Should a quad be a required element in Mens skating?

[merrywidow]

Rather than making a quad a requirement for men, I'd prefer that the ISU reinstate at least one figure portion of the competition for the men. Let's see deep edges & control in skating once again. They were eliminated because they aren't interesting for fans to watch, took to long to judge 3 different figures & to promote more difficult jumps. Time to see if the quad jumpers can still be great if they have to spend time learning proper figures.

 

[Moxie]

I think we should drop the gender divide and let people compete according to their jump ability. Of course it would be embarrassing for a lot of the men to be out-jumped by the likes of Yuna and Mao.

 

[Nadine]

Lol, I think not, it is the women that cannot hold a candle to the men IMHO. The Men is where it is at!

Regards gender divide, there is none, it's just that the ladiezzz simply cannot do quads with the height & full revolutions of the men. There is nothing stopping them, they just cannot do them, same goes for the triple axel. Womens bodies just aren't built for it, especially when fully matured with hips & breasts & muscle mass. JMHO.

Every athlete is accorded the privilege to do a quad or a triple axel, etc., though I do think the rules should be changed in the SP for the women to be allowed to do a 3A instead of a 2A. As it stands now, only the men have this privilege, not the women. The women MUST do a 2A, whereas the men are allowed to do a 3A. Hopefully this changes in the future. *smile*

 

[chrissy51]

Just think if all the men did only doubles and then one did a triple jump. I think the triple would carry a lot of weight. It's even harder to do a quad. So I think if a person has a very good program and has a quad in his program then he should win the competition. Personally I love to see D. Takieashie (I know the spelling is wrong) skate he is absolutely great, but I think, just maybe Johnnie Weir should have won the bronze

 

[silverlake22]

Maybe if a quad were required Verner would actually skate up to his potential for once.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Rather than making a quad a requirement for men, I'd prefer that the ISU reinstate at least one figure portion of the competition for the men. Let's see deep edges & control in skating once again. They were eliminated because they aren't interesting for fans to watch, took to long to judge 3 different figures & to promote more difficult jumps. Time to see if the quad jumpers can still be great if they have to spend time learning proper figures.

A good suggestion, but I believe the Tech should be covered in a separate phase of the competition without music. just as it is in Diving. I know, I know, the horrors which will be raised by the psuedo artistry lovers to kill the music but the Quad is at stake, and it's justifiable. The music and that artistry will prevail in the LP. Not unlike when the School Figures were a separate phase of the competitition.

 

[Nadine]

Back to the original question posed on this thread, no, I don't think a quad should be *mandatory/required*. However, I definitely feel a quad should get by far the highest points out there, and even moreso if used in combination. The same goes for the ladies as regards a triple axel.

One only need to look at this most recent Olympics to see that the quad for men is thee hardest element/jump out there, only 3 men managed to land clean ones out of all the attempts. And, lol, the 3axel for the women is even more rare, Mao Asada was the only woman to attempt & land one.

If the quad was so easy for the men, or the triple axel so easy for the women, we would have loooooooong ago seen skaters landing them left & right. And that's just NOT the case. Many many many have attempted to do so over the years/decades, but only a handful of exceptionally gifted athletes have ever managed to land them on a consistent basis (i.e. a quad for the men, and a triple axel for the women).

Case in point:

Men that have landed the quad on a consistent routine basis -- Stojko, Yagudin, Plushenko, Goebel, Lambiel, Joubert (6).

Women that have landed the 3A on a consistent routine basis -- Harding, Ito, Asada (3).

I rest my case.