KINGSTON, Ont. — The jump almost seems to defy the laws of physics: four turns in the air in less than a second, and touching down with the force of seven times the body weight on a tiny toe pick.
It took Patrick Chan just once to land the vaunted quad jump and he was a convert.
The 19-year-old from Toronto, who had steadfastly argued that skaters don’t need quads to be successful, has made a four-revolution leap to the other side of the quad debate.
“I kind of took the side that if you did a clean program without the quad you can still win and you can be comfortable,” Chan said Thursday on the eve of Skate Canada International.
“But to be honest, it’s a whole different level to be doing quads, a whole different level of confidence.”
Chan will debut his much-anticipated quad at Skate Canada at the K-Rock Centre, with a quad toe loop planned for both today’s short and Saturday’s long program.
The two-time world silver medallist is the lone reigning Canadian champion competing this weekend after injuries forced out Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and pairs team Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison.
Women’s champion Joannie Rochette, who won Olympic bronze less than a week after the death of her mother, isn’t competing on the Grand Prix season as she’s taking time off to contemplate her future.
Chan was runner-up in back-to-back world championships sans quad, and has verbally sparred with quad proponents Evgeni Plushenko of Russia and Frenchman Brian Joubert over the importance of the four-revolution jump.
American Evan Lysacek won the 2010 Vancouver Olympics without a quad, and the results drew scathing comments from Plushenko along with former Canadian star Elvis Stojko, who was known for his leaping ability.
“I understand now, I’m on the other side of the wall. . . I kind of understand where (Plushenko’s) coming from,” Chan said.
“I still believe it’s possible (to win without the quad), Evan’s win was a fair win totally, he totally deserved it, he worked so hard for it.
“It’s a level of excitement I’m talking about, you just elevate your program to that level of excitement where everyone else who has done quads, like Plushenko has that excitement, Elvis had that excitement, Kurt (Browning) had that excitement, and I think that’s thanks to the quad.
“You get that extra little oomph in your program from it.”
Chan opted to forgo the oomph last season to focus on getting healthy for the Olympics, after a calf injury — plus a sudden change in coach and training location — threatened to derail his Games. His quad quest began in earnest in May, and really took flight when he met with dance teacher Kathy Johnson, a grad of New York’s famous Juilliard School.
“She said, ’use your core a little more, just don’t your arms so much,’ and all of a sudden I just went out and did it, something clicked in my mind,” Chan said. “The next day it was the same thing, I was able to do three out of three, after that it just clicked.”
It’s clear from the playfulness in Chan’s voice that he was instantly hooked.
“Oh my gosh, it feels like you’re in a vortex, it’s really fast,” he said. “For us high-level skaters a triple begins to feel like a double, but a quad toe is a whole different level, you exert a lot more strength through your legs, through your glutes and everything. Then your arms are really close, like a whirlwind almost.”
Chan has studied video of dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov as the high-flying artistry between skating and ballet is similar.
His coach Christy Krall has made a science of skating and together she and Chan painstakingly study high-speed video of his quad jumps that break them down to hundredths of seconds.
“He realizes (the quad) is another piece of ammunition and if you have it, you’re part of the game now, and without it, it’s not such a force to be reckoned with, because it is so incredibly intricate and powerful and he worked so hard to get it, day in and day out,” said Krall, who coaches Chan at his new training base in Colorado Springs, Colo. “He understands that intensity, he has a whole new appreciation from what level this quad is.”
Krall has deciphered the quad: skaters have to be travelling at more than 19 kilometres an hour. They push up two to four times their body weight while withstanding 200 pounds of centrifugal force. They must leap at least 21 inches off the ground and be in their tightest position within two tenths of a second of takeoff.
“Then they’re going to stop that on a dime on their little tiny toe pick,” Krall said. “That is amazing, there is no place like it where a tiny little toe pick is going to come down on a sheer piece of ice and then you’re going to glide out like nothing. And Plushenko has been landing quad toes for 13 years. That’s legend.”
While a jump can seem like an eternity to fans caught up in the thrill of competition, it actually lasts just six-tenths of a second. In a program that has 10 jumps, skaters spend less than six seconds in the air.
Chan, who was fifth at the Vancouver Olympics, said he’s been landing the quad comfortably in practice, and has about a 90 per cent success rate landing them as part of his programs. He didn’t do one at practice Thursday.
The teen suffered a brief setback earlier this season when he crashed on his mountain bike, a gift to himself after last season. The tumble left a huge bruise on his back and kept him off his feet for a day. It was a good week before he felt comfortable on the ice.
“When I fell I thought for sure I broke my back or blew a disk or something because I fell pretty hard,” he said. “Landed right on my back, fell onto a pile of rocks and I think one of them just got me in the spine.”
Chan has bounced back and Skate Canada officials are breathing a sigh of relief. A Skate Canada promotional poster that adorns numerous walls inside the K-Rock centre features Chan, Virtue and Moir, Dube and Davison, and Rochette.
Virtue and Moir pulled out after Virtue underwent surgery on both her legs. Dube and Davison withdrew earlier this week after Davison injured his knee last week and underwent surgery. Virtue, who had surgery for the same problem two years ago, is expected to return before the season’s over, while Davison’s prognosis is unclear.
William Thompson, Skate Canada’s CEO, said the withdrawals are unfortunate but not out of the ordinary.
“In the year following the Olympics, you often get some real changes in the field in the Grand Prix series,” Thompson said. “It obviously changed dramatically in the last couple of weeks due to some very unanticipated injuries. That is the nature of high performance sport, we have to live with these things and work our way through them and help them recover.
“This is a great opportunity for some of our younger skaters to get back on the world stage.”
Chan’s stiffest competition will come from 2010 Four Continents champion Adam Rippon of the U.S. and Nobunari Oda of Japan.
Cynthia Phaneuf of Contrecoeur, Que., who was fifth at the 2010 world championships, is a multi-Grand Prix medallist and the favourite in women’s singles, while Vanessa Crone of Toronto and Paul Poirier of Unionville, Ont., seventh at the worlds, are the top Canadian team in ice dance. New duo Meagan Duhamel of Lively, Ont., and Eric Radford of Toronto make their international debut in pairs.
Skaters are competing for US$180,000 in prize money this weekend, and points toward a spot in the ISU Grand Prix Final.
Skate Canada is making its first appearance in Kingston.