Quadruple jumps: the 40th anniversary

[gsk8]

A couple of years ago a thread here at GS inspired me to start compiling a list of all the men who have tried or even trained quads since the beginning of times. That resulted in a list of names, but also in a list of jumps. The project has expanded almost uncontrollably along the way and there seems to be no end to it… But I have tried also to analyze the information and as we are approaching the 40th anniversary of the first documented quad in competition, it is time to start publishing it.

Newsletter-worthy for this week - it's going in! Thank you!!

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Indeed, both of these things happened, the 2 quad SP at 2010 Skate Canada was maybe even the first time he ever tried it and they were both good jumps.

Was the post 2010 Olympics rule change the first time two quads were allowed in the SP for men, or could they do those previously?

 

[ramurphy2005]

Was the post 2010 Olympics rule change the first time two quads were allowed in the SP for men, or could they do those previously?

They couldn't do two quads in the SP before that rule change, otherwise, I bet Timothy Goebel would have attempted it sooner.

 

[eppen]

Oh dear, I don't really know what I was looking at when I wrote the 1984-98 Olympics quads list... But here the revised and this time, correct list. I added pops to make up for my distracted mind yesterday! Thanks @ramurphy2005 for pointing out the most obvious mistake! Sorry for messing that first list up...

1984 1 quad (Fadeev)
1988 1 quad (Browning)
1992 4 quads (Barna, Slipchuck, Urmanov, Bonaly) (Kostin might have tried, but there is no evidence for it)
1994 1 quad (Zhang)
1998 5 quads (Guo 2, Kulik, Weiss, Yagudin), 3 pops (Honda, Stojko, Vidrai)
2002 31 quads (Abt 2, Dambier 2, Dinev, Eldredge, Goebel 4, Honda 2, Joubert 2, Li C. 3, Liu 2, Plushenko 3, Stojko 3, Weiss 2, Yagudin 3, Zhang), 3 pops (Dinev, Honda, Liu) plus the possible ones from Li Y., Takeuchi and Zhang Min's free, possibly also Zoltan Toth, but less likely than the others
2006 22 quads (Buttle, Dambier, Joubert 2, Klimkin, Lambiel 3, Li C. 2, Lindemann, Plushenko 2, Sandhu 2, Takahashi, Van den Perren, Verner, Zhang Min 3, Ando). Ando's and Takahashi's attempts were downgraded to a triple at the time, but these days they would have been 4S/T<< and I have included those if I have found them (you gotta have a video for every suspisious case on the result sheet to verify the attempt one way or the other).

The quad was allowed in the short program starting from fall 1998. The first 2-quad short appears in the fall 2010 when it was also first allowed. The latter first went to Kevin Reynolds as mentioned above, and the first to try a quad in the short is probably also Canadian, Derek Schmidt, in some domestic competitions already in the summer of 1998. In the international scene, Stojko tried at Skate America 1998, but fell. The first to get it right was probably Zhang Min at 4CC 1999 and then Guo Zhengxin at the Worlds 1999. Goebel got his first quad in the short at Skate America 1999 and it was a clean one.

The Chinese quadsters in the 1990s get often overlooked and forgotten IMO, but they did a lot of cool stuff.

And btw, if you wish to know more about the women's quad scene, check out https://fsdelight.com/ and follow them on IG. Right now, the Russian novice championships in the younger age and the 10-year-olds (or so) throwing quads and 3As left, right and center...

E

 

[eppen]

Newsletter-worthy for this week - it's going in! Thank you!!

You're welcome! The 40th anniversary of the first jump was yesterday, March 10. And I could also point out that Kurt's first fully-rotated jump has its 35th anniversary on March 25, 2023. The dates were checked from newspaper articles on the Worlds in both cases.

E

 

[eppen]

Been working with data on women's quads

The number of skaters who have tried a quad in competition is now 58 starting with Surya Bonaly in early 1990. These include 6 Russian girls (as they are novice level skaters) who have used quads in the Elements parts of the competition - it is a clear step up from just training and has started to happen also with boys starting 2022.

28 of them have either an ISU ratified (Ando in other words) or a positive GOE, 12 in international competitions. Btw only 3 of the 28 have officially retired.

The number of those who have trained or are training is 45 starting with Midori Ito in the mid-1980s. In this group my method has been inclusivity , that is almost any information gets them on this list (personal comments, media reports, videos).

The number of attempts in competition is now 658 from Bonaly in 1990 to the Russian competitions last week.

The "Grannies of quads" list got one more member today when I found out that Courtney Hicks had actually tried a 4S in Glacier Falls 2011... The media reports made it sound like she did not even try in the end and I believed them... No results sheet is available, but saw a video by chance and a 4S attempt it was.

So, the pioneers were Bonaly (1990-96), Cohen (2001), Ando (2002-08), and Hicks (2011) before Trusova hit the scene in the fall 2017.

E

 

[AxelLover]

I've done some research on this topic in the last couple of years and I can't resist posting my favourite random fact:

The 2017 Worlds in Helsinki were truly revolutionary. There were 77 quad attempts and about 50 of them were clean, which was absolutely unheard of before that. But here comes the fun fact: 28 of the 50 clean quads were performed by the six best skaters (Yuzuru, Shoma, Boyang, Javi, Patrick, Nathan).

 

[eppen]

I think only 74 quads, though?

I also think that the actual revolution happened in the 2015-16 season and the 2017 Worlds was the culmination point of the "Quad Wars". Those numbers in 2017 don't just appear from out of nowhere, the jumps have to be tried, tested and consolidated, there has to be a need to do more quads than ever. And that started in 2015-16.

The total numbers of quads were 565 and 580 for 2013-14 and 2014-15, and the jump to 761 in 2015-16 was huge for the times - and that was not even an Olympic year when there is usually a peak.

The serious upgrading of quad arsenals is visible also in the number of 2 quads in the short as well as 2+3-6 SP+FS quad layouts. The first 2-quad SP occurred in 2010-11 and by the end of 2014-15 it had been attempted 27 times - in 5 seasons. In 2015-16 and 2016-17 before the Worlds 2017, it was attempted 69 times - in little over 1,5 seasons.

The same with the 2+3-6 layouts. Before 2015-16 season, 2+3 was attempted 6 times by Kevin Reynolds and once by Boyang Jin. In 2015-16 and 2016-17 before the Worlds 2017, 53 times by 10 men (Chen, Fernandez, Hanyu, Jin, Kovtun, Nguyen, Reynolds, Samohin, Uno, Zhou). It's mostly Jin and Hanyu for the 2015 fall (Samohin once) and then they're joined by Kovtun, Chen, Fernandez, Uno, Zhou, etc.

Some lower ranked skaters like Reynolds and Samohin were trying 2+3 early, but they were not a threat to the top men. The arrival of Jin and then Hanyu picking himself up after a not great start of season made it necessary for the likes Kovtun, Javi and Uno to get the 2+3 working. Chen was also making his mark with attempts of 2+4s. Chan could not get his 4S to work consistently enough in the short, so he had to be content with 1+3 - but even he had to work hard to stay in the top group.

It all happened incredibly fast and then after 2016-17 quads settled on that new level. Total number of jumps in 2016-17 986, 2017-18 1262, 2018-19 1127. At Worlds the 70ish for quads is just about the new norm - 2018 71, 2019 69, 2021 73. 2022 with 66 was low, but had the Russians been there, I think 70+ would have been done easily.

E

 

[AxelLover]

I think only 74 quads, though?

I also count pops which were obviously meant to be quads, maybe that's the reason for the difference between our statistics?

I also think that the actual revolution happened in the 2015-16 season and the 2017 Worlds was the culmination point of the "Quad Wars". Those numbers in 2017 don't just appear from out of nowhere, the jumps have to be tried, tested and consolidated, there has to be a need to do more quads than ever. And that started in 2015-16.

I agree, the quad revolution started in the 15-16 season and the 2017 worlds was the epic culmination point. You're definitely right that the insane Helsinki numbers didn't just appear out of nowhere. On the other hand, I still think that the quad success rate in Helsinki was extraordinary even for the new standards.

The total numbers of quads were 565 and 580 for 2013-14 and 2014-15, and the jump to 761 in 2015-16 was huge for the times - and that was not even an Olympic year when there is usually a peak.

The serious upgrading of quad arsenals is visible also in the number of 2 quads in the short as well as 2+3-6 SP+FS quad layouts. The first 2-quad SP occurred in 2010-11 and by the end of 2014-15 it had been attempted 27 times - in 5 seasons. In 2015-16 and 2016-17 before the Worlds 2017, it was attempted 69 times - in little over 1,5 seasons.

The same with the 2+3-6 layouts. Before 2015-16 season, 2+3 was attempted 6 times by Kevin Reynolds and once by Boyang Jin. In 2015-16 and 2016-17 before the Worlds 2017, 53 times by 10 men (Chen, Fernandez, Hanyu, Jin, Kovtun, Nguyen, Reynolds, Samohin, Uno, Zhou). It's mostly Jin and Hanyu for the 2015 fall (Samohin once) and then they're joined by Kovtun, Chen, Fernandez, Uno, Zhou, etc.

Some lower ranked skaters like Reynolds and Samohin were trying 2+3 early, but they were not a threat to the top men. The arrival of Jin and then Hanyu picking himself up after a not great start of season made it necessary for the likes Kovtun, Javi and Uno to get the 2+3 working. Chen was also making his mark with attempts of 2+4s. Chan could not get his 4S to work consistently enough in the short, so he had to be content with 1+3 - but even he had to work hard to stay in the top group.

It all happened incredibly fast and then after 2016-17 quads settled on that new level. Total number of jumps in 2016-17 986, 2017-18 1262, 2018-19 1127. At Worlds the 70ish for quads is just about the new norm - 2018 71, 2019 69, 2021 73. 2022 with 66 was low, but had the Russians been there, I think 70+ would have been done easily.

Great summary!

I miss the 16-17 season so much.
The old ones, Patrick and Javi, managed to produce some of the best performances of their careers, they were a joy to watch. The young ones, Shoma and Boyang, were super fierce and exciting to watch with their amazing programs that season (Loco, Spiderman, ...). The youngest one, Nathan, having just recovered from a serious hip injury, went absolutely crazy (landing 5 quads at Nationals and 4CC and then attemting 6 at Worlds)! Well, and the olympic champion Yuzuru...I can't describe with words.

And...Denis Ten's stunning short program to Romeo & Juliet by Prokofiev.

 

[icybear]

I also think that the actual revolution happened in the 2015-16 season and the 2017 Worlds was the culmination point of the "Quad Wars". Those numbers in 2017 don't just appear from out of nowhere, the jumps have to be tried, tested and consolidated, there has to be a need to do more quads than ever. And that started in 2015-16.

I think the revolution started with Boyang's quad lutz in 2015. While he wasnt the first one to land it, he was the first one to land it with positive GOE and consistently. Back in 2015 the only quads around were a toe and a salchow and then Boyang comes in and lands the hardest quad aside from the axel. Back in 2015 most men only had 1 quad in their SP and 2-3 quads in their fs while Boyang always attempted 6 quads in total. Instead of getting credit he instead took a lot of flak for it. I remember some people were calling for the number of quads to be limited and stuff.

 

[lariko]

A couple of years ago a thread here at GS inspired me to start compiling a list of all the men who have tried or even trained quads since the beginning of times. That resulted in a list of names, but also in a list of jumps. The project has expanded almost uncontrollably along the way and there seems to be no end to it… But I have tried also to analyze the information and as we are approaching the 40th anniversary of the first documented quad in competition, it is time to start publishing it.

The numbers at the moment:

Men
425 have tried a quad in competition
35 at least have trained or are training to get a quad
1008 attempts in the 6.0/early IJS
12334 attempts in the IJS era

Women
51 have tried a quad in competition
?? have trained or are training – this is still work in progress
21 attempts in the 6.0/early IJS
636 attempts in the IJS era

Shoma Uno (JPN) is the most frequent flier with 308 attempts by the end of 2022. There are 19 skaters with a 100 or more quad attempts in international competition – Evgeni Plushenko (RUS) was the first in 2005 and Daniel Grassl (ITA) most recent last fall.

Nathan Chen (USA) is the Quad King when it comes to variety, quantity, and quality put together. He has landed cleanly 5 different quads and has 133 quads with positive GOE in international competition. His success rate in the international scene is 70,4 %. Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN) gets close with 4 cleanly landed quad types, 132 clean quads internationally, and success rate at 67,0 %. Javier Fernandez (ESP) gets the third spot which is amazing considering that he only ever did 2 different quads, but he has 105 clean ones and success rate at 64,8 %.

I will possibly start calling Ilia Malinin (USA) the Quad God when he 1) gets the last type (4Lo) done cleanly and 2) puts all six different quads in one free program. He has still some work to do with the quantity and quality department.

The numbers and names become also a quadstory with at least 5 phases.

The first is a sort of a prehistory of training and dreaming that lasts from the 1960s until 1983. (Read about it at Skate Guard or, a little updated, at Fascinatio Glaciei).

The second phase covers the early competition history from Alexandre Fadeev (USSR) on March 10, 1983, until the end of season in 1995–96. Very slow development which finishes in a rapid change the following season – suddenly feverish quad activity for about 6 seasons. The number of attempts per season is doubled almost regularly, the number of skaters trying grows fast, and different quad types get tried. This is the point in time when quads become important and risk taking starts to be appreciated. The IJS has really nothing to do with it, it just documents the development that had started more than a half a decade before.

The third phase is the first decade of the IJS which is marked by total stagnation. Only 4T and 4S attempts until the early 2010s. The numbers of jumps and skaters per season remain at a lower level than at the end of the 6.0 era.

This ends in the fourth phase in the mid-2010s. The quad wars were a real thing and a lot of us probably remember the rapid development with 2016–18 being some of the craziest times. Even the women wake up and start working on those quads!

Which brings us to the post-pandemic times. The Olympic season 2021–22 was the all-time record one for quantity of quad attempts: 1932 attempts (probably more because you can never get all the results) from regional competitions in the domestic scenes to the Olympics. By juniors and seniors alike – and actually some novice skaters, too. The number of current skaters who have attempted a quad in competition is 234 – the number of all the retired quadsters is 239. Even the 4A gets done in a glorious fashion which no one would have expected to happen any time soon.

Curious to see what happens with women and what will ISU do about the rather unhealthy tendency of little kids training and jumping quads in competition.

I will update the full stories and data at Fascinatio Glaciei... Thanks for all the help and discussions and encouragement in this project, feel free to comment and correct me when you finds funny stuff!

Eppen

Yay!

 

[skatedreamer]

women's quads: this 2022 article has some wonderful photos of 14-year old Alyssa Liu doing a quad at the 2019 Junior Grand Prix; also Surya Bonaly, Sonja Henie, Dick Button, Mao Asada, and several others. Aside from the pics, it's really worth a read, with lots of history and some thoughtful analysis.

How Quad Jumps Have Changed Women’s Figure Skating

Yet again, the sport is grappling with how to propel itself while retaining the qualities that make it timeless.

fivethirtyeight.com

 

[eppen]

I think the revolution started with Boyang's quad lutz in 2015. While he wasnt the first one to land it, he was the first one to land it with positive GOE and consistently. Back in 2015 the only quads around were a toe and a salchow and then Boyang comes in and lands the hardest quad aside from the axel. Back in 2015 most men only had 1 quad in their SP and 2-3 quads in their fs while Boyang always attempted 6 quads in total. Instead of getting credit he instead took a lot of flak for it. I remember some people were calling for the number of quads to be limited and stuff.

I agree to a certain extent, Boyang was kind of a visible trigger that started the development. Not just the Lutz but a greater ease and quality of his 0+3 frees in the junior years. Reynolds had been doing them for a while, but he was not too consistent or good quality skater to be a contender. But it was also more generally in the air. The last of the early IJS stagnation started to pass already a few seasons before, there were more guys training and doing quads in competition, but the 2015-16 season was a big leap forwards all of a sudden. A bit like 1996-97...

Ah yes, the pops, @AxelLover ! I use the layouts to track the missed jumps because tracking the actual pops is too much of a pain in the... Like what they try regularly that season and then estimate how many they might have missed.

E

 

[Regjohn1]

I miss the 16-17 season so much.
The old ones, Patrick and Javi, managed to produce some of the best performances of their careers, they were a joy to watch. The young ones, Shoma and Boyang, were super fierce and exciting to watch with their amazing programs that season (Loco, Spiderman, ...). The youngest one, Nathan, having just recovered from a serious hip injury, went absolutely crazy (landing 5 quads at Nationals and 4CC and then attemting 6 at Worlds)! Well, and the olympic champion Yuzuru...I can't describe with words.

And on the woman's side, Mao Asada and Carolina Kostner both competed during the season (a throwback to the 2008 world's podium)
Also, Caroline Zhang, Ashley Wagner, and Mirai Nagasu all finished in the top 5 at US Nationals (another throwback to 2008).

 

[essence_of_soy]

I remember reading in an old copy of The London Times that back in the late 1970s, Fumio Igarashi was landing quadruple lutz (!) jumps in practice at the Rotary Watches International in Richmond..

 

[essence_of_soy]

At the 1988 Australian Championships in Sydney, I remember being amazed watching the guest skater, Kurt Browning, landing quadruple toe loops in practice. The speed and power he would generate hitting them left me speechless.

 

[eppen]

@essence_of_soy Loved the tidbit about Fumio Igarashi! Will add him to the ancestror list!

But what on earth was Kurt Browning doing at the Australian Champs in 1988? What month were they held?

E

 

[eppen]

Academic research on FS is not always very great in quality, but I think with this one, their bar was also set pretty low. It is an open access publication in PlosOne (a pretty respectable journal): Rauer T, Pape H-C, Knobe M, Pohlemann T, Ganse B (2022): Figure skating: Increasing numbers of revolutions in jumps at the European and World Championships. PLoS ONE 17(11): e0265343. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265343

They took the jumps data from the top 5 athletes, both women and men, at Euros and Worlds from 2005 onwards and came to the conclusion that the number of more difficult jumps has increased. Then they took the ages of the skaters and concluded that men had gotten older and women younger.

They really did not have much to explain these changes apart from the change in the judging system - which would explain maybe the jumps but not really the age structure. Plus some oddities about development of equipment and rinks.

I think most FS fans would have been able to draw those conclusions without statistical analyses. But those guys got to say that was the first such study...

E

 

[essence_of_soy]

@essence_of_soy Loved the tidbit about Fumio Igarashi! Will add him to the ancestror list!

But what on earth was Kurt Browning doing at the Australian Champs in 1988? What month were they held?

E

From memory, the 1988 Australian Championships were held in late August at the Macquarie Ice Arena in Sydney.

For several years, the championships were held during our winter. Although that was later changed, because some of the skaters found it very difficult to stay in peak condition all year in line with the international season.

For several years, Ice Skating Australia would invite guest skaters to perform exhibitions at the event. In 1984, they invited Midori Ito, and in 1985, Debi Thomas and Scott Williams. In 1987. America's Tracy Damigella won the senior ladies event. I'm not sure if she was there to skate exhibitions and competed on a whim.

Browning debuted his original program for the season at the championship, but joked many years later that he wasn't pleased with his actual level of performance in exhibition versus how he skated in practice, saying he would probably have won bronze had he entered the actual event.

 

[essence_of_soy]

@essence_of_soy Loved the tidbit about Fumio Igarashi! Will add him to the ancestror list!

But what on earth was Kurt Browning doing at the Australian Champs in 1988? What month were they held?

E

From memory, the 1988 Australian Championships were held in late August at the Macquarie Ice Arena in Sydney.

The championships were held during our winter. Although that was later changed, because some of the skaters found it very difficult to stay in peak condition all year in line with the international season.

For several years, Ice Skating Australia would invite guest skaters to perform exhibitions at the event. In 1984, they invited Midori Ito, and in 1985, Debi Thomas and Scott Williams. In 1987. America's Tracy Damigella won the senior ladies event. I'm not sure if she was there to skate exhibitions and simply competed on a whim.

Browning debuted his original program for the season at the championship, but joked many years later that he wasn't pleased with his actual level of performance in exhibition versus how he skated in practice, saying he would probably have won bronze had he entered the actual event.