Besides Nathan, is there any other man to have landed every type of quad in competition?

[Minz]

IMO, it is reasonably safe to assume that the tech panel and judges for Las Vegas Invitational already had been in the bubble to serve in the same capacities for 2020 Skate America.

Yeah. The Las Vegas Invitational was held a day or so after Skate America. Almost everyone who was at the Las Vegas Invitational had already been in the bubble for Skate America. (I’m guessing those such as Alysa Liu, who did not compete at Skate America, just quarantined then came in after) Everyone else left. The Las Vegas Invitational aired a few weeks later, but was held right after Skate America.

 

[DougDorsey]

Official records etc. are taken only from international competitions, that is behind my thinking. The judges and judging in LVI might have been up to the level, but this has not been made public by putting out the info on UFSA website or anywhere else (at least it was not in the most obvious places for FS results). The same applies for the Russian Channel One team comp from the other week.

I have kept track of men's quads for a couple of years now and my principle has been to record the international attempts and follow the practice and domestic attempts as much as possible. This year is also difficult bcs even the international competitions have non-international panels (the judges might be ISU rated, but all from the host country which does not usually happen apart from domestic, not to mention participants only from the host country).

There is an excellent, simple Japanese website which collects results data and where you can search per element. Does not require linguistic skills with combination of Japanese and English, I think the basics are super simple to get. But their data does not include domestic competitions (apart from Japanese nats). This limitation applies to many websites that collect results data - Rink Results is one of my faves because it goes wide and deep, but they have irregularities when it comes to national competitions. They have a lot of European and Japanse national competition data, but hardly any results eg for the Russian Cup or most puzzlingly no Canadian nationals. Skating Scores has a lot of diagrams and statistics, but does not go back a very long way (they might have added data, I haven't checked in a while). But for the purposes of this thread the Japanese website is the easiest and best way to check things. Well, except for the domestic comps.

I suspect there might be more skaters than we know about who have been able to do all but 4A in practice, but have never been able or have chosen not to or (back a few years ago) did not need to try and make them work in competition. For example, Javier Fernández is reportedly one of them, but he only ever did 4T and 4S (he got videoed doing a 4Lo in a show context and I think I have witnessed a half-hearted 4Lo attempt watching the practices of the GP Final gala practices in Marseille). Everyone can be a champion in practice, but only few can become a champion for real in competition (apparently said by Evgeni Plushenko to Javi) and this is true also when it comes to those jumps... There is also a difference in the level of stress between domestic and international comps (well, maybe apart from the Russian ladies!).

Nathan still the only one who has done all of them in international competitions. And if you look at success rates as shown by postive GOEs, there are only three skaters who have been able to maintain also pretty good quality - Chen, Fernández and Hanyu have all 150+ attempts at quads in international competitions and all have 60+ % positive GOE.

E

Thanks, @eppen. This is an excellent explanation.

I'm 100% on board with folks who say you can't compare overall domestic scores to international scores. There's just too much room for variance with regards to GOE and PCS.

But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about whether or not a jump is clean, which really comes down to (i) whether the jump had negative GOE or positive GOE, without it mattering what the actual number is, and (ii) whether the jump had any calls.

How often is it that a jump that would have gotten negative GOE in international competition gets positive GOE in domestic competition? How often is it that a jump that doesn't get called underrotated in domestic competition gets called underrotated in international competition? How often is it that an edge call is missed in domestic competition that would have been called in international competition?

Specifically in these areas, I'm not convinced there's *that* much of a difference between domestic and international judging. And there are certainly examples of international judging in these areas being overly lenient, and examples of domestic judging in these areas being overly strict. This only strengthens my belief that not counting domestic jump accomplishments is just being overly stringent and silly.

Curious to hear any counterarguments, especially any data that shows otherwise.

 

[balabam]

It seems like nobody else landed them in competition. But Vladimir Samoilov, who isn‘t really well known, has all the quads except the axel (and a 3A-3Lo). He is the guy who is called “the king of practices” because he is so talented with crazy tech, but never pieces it together in competition.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxDcH69IA-j : video with him doing all the quads.

I remember him from Russian Cup some time ago, when he won some stage. Why he didn't compete this season?

 

[kirauza343]

Thanks, @eppen. This is an excellent explanation.

I'm 100% on board with folks who say you can't compare overall domestic scores to international scores. There's just too much room for variance with regards to GOE and PCS.

But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about whether or not a jump is clean, which really comes down to (i) whether the jump had negative GOE or positive GOE, without it mattering what the actual number is, and (ii) whether the jump had any calls.

How often is it that a jump that would have gotten negative GOE in international competition gets positive GOE in domestic competition? How often is it that a jump that doesn't get called underrotated in domestic competition gets called underrotated in international competition? How often is it that an edge call is missed in domestic competition that would have been called in international competition?

Specifically in these areas, I'm not convinced there's *that* much of a difference between domestic and international judging. And there are certainly examples of international judging in these areas being overly lenient, and examples of domestic judging in these areas being overly strict. This only strengthens my belief that not counting domestic jump accomplishments is just being overly stringent and silly.

It depends on the skater but domestic judging loves to overlook issues to boost scores. Top skaters tend to get some very lenient judging domestically that doesn’t match what they would usually get internationally including but not limited to:

• Bradie and Mariah frequently having uncalled underrotations domestically
• Similarly Alysa not getting hit with underrotations for her triple axels/her quad lutz not being called downgraded
• Kaori’s flutz often getting ignored domestically
• Several of the Russian Ladies (namely Anna and Alyona) getting positive GOE for jumps/combinations that were visibly bad
• Anna and often Daria getting all of their edges ignored
• Anna’s underrotations being ignored (for example while it is a just for fun event one of her quads at the Channel 1 trophy was blatantly under of not downgraded

And that’s just ladies. It might mainly affect only a small group of skaters but those are also the skaters that are attempting these difficult elements that need to be ratified.

 

[DougDorsey]

It depends on the skater but domestic judging loves to overlook issues to boost scores. Top skaters tend to get some very lenient judging domestically that doesn’t match what they would usually get internationally including but not limited to:

• Bradie and Mariah frequently having uncalled underrotations domestically
• Similarly Alysa not getting hit with underrotations for her triple axels/her quad lutz not being called downgraded
• Kaori’s flutz often getting ignored domestically
• Several of the Russian Ladies (namely Anna and Alyona) getting positive GOE for jumps/combinations that were visibly bad
• Anna and often Daria getting all of their edges ignored
• Anna’s underrotations being ignored (for example while it is a just for fun event one of her quads at the Channel 1 trophy was blatantly under of not downgraded

And that’s just ladies. It might mainly affect only a small group of skaters but those are also the skaters that are attempting these difficult elements that need to be ratified.

Makes sense, but how much more often are these things being called internationally?

What percentage of Bradie's/Mariah's/Alysa's jumps are called underrotated domestically versus internationally?

What percentage of Kaori's/Anna's Fs/Lzs get edge calls domestically versus internationally?

And so on.

If folks are going to assume that domestic judges are more lenient than international ones, and thus disregard the legitimacy of domestic jump accomplishments, then let's at least see the data to back that claim up.

 

[Petrushko Sashenko]

Afaik, Nathan has yet to land a 4A in competition, so, the title of this post is misleading.

 

[Minz]

Bradie and Mariah frequently having uncalled underrotations domestically

Honestly, hardly anyone who had underrotations at this year's US Championships (at least in the ladies) was called for it. Even Tara, Johnny, and Terry were going on about how they need more cameras because some jumps were so obviously under rotated/edge issues and they weren‘t called.

 

[TontoK]

I'm fairly sure he doesn't have them all, but didn't Grassl land a bunch of quads in a smaller competition this year? Maybe my memory is failing me. Anyway, he seems like a candidate to do it soon.

Likewise, I've seen video of Malinin's 4Z and I've heard rumors somewhere that he also has successful 4Lo and 4F in practices, which would give him the set... although not in competition, of course.

Early in my skating fanhood, it was quite an accomplishment for a skater to have all the triples, and I suspect that having all the quads (minus 4A) will be the next evolutionary technical milestone.

 

[kirauza343]

Honestly, hardly anyone who had underrotations at this year's US Championships (at least in the ladies) was called for it. Even Tara, Johnny, and Terry were going on about how they need more cameras because some jumps were so obviously under rotated/edge issues was called.

TRUE lmao.

They sure were quiet about calling everyone’s underrotations though when Mariah was skating...

 

[Adjesusluvsu]

Makes sense, but how much more often are these things being called internationally?

What percentage of Bradie's/Mariah's/Alysa's jumps are called underrotated domestically versus internationally?

What percentage of Kaori's/Anna's Fs/Lzs get edge calls domestically versus internationally?

And so on.

If folks are going to assume that domestic judges are more lenient than international ones, and thus disregard the legitimacy of domestic jump accomplishments, then let's at least see the data to back that claim up.

Okay, I know I wasn't part of this conversation, but I calculated based on Skating Scores:

Anna Shcherbakova's Lutz

	National	International
! or e	0	5
No ! or e	13	35
Percentage of Calls	0%	12.5%

Kaori Sakamoto's Lutz

	National	International
! or e	9	23
No ! or e	1	12
Percentage of Calls	90%	65.71%

Bradie Tennell's Jumps

	National	International
< or <<	5	58
No < or <<	55	189
Percentage of Calls	8.33%	23.48%

Mariah Bell's Jumps

	National	International
< or <<	4	36
No < or <<	76	248
Percentage of Calls	5%	9.38%

Alysa Liu's Jumps

	National	International
< or <<	3	7
No < or <<	27	33
Percentage of Calls	10%	17.5%

Overall, in response to your question, it seems to matter for all these instances except Kaori, which makes sense because the Japanese Federation generally scores their skaters more rigorously than other national bodies.

Hope this helps people understand a bit of international vs. national biases!

 

[eppen]

Thank you for that - I always like when there is data to support arguments! Although these are just a few examples, they do demonstrate a certain trend between domestic/international competitions. Tech panels are not immune to the differences in national vs international judging.

The number of calls can seemingly also depend on eg what the technical controller and/or maybe the whole tech panel decides to do. I once went through UR calls for singles for a few seasons in major competitions and it varied a lot from competition to competition (even the ones with similar rosters of skaters) - I was even thinking that some competitions were like random spot tests for URs. Bcs of that, I also looked at whether there were any trends in the calls when certain controllers were working. Even Shin Amano, a tech controller responsible for many a carrot cake fest in the ladies in recent years, has competitions where the ladies go away without calls - altough they tend to be earlier ones. There were some who did not call any URs even in the European lower groups of ladies which must mean that they for whatever reason just don't call URs or maybe don't see them...

E

 

[DougDorsey]

Okay, I know I wasn't part of this conversation, but I calculated based on Skating Scores:

Anna Shcherbakova's Lutz

	National	International
! or e	0	5
No ! or e	13	35
Percentage of Calls	0%	12.5%

Kaori Sakamoto's Lutz

	National	International
! or e	9	23
No ! or e	1	12
Percentage of Calls	90%	65.71%

Bradie Tennell's Jumps

	National	International
< or <<	5	58
No < or <<	55	189
Percentage of Calls	8.33%	23.48%

Mariah Bell's Jumps

	National	International
< or <<	4	36
No < or <<	76	248
Percentage of Calls	5%	9.38%

Alysa Liu's Jumps

	National	International
< or <<	3	7
No < or <<	27	33
Percentage of Calls	10%	17.5%

Overall, in response to your question, it seems to matter for all these instances except Kaori, which makes sense because the Japanese Federation generally scores their skaters more rigorously than other national bodies.

Hope this helps people understand a bit of international vs. national biases!

Thank you! This is excellent, and does indeed show more lenient judging happening at the domestic level.

Nevertheless, going back to the original topic of whether or not it's silly to disregard domestic jump accomplishments, here's my takeaway from this data...

• Let's use Anna Shcherbakova as an example. And let's assume that the way she's being called internationally is "accurate," whereas the way she's being called domestically is "lenient/inaccurate."

• This means that if we were to count domestic jumps as "official," for every 100 domestic Lzs of hers, she would be getting credit for 12 Lzs that she shouldn't be getting credit for.

• On the flip side, however, this means that we *don't* count domestic jumps as "official," as is the case for the ISU right now, for every 100 domestic Lzs of hers, she would *not* be getting credit for 88 Lzs that she *should* be getting credit for.

To me, the latter scenario is obviously worse, so while I respect that others might still prefer to record things differently in their own books, for me personally, I'm all for counting domestic jumps as official, and I think there's justification for doing so.

 

[Lzbee]

Shouldn't the 3A be counted as a quad? It is in the quad section of the scale of values. Otherwise, the vast majority of ladies don't have all their triple jumps, including several of the quadsters...

 

[kolyadafan2002]

Shouldn't the 3A be counted as a quad? It is in the quad section of the scale of values. Otherwise, the vast majority of ladies don't have all their triple jumps, including several of the quadsters...

Debatable (ambiguity). Honestly it comes down to personal definition. In russia, they make it easier by calling them 2.5A and 3.5A - so double axel isn't linked to double or triple jumps and 3.5A isn't linked to triple or quad jumps.

 

[Minz]

Shouldn't the 3A be counted as a quad? It is in the quad section of the scale of values. Otherwise, the vast majority of ladies don't have all their triple jumps, including several of the quadsters...

I’m not sure about the scale of values, but I don’t think that the 3A should be counted as a quad. A quad is 4 full rotations, a 3A is only 3.5 rotations. That’s why triple axels are allowed in the ladies SP, while quads aren’t because you can’t do 4 rotations.

 

[Minz]

Early in my skating fanhood, it was quite an accomplishment for a skater to have all the triples, and I suspect that having all the quads (minus 4A) will be the next evolutionary technical milestone.

Honestly that’s crazy, but true. Look back 3 years ago, at the 2018 Olympics, did you think that 3 years later the ladies would be dominated by quads and triple axels? 3 years ago, a quad or 3A for a lady was considered revolutionary, and now it‘s just keeping up. And that’s crazy because quads are insanely difficult. And I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the 4A is landed. They said the same thing about the 3A... that it was impossible, and look where we are now...

 

[Ella5555]

Honestly that’s crazy, but true. Look back 3 years ago, at the 2018 Olympics, did you think that 3 years later the ladies would be dominated by quads and triple axels? 3 years ago, a quad or 3A for a lady was considered revolutionary, and now it‘s just keeping up. And that’s crazy because quads are insanely difficult. And I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the 4A is landed. They said the same thing about the 3A... that it was impossible, and look where we are now...

I’d say that if a lady wants to win a major competition, then she needs a quad or triple axel, but I don’t know that those jumps necessarily dominate all ladies’ events. There are still ladies’ competitions that can be won without those jumps. I mean how many ladies can really do one of those jumps consistently? 5 or 6? That being said, it’s only a matter of time before quads/triple axels become commonplace for the ladies. Even on the men’s side, if you go beyond the top 15 (just guessing here), it’s hard to find someone who lands a quad consistently. Totally agree that quads are ”insanely difficult“.

 

[DougDorsey]

I’m not sure about the scale of values, but I don’t think that the 3A should be counted as a quad. A quad is 4 full rotations, a 3A is only 3.5 rotations.

But by that same logic, a 3A shouldn't be counted as a triple either; it's not 3 rotations, it's 3.5 rotations.

 

[Minz]

But by that same logic, a 3A shouldn't be counted as a triple either; it's not 3 rotations, it's 3.5 rotations.

I‘d say a quad is 4 or more rotations, but fair. But, then what is the axel? If a 3A is counted as a quad, then the 2A would have to count as a triple and then a 1A would count as a double. Then there’d be no single axel.

 

[DougDorsey]

I‘d say a quad is 4 or more rotations, but fair. But, then what is the axel? If a 3A is counted as a quad, then the 2A would have to count as a triple and then a 1A would count as a double. Then there’d be no single axel.

Something in between, I guess? The Russians think about it the right way, in my opinion. 3T/3S/3Lo/3F/3Lz is 3.0, 3A is 3.5, 4T/4S/4Lo/4F/4Lz is 4.0, 4A is 4.5, etc..