Fabrice Blondel: "We have three chances to win a medal at the Olympics"

[Mathman]

What I'm getting from the discussion is that if Ilia skates his worst, and Kevin skates his best, Ilia still wins.

I think the point was that a change in coach or choreographer would not change reality one way or the other. If Ilia attempts 6 quads and hits them all there is nothing anyone can do about it. If he attempts 6 quads and hits half of them, then other things can come into play. Of course that was then (2023), before Ilia had established his dominance over the field.

But anything can happen. We can't go too much by the 2025 team challenge event, but just for the record Ilia attempted 5 quads with three successes and was almost overtaken (in the free skate) by Jason Brown, whose otherwise strong performance included a 1S (base value 0.40). Adam attempted 5 quads .fell twice, got positive GOE on only 1 (the quad toe) and was not a factor. Kevin popped his quad attempts, skated OK otherwise, and finished 7th. None of this has anything to do with coaching.

But then again, it is also possible that Ilia hit his peak in 2024 and is now more vulnerable. Next season will be very interesting. I don't think we can take anything for granted.