Weisiger laments the fact that even the most sophisticated TV production can't fully convey the physical and mental demands of the quad – or the physics that underpins it. So she takes a stab with words.
"Picture you're on a tight-wire, and you're going at speeds of up to [30km/h] on that tight-wire on a thin blade," Weisiger said. "And then you have to throw your body up in the air and successfully turn around four times and land back on that tight-wire, on that razor-thin blade. That's what we're talking about; that's how hard it is."
But because the best skaters make the impossible look effortless, the quad's difficulty isn't easily grasped or fully appreciated.
Tactically, executing the four-revolution jump amounts to hitting a points-jackpot. It's one way a terrific jumper who lacks artistic refinement can catapult himself into medal contention. Converted ice hockey player Max Aaron is a case in point, landing three quadruple jumps to win the 2013 US Championships.
On a deeper level, the quad represents the outer limit of what's physically possible in terms of figure-skating jumps. Unless the greatest skaters compete at their limits and continue to push beyond them, the sport runs the risk of becoming a quaint anachronism.
As Plushenko famously brayed at the 2010 Games: "Without a quad, it's not men's figure skating."
Regardless of the sport – whether figure-skating or snowboarding, freestyle skiing or ski jumping – it's the athlete's quest to outdo past champions, rather than simply replicate their feats, that makes the Olympics so compelling.
But too much emphasis on executing quadruple jumps, or any combination of high-scoring jumps, can undercut the lyricism of a four-minute, 40-second free skate – particularly if those difficult elements are jammed into the end of a programme, irrespective of the music, to cash in on bonus points awarded for late-stage rigour.
And if a jump-fest turns into a crash-fest, it can be painful to watch.
That was part of the calculus Lysacek weighed in crafting his programme for the 2010 Vancouver Games.
"When I watch skating, I like to see a clean programme," Lysacek said last fall, asked about the risks and rewards of the sport's most difficult jump. "I like to see an athlete that has trained, is in control and executes one element after another. When I see people falling – making three, four, five mistakes in a programme – it's very hard for me to watch that."
That's partly why Aaron decided, after finishing seventh with his quad-laden long programme at an international competition in November, to scale back to two quads, hoping to compensate for the points he'll give up with better spins and artistic marks.
Back in 2010, Lysacek's calculus paid off.
Even though Plushenko landed a quadruple toe-loop, triple toe-loop combination in his free skate, in the eyes of Olympic judges,
For Weir, who finished sixth at the Vancouver Games, it took the passage of time before he was able to go back and study the gold- and silver-medal-winning performances on video. At the time, Weir explained, he was too mired in his own disappointment to watch exactly what Lysacek and Plushenko were showing the world.
A self-described "diehard Plushenko fan", dazzled by the Russian's star power and pizazz, Weir says now that he feels the judges got it right in awarding gold to Lysacek. "On the day of the free programme, the better skater won," Weir said. "Evan performed incredibly well. He was so precise, down to the last detail. Evan was just perfect that day."
But looking ahead to Sochi, Weir predicts perfection won't be enough.
"It's going to take the man that can land more than one quad in the free programme – combined with all the triple jumps and artistry and star-power on that day – to win the championship," Weir said. "It's definitely an exciting time for men's figure skating."