Observers of men's figure skating currently live in exciting times. In 2002, Timothy Goebel set the bar for quadruple jumps in a figure skating program by including successfully three quadruple jumps (including a quad salchow) in his long program at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Although there have been three-quad long programs here and there since 2002--Takeshi Honda in 2003, for instance, or Javier Fernandez and Maxim Kovtun more recently--the uppermost echelons of men's figure skating had seemingly maxed out at one quad short programs and two-quad long programs for years (that is, when they were actually attempting quads at all--see, e.g., the dark days of 2008-2010). But something must have been in the water (or ice) last season, because the quadruple jump arms race suddenly escalated to astronomical levels. The Dreadnought equivalent of men's figure skating in this regard was arguably Boyang Jin, who uncorked an insane and unprecedented 4Lz-3T out of nowhere at the Cup of China, along with two quads in the short program and four quads in the long program for good measure. Then Yuzuru Hanyu obliterated multiple world records with his own two quad short programs and three quad long programs at the NHK Trophy and Grand Prix Final, before Javier Fernandez finally upgraded his short program to include two quads at the 2016 European Championships. By the time the 2016 World Championships rolled around, it was clear that one needed at least two quads in the short program and three quads in the long program (including one in the second half) to sit at the big boys' table. The quad arms race did not abate even after Worlds, because Shoma Uno then managed to get the first 4F ever ratified at the Team Challenge Cup.
With various videos of Yuzuru Hanyu's (very good) 4Lo at practice floating around the Internet and murmurs of more and more skaters upgrading their quad arsenals, it would not be surprising to see every single type of quadruple jump--besides the axel--attempted by the men this upcoming season.
With all this in mind, this post is dedicated to three young men--teenagers, quite literally--who are at the vanguard of the quad arms race:
