick himself had won competitions with falls and multiple falls earlier on, both on quads and triples, once he had even 3 falls in SP, 4 in the whole competition, and won anyway.

Yes. Skaters win competitions with falls. But the point I am making, is that it's not because Patrick fell on quads, which is not true at all, that there was a change of rules. Patrick rarely fell on his quads and when he won his 3 world titles had absolutely NO falls on them. I stand corrected that Yuzu fell on a triple flip and a quad salchow. He still fell twice and sure, the IJS gave him the win but he didn't skate very well, and neither did Patrick. But, I repeat, Patrick didn't fall If someone claims that a rule was changed because Patrick kept falling on his quads and winning, that's not true.

 

[Isk]

OK, I see. This is just a difference in personal perspective. And that's reasonable.

I think the scenario you describe is perfectly fair. I'm of the "risk/reward" school of thought. The first skater went for a triple. That should have a higher advantage if he makes it, and a harder penalty if he doesn't.

For me, this factors into the strategy aspect of sport. "Do I take a chance on a riskier element that could go either way? Or do I perform a safer element with a much higher chance of a modest bump to my score?" Each athlete has to decide this for himself (or herself - I'm not intentionally being gender specific).

Switching gears slightly, there seems to be strong interest in PCS scoring, when the real impact to the bottom line are technical calls. We casually discuss "strict panels" and "loose calls" and such, but the impact to the final score can be significant. An uncalled under-rotation is much more likely to decide a placement than a half-point difference of opinion on a PCS mark.

For certain, a consistent panel is better than an inconsistent one - I think we can all agree on that. But if they're consistently "loose" then what advantage is there for a skater that DOES fully rotate a jump? Same argument for edge calls, etc.

ETA: Fair warning: As we near US Nationals, my annual rants about the ridiculously loose (and often inconsistent) tech calling at that event will accelerate.

That second point you make - I think about it too a lot. If they are "approximate" is scoring rotations, but placements are relatively OK, then no matter how meticulous the scoring tables are, the result of eye-balling might be just as good. It's human factor. The right way to measure it would be to place an IJS and a 6.0 panels at a few competitions and compare. But they would have to score blindly, like in separate rooms where they don't see or hear each other's results. And then do something like a round of discussions of the results. That's how science is done: try this and that, observe and gather data, propose a hypothesis, do tests, discuss the results, come up with a future plan. They did some comparisons perhaps in 2003-2004, but they didn't really clearly show the results or came up with any evidence. If they are more or less the same, then "looser" and less meticulous scoring rules would mean not trying to eliminate the un-eliminatable, but accepting the possibility of a human error, which is a negative. But they might also allow judges to encourage things that are impressive, innovative and just interesting, intuitively balance difficulty vs cleanliness and express their opinion on artistic value, energy, charisma, i.e. those things that viewers also find intuitively attractive. After all, those folks who make scoring rules are also humans, they may be wrong. @Mathman mentioned the increment in PCS being 0.036 points, this is probably << than the margin of error from "loose" jump scoring. Judges can't help but take this into account when scoring PCS and they do.

 

[Magill]

I said two and not three. Patrick landed his 4toe combo in the SP and one quad toe was perfect in the LP too. Sure, he had what is called a minor mistake on his third quad.
The other mistakes on other jumps are not relevant if we are discussing the change of rules for quads.

Yes. Skaters win competitions with falls. But the point I am making, is that it's not because Patrick fell on quads, which is not true at all, that there was a change of rules. Patrick rarely fell on his quads and when he won his 3 world titles had absolutely NO falls on them. I stand corrected that Yuzu fell on a triple flip and a quad salchow. He still fell twice and sure, the IJS gave him the win but he didn't skate very well, and neither did Patrick. But, I repeat, Patrick didn't fall If someone claims that a rule was changed because Patrick kept falling on his quads and winning, that's not true.

Oh, I thought you were talking just about FS. For if you're talking about both SP and FS, and quads only, then they both had two wonderful quads and a third one with a serious mistake - one fell, the other one put two hands down, which is not a minor mistake at all, sometimes might be interpreted even as a fall. If mistakes on other jumps are not relevant, then they are not relevant for either of them, and no point to bring them up for Yuzu and omit them for Patrick, especially when they looked almost the same though were interpreted differently on minor details. Just for the sake of fairness in applying the same rules when discussing everyone.
And let's be honest. Yuzu might have won FS by hair on IJS, but he won the Olympic gold mostly on the fabulous, record-breaking SP which made him the first one in history to break the barrier of 100 points and which became iconic.
Anyway, moving on.

 

[Isk]

How well Shoma skated in 2015 is irrelevant to the 2017 GPF and the question posed by the journalist. Kolyada was talking about 10 years prior to 2017 which puts the timeframe all the way back to at least 2007 or anything before that. Not something as recent as 2015. My point was quads weren't viewed by skaters as "impossible" back in 2007, or prior, as Kolyada stated. He was laying it on thick.

True, they were not viewed as impossible, but top skaters mostly did them from simple steps and strokes, front loaded them and then took a break before doing easier jumping passes, it was viewed as normal. They could do them from steps, we know it because they did it in the short program, but not usually in the free. Doing 2 different quads in order to be able to do a couple of 3As from counters or spread eagles and 3 combos in the second half of the free program was a revelation for me in 2013-2014. Doing 2 quads in a program that was like a 4.5 minute levelled step sequence was also a revelation. And then came 2 quads in the short program, which nobody ever did under 6.0. These things were unheard of, and I never thought they were possible.

 

[gkelly]

And then came 2 quads in the short program, which nobody ever did under 6.0.

It wasn't legal under 6.0 -- not until ca. 2010.

It took a critical mass of skaters attempting two different quads (almost always 4T and 4S) in the early IJS years before the IJS thought it was time to allow two in the short.

Even one quad in the men's SP wasn't allowed until 1998-99.

 

[Magill]

True, they were not viewed as impossible, but top skaters mostly used to front load them and then take a break before doing easier jumping passes, it was viewed as normal. Doing 2 different quads in oder to be able to do a couple of 3As from counters and spread eagles and 3 combos in the second half of the free program was a revelation for me in 2013-2014. Doing 2 quads in a program that was like a 4.5 minute levelled step sequence was also a revelation. And then came 2 quads in the short program, which nobody ever did under 6.0. These things were unheard of, and I never thought they were possible.

TBH, it might have been unheard of for fans but I recall Yuzuru mentioning in some interview that his coach kept telling him when he was still a child that if he keeps competing into his adulthood, he most probably would need all the types of jumps as quads to stay at the top. So it was not really unthinkable then, and Yuzu was just 12 in 2007, turning 13 in December of that year. I think if he called himself a child, then probably it was not later, or not much later than this, possibly earlier. And it sounded like it was not just thinkable and imaginable, but sort of expected, at least for his coach, looking into the future of the sport and the way it would possibly progress .

 

[4everchan]

Oh, I thought you were talking just about FS. For if you're talking about both SP and FS, and quads only, then they both had two wonderful quads and a third one with a serious mistake - one fell, the other one put two hands down, which is not a minor mistake at all, sometimes might be interpreted even as a fall. If mistakes on other jumps are not relevant, then they are not relevant for either of them, and no point to bring them up for Yuzu and omit them for Patrick, especially when they looked almost the same though were interpreted differently on minor details. Just for the sake of fairness in applying the same rules when discussing everyone.
And let's be honest. Yuzu might have won FS by hair on IJS, but he won the Olympic gold mostly on the fabulous, record-breaking SP which made him the first one in history to break the barrier of 100 points and which became iconic.
Anyway, moving on.

The point I was making is that it is not because of Patrick Chan winning titles with falls on quads that there was a change of rules (because that didn't happen). I was addressing @Mathman and his comment about that.

 

[Isk]

It wasn't legal under 6.0 -- not until ca. 2010.

It took a critical mass of skaters attempting two different quads (almost always 4T and 4S) in the early IJS years before the IJS thought it was time to allow two in the short.

Even one quad in the men's SP wasn't allowed until 1998-99.

Yes, and they did start adding this quad to the SP right in 1999, I believe. I don't know anyone under 6.0 who could do 2 different quads except Timothy Goebel, but perhaps people would learn and add them, if they were allowed. OTOH the risk in the SP under 6.0 was not always justified because of the way points were counted from placements rather than from raw scores. This made essentially impossible to jump from 6th place and below in the SP to 1st overall, at least I can't remember this happening, although people did jump from 4th and even 5th to 1st. And hence the expression: you can't win with SP but you can loose with it: just have a couple of mistakes and place at the bottom of top 10. You'd have to be in the top 3 after the SP to have an independent chance of winning overall by just winning the FP, so the most important thing in the SP would be to ensure a high placement after it, ideally in top 3.

 

[gkelly]

Yes, and they did start adding this quad to the SP right in 1999, I believe. I don't know anyone under 6.0 who could do 2 different quads except Timothy Goebel,

Ilia Klimkin was the first to be credited with two different quads (4T and 4S) in the same program, at 1999 Nebelhorn. Goebel was perhaps the most consistent at landing both these jumps and was the first to successfully complete 3 quads (2 salchows, 1 toe loop) in the same free skate.

I'm thinking Takeshi Honda and Chiangjiang Li also managed at least one free skate with both jumps, but I don't have time to research right now to confirm.

There were others who attempted two different quads during their careers and maybe in the same program at least once, but mostly without success.

but perhaps people would learn and add them, if they were allowed. OTOH the risk in the SP under 6.0 was not always justified because of the way points were counted from placements rather than from raw scores. This made essentially impossible to jump from 6th place and below in the SP to 1st overall, at least I can't remember this happening, although people did jump from 4th and even 5th to 1st.

It was possible, but only if the skaters who were ahead if you in the short program finished in just the right order in the free. The skater didn't "control their own destiny," as Terry Gannon was so fond of pointing out.

Most notable examples: Elaine Zayak going from 7th after the SP to 1st at 1982 Worlds (that was with figures, so different factors for the placements); Aleksei Urmanov going from 6th to 1st at 1997 Europeans.

 

[Mathman]

Most notable examples: Elaine Zayak going from 7th after the SP to 1st at 1982 Worlds (that was with figures, so different factors for the placements); Aleksei Urmanov going from 6th to 1st at 1997 Europeans.

As I recall both of these were regarded as freaky and disorderly, and the ISU responded by changing the rules. In the case of Zayak, the Zayak rules on repeating jumps, and for Urmanov the change from majority of ordinals to OBO.

Neither change really addressed the question, though, nor was it clear whether the slim possibility of a skater zooming up the ranks from SP to LP was a bad thing or a good thing. (It is regarded as a good thing in IJS and was one of its selling points -- makes for more exciting competitions. )

 

[Mathman]

The point I was making is that it is not because of Patrick Chan winning titles with falls on quads that there was a change of rules (because that didn't happen). I was addressing @Mathman and his comment about that.

Well. it's ancient history now and memories fade. What I remember of figure skating discussions of that era there was a feeling among fans who considered themselves "purists" -- Dick Button was one such -- who felt that a fall should get 0 points because if you fell, you didn't really do the element. (This sentiment has not entirely disappeared, as some of the posts of this thread attest.)

It wasn't really about Patrick Chan or about quads, but it just so happened that Patrick was the premier men's skater at the time and that the ISU rules changes that encouraged more quads came about just as Patrick began to turn his attention to mastering the jump.

In 2010 Patrick fell 4 times at Skate Canada, including a fall on a quad. l and won anyway. Then he fell 4 more times at Cup of Russia, including a fall on a quad, and got silver. This attracted negative attention to the new lenient rules.

 

[4everchan]

Well. it's ancient history now and memories fade. What I remember of figure skating discussions of that era there was a feeling among fans who considered themselves "purists" -- Dick Button was one such -- who felt that a fall should get 0 points because if you fell, you didn't really do the element. (This sentiment has not entirely disappeared, as some of the posts of this thread attest.)

I'd give 0 to falls too. I have no problem with that. I don't think Patrick would have lost his world titles because of that because he didn't fall on his big jumps while it was common for many skaters to fall on quads. It wasn't common for Patrick. (he had other issues like every skater)

Yes, your memory is fading and I am glad we have rectified that. There are rules that came in after skaters did things :

the Zayak rule
the Zagitova rule
etc

however there is no rule imputable to Patrick Chan winning his big titles while falling on quads because it just didn't happen.

I am going to watch some figure skating now so you will excuse me for my prolonged absence from this thread

 

[Kiki5375]

So to be honest the wish to limit quads was a hidden wish slow down Ilia and to give others a chance to beat him. In my opinion as long as someone who is 9th in tech ends up 4 in total because of PCS there seems to be something wrong in the other direction... but that's just my way of thinking.
I think limiting quads is so not helping the sport at all. In tennis they had Steffi Graf or Roger Federer who won everything there was to win and they didn't change the rules to give weaker players a chance but they celebrated the best players ever who promoted the sport a lot. Now we have a skater who does jumps that have been called impossible for decades and people who were never interested in figureskating come to see the boy who does this. He makes the sport popular again, brings more audience and this will bring sponsors and in the end help a lot of other skaters too. This happened in Germany with Skijumping. There were Martin Schmidt and Sven Hannawald who blew the scores like crazy and they became teenstars and pulled sponsors into the sport like never before. All events were sold out and they were celebrated like boygroup stars. In a sport that never got a lot of attention before. If this can happen in Figureskating don't stop it! It will give other skaters the chance to do their sport without financial difficulties and imagine what could happen if a lot more skaters can focus on their sport without the worry about money. Even the ones who depend on artistry scores more than on tech scores will benefit of this.
Quads or maybe in future quints will bring some kind of halfpipe image to the sport... yes that's hard for old fans to acept but it can make the sport popular again. So my opinion is: Don't slow Ilia down. Let him do the craziest things and make the sport popular

 

[gkelly]

Of course, if there are fewer total jump passes in a program but no limit on the difficulty in those passes, skaters are more likely to attempt things like 4A and 4-4 combinations because they'll have a little more recovery time before they try the next ultra-difficult jumping pass.

 

[Magill]

I'd give 0 to falls too. I have no problem with that. I don't think Patrick would have lost his world titles because of that because he didn't fall on his big jumps while it was common for many skaters to fall on quads. It wasn't common for Patrick. (he had other issues like every skater)

Yes, your memory is fading and I am glad we have rectified that. There are rules that came in after skaters did things :

the Zayak rule
the Zagitova rule
etc

however there is no rule imputable to Patrick Chan winning his big titles while falling on quads because it just didn't happen.

I am going to watch some figure skating now so you will excuse me for my prolonged absence from this thread

Just to stick to facts.

Out of his 3 World titles, Patrick Chan won 2 WCs with falls - in 2012 with 1 fall in FS, he fell on his step sequence; in 2013 he won with two falls in FS - on 3A and 3Lz, so not on quads, but still - falls. With a win of slightly more than just 1 point over the silver medallist in total score, well...
In 2010, he advanced to Grand Prix Final with 4 falls in each of his GP events (8 falls in total, including 2 on quads) winning in these events 1 gold and 1 silver. Possibly would not have advanced to the GP Final at all if these four falls were all zeroed.
As for his team Olympic gold in 2018, it was won with 3 falls - 2 in SP - on 3A and 4T (yes, a quad), and 1 fall in FS - on 3A .
It seems 3A was not really his best jump.
Just a quick look into GS archives shows discussions of all these wins were at the time very heated indeed, just like for many others.
So, no, he was no exception when it comes to winning with falls.
Just saying, so that we're sticking to facts.

Now , I am also going to leave this discussion and enjoy some Saturday night entertainment

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Of course, if there are fewer total jump passes in a program but no limit on the difficulty in those passes, skaters are more likely to attempt things like 4A and 4-4 combinations because they'll have a little more recovery time before they try the next ultra-difficult jumping pass.

It's true that with the number of jump passes in the Free, and the total number of available Quadruple jumps, even in the times when Ilia Malinin would rotate his regular Quadruples and practice 4 + 4, he was barred from putting one such combination in a layout because he would lose on TES; yet I do believe that he would have been able to have it in competition.
But now I don't think that he would be able. Maybe the suggestion came from people believing that he would still be able, and be the only one to benefit of such change of rules; or maybe it came from people willing to advantage other skaters because they haven't thought of that or know that a 4 + 4 would be inaccessible to him now; maybe it simply came from someone feeling a lack of balance and willing to redress it with a new rule, which rarely gives the expected results?