Do you think the prevalence of the quadruple jump has lead to more injuries and early retirements among the top guys? Yes, skating is a brutal sport in general even without the quads but if you look at the early quad era (90s- early 00s) in which Yagudin also competed, all of the skaters who did this jump started experiencing health problems and retired relatively early. The best multi-quad jumpers of current times seem to be pretty young as well. What are your thoughts on the issue?
I think this is a topic that I have a lot of feelings and opinions about while having very little data. And I think it’s the same for most people -- the vast majority of fans, certainly, but also coaches, federations, and the ISU seem to still be in the exploratory phrase of these questions and have very little concrete data they can base their conclusions on. (And the data that does exist, most fans do not have -- or do not seek -- access to.) That makes it a very dangerous topic to discuss, because any opinion can be “backed up” by arguments that appeal to people’s emotions and gut feelings (what is commonly known as “common sense”) while in reality not being backed up by any facts.
Having said that, I have a lot of opinions and feelings about it! One thing I always come back to is how Brian Boitano described his body long after retirement. Boitano did do quads in practice (most men of his generation did), while he “only” truly trained and performed triples up to and including 3A. And yet, he said that he starts every day with a massage because otherwise, his body would not be able to function without pain. So, first of all, I think the “quads are singularly dangerous” type of “common sense” that you often see in fandom is probably false. Secondly, Yagudin has a congenital hip disorder and has said that quads were not the cause of his physical problems. His hip socket would have been ruined with or without quads (his disorder would probably have forced him to have a hip transplant when he reached middle age regardless of whether he had been an elite skater or not). I often see people bring up Yagudin as a case of “had to retire early because quads broke his body”, but this is false.
On the other hand, Timothy Goebel has gone on record as saying he did way too many quads in his youth and this ruined his body. This is probably also true, but what we need to keep in mind is that Goebel’s generation was doing quads at a time when they had no methodology for performing quads, and much less for training quads. Goebel said in a TSL interview that when he was young, people believed quads were attained by jumping higher and further; only later was the methodology of getting into rotation faster established, which is actually what you need for quads. You can liken this to an earlier revolution in jump methodology: skaters pulling in their arms. If you watch a lot of old figure skating you will notice that they jump with their arms sticking out to their sides. You will probably also notice (though this depends on the skater) that they jumped up before starting to rotate (a “delayed” jump). Changing these methods of jumping so you tuck in your arms tightly against your upper body (to create a tighter axis) and start rotating faster (not delay the jump) is what enabled skaters to start doing triples and, later, quads. (This is also why Takahashi revamped his jumps after coming back from retirement; Takahashi used to delay his jumps much more.) So it makes perfect sense that the early quad jumpers would have suffered more by simply throwing themselves out there again, and again, and again, just to see what stuck. This is not the case anymore.
For example, Orser wrote in one of his Japanese-language books that once a skater has learned their technique, it is better for this skater to train less. He has practiced this with skaters like Yuna Kim and Hanyu. People like Tarasova agree, and there is a story about her telling Mao Asada to stop training so much when Asada came to train under her. All of this is part of the methodology that has been established: skaters no longer throw themselves out there and do hundreds of triples or quads a week just to see what works, tiring out their bodies and making injuries more likely. This is possible now while it wasn’t in the past; things have genuinely changed.
But in general, yes, quads are harder on the body. You do have to jump further than you do in a triple, for one, and more rotations means you are also more likely to lose control of your axis. These things mean that you are more likely to have bad landings, and bad landings are hard on the body. It’s also an issue that quads are a de facto requirement for top single men by the current rules, meaning skaters who might not have correct technique are doing them anyway, again leading to bad landings. I think this is a genuine problem. Skaters need good coaches and coaches need good education in jump technique, or the skaters will suffer.
As for whether quad jumpers are younger than previous male singles skaters, I do not believe so. Male singles skaters peak in their early 20s and have for decades. If we take past Worlds winners, Yagudin peaked at 18-22 (men winning Worlds as teens is quite unusual and he is the second-youngest man to ever win Worlds). Plushenko peaked at around the same age. Chan was 21-23, Lambiel was 20-21. If we go back further to when quads were not the norm, Browning, Boitano, Petrenko, and Hamilton were about 23 when they first won Worlds, but on the other hand Nepela was 20 and Button was 19. It’s true that I highly doubt men in their late 20s could ever win Worlds now (like Curry and Browning did), but the ages don’t seem that much different to me. It’s true that there are a lot of young quad jumpers, but this is more because any jump technique (beyond single or double jumps) have to be learned at a relatively early age by immensely talented athletes, or they will not happen at all. So men practice difficult jumps from an early age but peak later, quads or not, just like they always have. The fact that Nathan Chen won Worlds as a teen doesn't make much of a difference in how I view this; like with Yagudin, this is an outlier and treated as such.
(This is a side note, but to be honest, when skaters retire has as much to do with politics and money as it has to do with physical issues and quads. If anything, political factors should mean men would have retired much younger in the past compared to now. Back in the day, Olympics and ISU-championship eligible skaters were not allowed to participate in (most) shows or professional events, meaning they were not allowed to make money off their skating... compared to now when a lot of skaters make money on the side during the off season, giving them less incentive to retire just so they can make some money.)
Okay I’ve rambled enough, haha. It is entirely possible that research will show quads are unacceptably bad for the body (but “unacceptable” is, as all things, a relative term) and the ISU will ban it based on these facts. If this happens, the sport will become something entirely different (closer to what it was in 2010), but similar things have happened before in this sport and it has still managed to survive, so I’m sure figure skating will survive a ban on quads, too. Who knows what the future and further research will bring!
The whole "you NEED to get into rotation fast in order to do quads" thing is interesting and something current fandom could really use to explore, but who am I to say.
