Obviously I don't know how much it would take, but I really hope that Nathan/his team, having seen the way Mikhail was able to score over 100 at last year's worlds with 1 quad and now how Jason was able to score 96 in the SP with only triples, realize to shift focus to perfecting his elements so he can score more efficiently. Forget about being the quad king. I truly feel this stupid title--and I'm sorry if others love it--has unnecessarily burdened/pressured him to do as many quads as he could even when his condition was less than ideal. Work on your GOEs instead of killing yourself over adding more BV!!!!!! His spins are looking really subpar these days.
I agree, that the quad king title is something that he must be very proud of and that he supposedly identifies with a lot (he's a teenage boy after all, and one that doesn't exactly enjoy the frilly side of FS at that, plus he's always loved jumps and admired the athleticism of it), but that it also puts pressure on him to 'deliver‘.
And obviously he needs to improve his GOE… especially if he wants to rival Shoma or get a bit closer to Yuzu.
But his spins look fine to me (but I've always enjoyed his spins, so I'm biased, and I'm apparently not good at spotting what would be considered a ‚great position‘).
And I'd like to note, that even though he lost several level and one basic position on the spins from his SP in France, all his spins in the FS were a level 4 and the GOE that he got on all three of them was the same, if not slightly higher, that he used to get last season (I adjusted the numbers of course, to be able to compare).
And really, if you compare Jason’s to Nathan’s GOE on spins in the FS, Jason collects one more point in total… yes, one point can sometimes make a difference, but getting good GOE on a successful quad or even a triple is a lot more ‚lucrative‘, because their BV is higher.
But an amazing triple with maximum GOE still scores less than a quad with neutral GOE (except for 3A of course)… so unless the skater is very prone to making a mistake on his quad, it’s still worth trying a quad, because he might get positive GOE on it. And even if it turns out merely average, he still doesn’t score less than with a perfect triple (and succeeding at that is not a guarantee either).
Of course, too many quads drain the energy out of the skater and the performance suffers, plus, with more quads, their quality will also go down, so naturally there should be some balance.
So a reasonable amount of quads, with hopefully 1-2 good ones among them, and no big mistakes, that’s the focus, because a slight improvement in spin GOE is still peanuts, comparatively. Levels are more important pointswise, because the higher the BV, the higher the additional points through GOE.
I do think the StSq and ChSq are very important, because they also factor into the PCS, albeit not 'officially'.
I'd say his biggest problem was and still is the 3A.
As long as Shoma and Yuzu are doing two of those in their FS with great or even amazing quality… (and also landing several quads) it’s hard do compete with that, because Nathan would need 1-2 additional quads to match that and make up for the one, inconsistent 3A that he does.
But I have no idea how he's supposed to improve his 3A, I mean, it's not like he hasn't already been working on it for all those years.
) should be enough.
High standards!
.
(But then again, he's one of the few men who has a straight skating leg in all of his camel positions, so I tend to forgive him for everything else, because a bent skating leg while doing a camel spin is my biggest pet peeve).
