Buttle Talks Quads

Men’s figure skating world champion Jeffrey Buttle of Canada concedes in an interview with The National Post that he will likely have to add a quad to his program at some point. The reason Buttle won worlds was that he skated brilliantly, while others faltered. But, had the other skaters performed perfectly (and not come into the long program way behind), Buttle would not have been able to amass the scores that other skaters completing quads could have.

NP Brian Joubert, the silver medalist at the worlds, groused at the post-skate press conference that you didn’t even attempt a quad-jump. Was that just sour grapes on his part?
JB Honestly, in the moment, he was probably frustrated and I could have said a few things back. But I chose not to. He had one jump that I didn’t have, but unfortunately, for him, there are 11 other jumps in the long program and I happened to score higher. And it wasn’t a win by a small margin, so I didn’t take it personally, plus, I had the gold medal around my neck.

NP Will you need a quad-jump in your program to challenge for gold at the Olympics in 2010?
JB I saw Daisuke Takahashi do two quads in the long program at the Four Continents event, and he amassed this huge score that none of us could touch. But on this day I was the best, but anything could happen on another day, and so I take it from it that, well, this is awesome — I won a world championship without the quad — but I need to put it in the program.