In English it’s called figure skating, even if there aren’t figures anymore. In Italian it’s called pattinaggio artistico, artistic skating. The first thing that I remember wasn’t a figure, or an artistic movement but a jump. a triple Axel done by a Lady, Midori Ito. The first thing that I heard about the man that, for so many years, for me was figure skating, was that he can do a quadruple jump. In truth Kurt Browning jumped a quadruple, a toe loop, in few competitions, but for some time it was enough for him to be the the best in the World. But he wasn’t only a skater that could do a quadruple, he could skate. I heard of his jump, I fell in love with his skating. So, what is figure skating? What a skater should do?

I’m in awe when I see perfect jumps as the quadruple Salchow or the combination quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop done by Hanyu in the short program of the 2021 World Team Trophy. I’m in awe also for his triple Axel but for a really different reason. The Salchow and the combination are perfection. They are Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, or Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Creation of Adam, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, or William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or Stefan Edberg’s backhand volley. They are art in his purest form.

But, as breathtaking as that Salchow and that combination are, figure skating isn’t only jumps. I love when a program is

the perfect blend of artistry and athleticism. His footwork was whimsical and his spins thrilling.

These aren’t my words, they came from an article published in the past on a big network. We agree? At that time the newly crowned World champion said, remembering how he fell in love with figure skating,

And the most memorable programs in skating, you remember the program and you don’t remember what elements they did

Think. Only think. You remember more the jumps or the emotions? One of my favourite Browning’s program is Christmas For Cowboys, skated in 2010. Browning is born in 1966, he wasn’t young anymore, the only jump in that program is a double Axel, but how good is the way in which Browning’s movements are a continuous floow? And how strong are the emotions of this program? Perhaps I’m aided by the knowledge that the program is dedicated to his father, who was a cowboy and who died for a cancer, but I remember better this program, I love more this program, that a lot of program that are only jump-jump-jump.

In the article from whom I’m quoting, the skater said

“I went out there and left everything on the ice. I had my heart on my sleeve.”
Now he has a gold medal around his neck.

And when a skater has his heart on his sleeve, we can see it. For how much can be important my opinion, his was a well deserved gold medal.

The debate over the weight of the quad has been going on since Browning landed the first four-revolution jump at the 1988 world championships — and won’t end here.

Some […] say the quad is an essential part of men’s skating. […] Others […] say the quad is an important element, but it is only one element in a long list of what makes a great performance.

“I was fortunate to skate a clean program today. I concentrated very hard to do that, but it is not just the jumps. We work whole sessions on spins and stroking and all those things in between because that is figure skating,”

said the World champion, sat beside the silver medallist, a skater that jumped more quadruple than him.

“It’s everything that happens in those four and a half minutes. It’s not just about the jumps and ...

because if the jumps are the most spectacular elements, it’s not that what is done between a jump and the other,

don’t mean anything at all”.

I’m changed nothing, but I’m concealing on purpose the names of the skaters and the year of this competition. Do you agree? What is figure skating? For me it’s always about everything that happens in those four and a half minutes, even if now the minutes are four and not four and half. I love, really love, Hanyu’s Salchow and Hanyu’s combination, and I’m stunned by Hanyu’s Axel, but for me the highlight of the program is the step sequence, and all that Hanyu does before and after the jumps and the spins (and even the spins are wonderful) it’s really out of this World. It’s pure genius. The public clapped from the first to the last second, and they have reason. This is something that goes beyond any well executed jump.

“I think it is a very strong statement that my sport is not defined by one jump … and not defined by one element,”

said the bronze medallist. Again I’m concealing his name.

“It’s a whole package that you have to have to be a top-level skater. You need to have everything.”

You agree with the words? The purpose of concealing the names is exactly this: we can evaluate the words without being influenced by our like, or dislike, for the skaters. And yes, I agree with the World champion and the bronze medallist, not with the silver medallist that was

still disappointed because [his rival] did the perfect competition, he made no mistakes

but among the two programs did two quadruple less jumps than him (however the silver medallist did several mistakes). The anonymous journalist remarks that the winner

brings an elegance to the ice that contrasts with [the best jumper], who was all about power and jumping. […] But often the effort put into the difficult jump zaps a skater of concentration for other elements. [the jumper] was often criticized for being wooden, and certainly many lower level-skaters who are pulling them off aren’t much to watch.

Another interesting competition came some time later. A competition won again by a skater who did less quadruple jumps than the silver medallist. And again I delete the names.

“[The silver medallist] was brilliant in the jumping. He did some brilliant, very difficult things,” [the coach of the winner] said. “But if you think of his skating, he was very brilliant, then down. And very brilliant, then down. It was going in waves. [My skater] just sort of stayed in a straight line and kept going at a certain level from the start to the finish.”

And as for what the winner said,

“If it was a jumping competition, they’d give you 10 seconds to go do your best jump. But it’s about 4 minutes and 40 seconds of skating and performing from start to finish,” [he] said. “That was my challenge tonight, and I feel like I did quite well.”

There were polemics around those two competitions, not all liked the results, an there was changes in the rules after the second competition. But what we can see is that a skater with less quadruple can win an important competition if he is much more stronger than his adversaries in the spins and in the components. I’m not writing of a skater who does two quadruple in the short program and five quadruple in the free skate against a skater who does no quadruple. The difference in the sums of the two programs was two more quads for the silver medallist.

In these cases the ability to make more difficult jumps didn’t influenced the PCS or the marks on the other elements as the spins, because these are different things. And this is a thing that need to be remembered now, every time that someone say that, as long a skater does four or more quadruple jumps in his free skate, he deserves high PCS. No, he deserves a high base value, perhaps a high GOE, according to the way in which he does his jumps, but the PCS are another thing.

That Nathan Chen’s programs are mostly a long preparation for the jumps is something that he himself recognizes:

I tried to expand time in the choreo section of the program but it is so technically loaded right now that it is hard for me to steal some time before a certain element just because I need a certain amount of time to prep for a Salchow or a certain amount of time to prep for a toe.

He need time to prepare his jumps, so he does long preparations. There’s nothing wrong in this, his is a legitimate choice, but the marks, in the GOE and in the PCS, must reflect the fact that his jumps are executed after a long preparation, and that there’s nothing among the elements. Those who make mistakes are the judges who give him too high marks.

The old articles from which comes my quotes are this and this. So in 2008 and in 2010 for the American press was right that the Canadian Jeffrey Buttle and the American Evan Lysacek, without quadruples, overcome the French Brian Joubert and the Russian Evgeni Plushenko who did a quadruple for program. And the bronze medallist who talked of the whole package was the American Johnny Weir. It’s at least curious that now for the American press (unless the skater is named Jason Brown) the only important thing is to jump quadruple after quadruple.