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https://web.archive.org/web/20170123023042/http://webronza.asahi.com/national/articles/2014041700009.html
2014.04.18
Post-Sochi: Can Yuzuru Hanyu become the next Mao Asada? (4) - The Golden Age of Japanese Men's Figure Skating Is Coming
A few years ago, despite his appearance as a guest at an ice show, the venue failed to fill all its seats. At the time, if the guest had been someone like Mao Asada, Daisuke Takahashi, or Evgeni Plushenko, tickets would undoubtedly have sold like hotcakes.
Seeing the empty seats, Yuzuru Hanyu reportedly apologized to the show's promoter, saying, "I'm sorry I couldn't bring in more spectators " He had thought about why he had been invited and keenly felt that he had failed to fulfill that role. Hanyu is someone who thinks about all sorts of things like that.
He has to consider his current role and work hard to shape his public image. I'm concerned about the burden this places on him. People are also surprisingly sensitive to anything that feels artificial. They may see through the persona he has desperately constructed to fit in with those around him and recognize that it is not the real Yuzuru Hanyu. And that, in turn, may cause him further suffering.
Yuzuru Hanyu is a treasure of Japanese figure skating and a national treasure of Japan. Is it right to place such a burden on him alone?
What does Yuzuru Hanyu need, and what does Japanese figure skating need for its future?
The answer is his rivals.
Let's look back at Hanyu's words from the first installment of this series ("Can Yuzuru Hanyu Become The Next Mao Asada? (1) [The 'Missing' Jump He Fixed]").
"The Plushenko I liked most was the Plushenko from when he was competing against Yagudin."
"I'm sure a rival like that will definitely appear for me, too. If I didn't have a rival to compete against, I wouldn't be able to keep loving skating."
At the recent World Championships, Tatsuki Machida boldly emerged as a formidable rival to Hanyu. But he is certainly not the only man capable of defeating Yuzuru Hanyu. On the international stage, there are Patrick Chan (Canada), Denis Ten (Kazakhstan), and Javier Fernández (Spain). But above all, we'd like to see more and more formidable contenders emerge from within Japan.
Keiji Tanaka and Ryuju Hino are the same age as Hanyu. Then there is the younger generation: Shoma Uno (born in 1997), Taichi Honda (born in 1998), and Sota Yamamoto (born in 2000). Many young skaters are making rapid progress, striving to catch up with Hanyu before the PyeongChang Olympics.
Of course, his rivals can be older than him, too. I'd like to see plenty more exciting performances from Takahiko Kozuka and Takahito Mura, with Machida leading the way.
They all look like quiet, gentle, somewhat timid young men. Yet beneath that appearance, they are astonishingly strong-willed athletes who hate to lose. It would surely be frustrating for them to watch Yuzuru Hanyu stand alone at the summit of superstardom, a position that had been thought attainable only by a woman, someone like Mao Asada.
Over the next four years, new stars will surely emerge one after another, each seeking to take Hanyu down and delighting audiences in the process. This was something that never happened with Mao Asada or Japanese women's figure skating. Rather than simply following an untouchable heroine, these male skaters will challenge the reigning hero, each determined to claim his crown. We are sure to witness this kind of thrilling battle in Japanese men's figure skating in the years ahead.
Of course, Hanyu won't want to lose to his friends and fellow skaters, either. At this year's World Championships, being pursued by Machida seemed to bring about a miracle: Hanyu successfully landed two different types of quadruple jumps. As his rivals improve, Hanyu will refuse to be outdone and will grow even stronger.
In fact, signs of this were already apparent. During this month of ice shows, Hanyu reportedly looked remarkably frustrated when he saw Machida land a quadruple flip cleanly during a practice session.
Then, at a practice session for the next ice show, Hanyu himself landed a perfect quadruple loop! Neither jump had yet been successfully landed in official competition by anyone. If either were landed successfully in competition, it would be a first in history. Surely this has already made us all the more eager for the next season.
If they maintain this momentum, the Japanese men's team, centered on Yuzuru Hanyu, might become the strongest team in history, for whom sweeping the podium would be almost routine. An extraordinary golden age of Japanese men's figure skating may be just around the corner, one that will capture the attention of the media and even people with no interest in skating.
Japanese figure skating needs a Mao Asada. But can Yuzuru Hanyu truly become Mao Asada?
It won’t be Yuzuru Hanyu alone who sweeps away all those adult agendas and commercial interests, but the next generation of Japanese male figure skaters as well. Figure skating was once disparaged as a "sport for sissies," and people said, "We don't need it unless it has a female star!" But these skaters will surely sweep away such attitudes.
A new four-year journey lies ahead, leading up to the PyeongChang Olympics. They will continue skating on the ice, a stage more dazzling than ever before and more demanding than ever before. Let us wish every one of them the very best as they give it their all.
By
yuzurujenn ·
