Figure skatingThe Quad and The Canadians

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The first man to do a quad jump in competition was Canada's four-time world champion, Kurt Browning, at the worlds in 1988.

Kevin Reynolds made history with two quad jumps in his short program at the Skate Canada International event in late October, another first in competition by a Canadian.

And Canada's three-time national champion and two-time world silver medallist Patrick Chan has emerged this season with a quad jump in both his short and free programs.

It is time for a bit of perspective. While in Ontario for some shows I turned to Canada's original Quad King, three-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medallist, Elvis Stojko, for his thoughts.

Stojko has earned the right to comment. He was the first skater to ever do quad jump combinations in competition: a quad toe/double toe at the worlds in 1991, and then a quad toe/triple toe combination at The Champions Series Final in 1997.    

He becomes animated when talking about jumps and the effect that they had on him as a young skater. He recalls reviewing VHS tapes for two to three hours a day, looking for insights into jumps, particularly the triple Axel, provided by the best skaters of the day.  

Stojko pored over footage of  Kurt Browning, American Brian Boitano, Russian Alexander Fadeev and Jozef Sabovcik of the former Czechoslovakia. What they all possessed was a superb sense of timing, one of the key elements to performing the more difficult jumps.

Equipment, technique and natural jumping ability all go hand-in-hand with timing in producing those amazing jumps.

Timing is everything

It took a while for Stojko to understand the timing, but eventually he became so proficient as a jumper that he undertook challenges just for himself. On the practice rink at the 1993 worlds in Prague, Stojko landed a quad Lutz.  

Fellow Canadian Donald Jackson was there and encouraging him to do it in competition. Stojko's dream was to make history with his quad Lutz over in the corner opposite to where Jackson had done his bit of history making, performing the first triple Lutz 31 years ago in international competition.

At the time, Jackson was also on his way to capturing the title, again in Prague at the 1962 world championships.

Stojko got close, but couldn't land the jump in the main rink, and left it out of his program.

Funnily enough, while Stojko was competing during the 1990s, he was one of the very few skaters keeping a quad in his competition repertoire. Many skaters of the day said that that quad jumps weren't needed.  

Quads more frequent

Fast forward a decade or so to find that, though still not required, this season sees most of the men in the world's top-10 with at least one quad in their arsenal. This can only mean that quads are finding a more permanent footing on the men's figure skating landscape.

Stojko chuckles when asked about core strength:

"The catch term seems to be core strength right now, but really there are three things that are working at the same time. The large muscles offer stability and are the 'slow twitch' muscles.

"Then there are the 'quick twitch muscles,' which fire rapidly and help you get that 'snap' [into position].

"The other thing is the central nervous system in general -- firing the muscles."  

He acknowledges that some of this is innate, and says of himself that he has a natural tendency towards 'quick twitch' action, which assists in the very fast rotation that is needed in quads...



Stojko says that he still routinely does triple Axels and on a "good day," he can still do a quad. Pretty impressive for a man who retired from amateur competition after the 2002 Olympics.  

He is optimistic and enthusiastic about what he sees in terms of jumps, and feels encouraged that the ISU revisited the scoring system and increased the value this season for quads.  

This bodes well for Canadian skaters like Reynolds, who landed his first quad loop jump in practice in front of Stojko on his home rink in Vancouver, while the 2010 Olympics were going on (Reynolds was left off the team).  

Will Kevin Reynolds be the first man to do this jump in competition? The next competition for Canadian skaters is the BMO Canadian Figure Skating Championships taking place in Victoria in January (Jan. 21-23, CBC, CBCSports.ca).

For Stojko, the national championships were his gateway to international recognition.



Will there ever be quint jumps? Elvis believes in the possibility, but thinks that it is a process and that there are still refinements in technique to be made.

Stojko tried them in a jumping harness as a skater, which makes me think that they might not be that far into the future.

Got a question for Pj? Send it to pjkwong@pjkwong.com

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