I don't see this debate as Nationalism. I see it as the age old debate about what matters more: jumps or overall skating. The CoP is designed to reward what you do, not penalize you for things like jumps. It's ridiculous to suggest that Kevin Reynolds should beat Chan because he had 2 quads, as someone else has said.
Who has said Kevin Reynolds should have beaten Chan in the LP? I certainly didn't; Kevin Reynolds' FP was lacking. He most CERTAINLY deserved to win the SP, though. By a wider margin than what was actually scored.
A good example of how this isn't nationalism. Alissa (although falling) had the best program of the night, and absolutely deserved to win the women's event. She also got a standing ovation from the Canadian crowd.
That's not a good example at all. Crowds are always going to give applause to great performances. We are talking about judging and politics. Patrick Chan is "money in the bank" for Skate Canada and seen as one of the best skaters in the World. He often gets overscored because judges have a tendency to score based on
reputation rather than what actually happened on the ice. The judging system also doesn't punish the mistakes he made harshly enough.
You'd have to be very uninformed to think skaters don't get a bit of a boost when skating in their home country, BTW. It is
financially better for the ISU to have skaters place higher when skating in their own countries. Why? Because it increases ticket sales. When people see their countrymen doing well, it makes them want to invest in the sport more. Look at Evan Lysacek at 2009 Worlds. He scored drastically lowered than Patrick Chan all season long. Then suddenly at Worlds, in the USA, in Los Angeles no less, Lysacek's scores suddenly jumped up. Chan and Lysacek both skated cleanly in the SP, but Lysacek was scored higher.
I can see where BoP and Mathman are coming from, but I stand by my view. The risks of doing a quad are so high and if the possible points one could lose from falling/under-rotating it as opposed to landing a nice 3Lz with difficult entry and good GoE are considerable, then it would be smart to go for a safer layout. We need to reward people sufficiently for attempting quads and triple axels.
No, it wouldn't be smart to go for a safer layout if you NEED to do a Quad to defeat your competitors. Quads were EVERYWHERE in 6.0 and that was when a fall meant the element was worth basically nothing - even if it was a Quad. I already wrote a whole post on why people often stopped doing the Quad under CoP - underrotations were punished far too harshly and the value of the Quad in relation to other jumps was too low. Those problems have been fixed under the rules for this season (Quad
combinations are still undervalued, though). We are instead left with the problem of BAD Quads being overvalued.
Everything boils down to cost-benefit analysis.
Yes, exactly. Another term is "risk/reward". As of right now, there is very little risk in attempting the Quad. If you fall, you're still
ahead. You're getting FAR more points than if you hadn't done the jump at all and instead slotted in a Double Axel (which is the jump you perform in the LP if you're not doing a Quad, since every Male LP already attempts 8 Triples regardless of the Quad).
If two programs are equal in all other regards, the skater who does an 8 Triple + Double Axel program shouldn't automatically lose to the skater who does 8 Triples + a fall on a Quad. THAT is the problem with the current rules.
