Savchenko/Massot and Patrick Chan

[missing]

Savchenko and Massot just won Olympic Gold in pairs, coming from fourth place after the short program to do so.

They did it through absolutely clean and elegant skating. The four teams that followed them in the rankings all attempted (with varying degrees of success) a quad in some form or another, either a quad twist or a quad throw, neither of which S/M attempted.

Suppose for the sake of discussion, Patrick Chan is in a comparable position after the short program, within striking distance of first. Chan, like S (if not M) is a multi-time world champion without an individual Olympic gold medal.

If Chan took the same freeskate approach, making no attempt at quad jumps, but landing everything absolutely cleanly, with his very highly regarded skating skills for the non-jump elements, while all the other top men attempted much harder jumps with falls and pops (think Sochi), could he win gold? And if he did, would it be a respected final placement or a highly debated one?

 

[blue_idealist]

Savchenko and Massot just won Olympic Gold in pairs, coming from fourth place after the short program to do so.

They did it through absolutely clean and elegant skating. The four teams that followed them in the rankings all attempted (with varying degrees of success) a quad in some form or another, either a quad twist or a quad throw, neither of which S/M attempted.

Suppose for the sake of discussion, Patrick Chan is in a comparable position after the short program, within striking distance of first. Chan, like S (if not M) is a multi-time world champion without an individual Olympic gold medal.

If Chan took the same freeskate approach, making no attempt at quad jumps, but landing everything absolutely cleanly, with his very highly regarded skating skills for the non-jump elements, while all the other top men attempted much harder jumps with falls and pops (think Sochi), could he win gold? And if he did, would it be a respected final placement or a highly debated one?

I think he might, but I don't think he'll be willing to take the quads out. And if he did win with no quad, it would be highly debated, akin to Lysacek's win in 2010 and Chan's own World Championship win with mistakes over Denis Ten (although I think he, Chan, did do a quad in that competition?) in 2013.

 

[sap5]

I hope Patrick remembers that he landed clean quads in the TE and just goes for it. It seems like so much of his issue is mental. Maybe the feeling of already being a winner, and the closeness of his teammates, will give him the the good feelings he needs to perform his best.

 

[caseyedwards]

Chan has too many triple axel problems to be quadless. He needs quad toes. His quad toes are a million times better than his axels.

 

[cheremary]

Why would he go quadless when he landed two beautiful ones just a few days ago? His quad toe is quite stable, much more so than the 3A.

More to the point, I don’t think you can win without a single quad these days. There’s a cap to PCS scores that can be exceeded by the technical score now for the men. Jason and Adam have both done quite well for themselves being essentially quadless, but neither has won a major ISU championship.

That said, I do think it’s possible for Patrick and Javi to medal or even win with (only) quad toes/salchows. There’s only a few people attempting the quad lutz, flip, or loop, and the men’s event is so unpredictable that it may very well come down to who is the cleanest and has the best overall performance, not who attempts the most difficult elements.

 

[MR-FAN]

He needs quad toe AND triple axels AND to be absolutely clean AND mistakes from others.

But it can happen