sallycinnamon

Amazing pictures again. Thanks for posting @ralucutzagy! I have found a great article which was posted not too long ago on Inside Skating - "Wenjing Sui, Cong Hang - and a statement of love" "But then there’s a reason why Wenjing’s fans call her The Empress. She has this queenly air on ice, owning the music from the first second till the very end. And if you’re able to unglue your eyes off her, you’ll notice that Cong has star qualities himself. Their arms, their heads, their shoulders, even their strands of hair move to unison – and their scores tell, in short, the story of a glorious performance that offers them the overnight lead in Helsinki: 81.23 points. On twitter, ice dancer Gabriella Papadakis summarizes it beautifully: “In love with Sui/Han. Could I be half as cool as she is?”." It is worth reading it

It was a very short dream, but he was in a dark costume..black, or dark velvet There were no ruffles, or boobskirts, it was a simple but very elegant costume-similar to the Chopin one. We need to survive July somehow

According to the rules, France won't be able to qualify any other ladies skater for the Olympics. Placement at the Nebelhorn Trophy are available only for those countries that have previously not earned an entry at the World Championships 2017.

I voted for brand new music but the other choices wouldn't be surprise either. It's funny because I had a dream last night that it was August and Yuzu revealed his free skating music. It was a rather unknown piece, an OST, but I don't remember the name and the composer, because I never heard about them before. It was not a Japanese OST, that's all I can remember... I tried to memorize it but I knew that I was dreaming (haha) and that I wouldn't remember it when I wake up. And so it happened. The off season and its effects on me

Thanks for hosting the streaming parties, and thank you @robin for organizing it. I've enjoyed it a lot.

I hope that I can escape from the family lunch in time, and I can join you guys for the streaming party See you later!

I had difficulties with imgur too, so I started to use different image hosting sites, for example this, which works very good. If you will have problems with imgur next time you can use this site as well.

The face is not very detailed, but the hands are, which is very interesting!

The face is not very detailed, but the hands are, which is very interesting! The face is not very detailed, but the hands are, which is very interesting!

Így van, sok-sok kedves, segítő ember is szükséges ahhoz, hogy olyan sikereket érjen el valaki mint Yuzuru. Mind a karrierje első felében, mint ahogy Shizuka tette vele, és mind azok akik ma támogatják őt, és a csapatának tagjai. Még ha Yuzuru őstehetség is, és nagyon sokat dolgozik a sikerért, nélkülük nem ért volna el ennyi sikert mint velük. És én is azt szeretem benne, ahogy mindenhez hozzááll. Szeretem a személyiségének azt a részét, amennyit láttatni enged Azt a sokrétűséget, hogy egyszerre szerény, kedves másokkal, emellett nagyon alázatos, csakis a céljai elérésére törekszik - amiért kőkeményen meg is dolgozik - , hogy totál öntudatos, teljesen tisztában van a képességeivel, önmagával, azzal, hogy mit akar elérni. Viszont ugyanakkor tudja azt is, hogy milyen hatása van az emberekre, szereti megkövetelni a figyelmet, amikor pedig a jégen van akkor uralja azt. Nagyon magával ragadó valaki És a szerénységében pont azt is szeretem, hogy a kommunikációjában is mindig az. Lehet azt mondani, hogy ez a kultúrájának a része, ami igaz is részben, de ő emellett különösen figyel arra, hogyan válogatja meg a szavait, amellett hogy őszintén beszél (az őszinte alatt persze nem azt értem hogy mindenről beszélnie kell, ami érinti a korcsolyázását vagy őt magát...). Nekem nem tetszenek azok akik mindig meg akarják mondani a frankót és hallatják a hangjukat. A következő szezonban mivel fogja borzolni az idegeket? Van egy pár ötlet - 4Lz - valami fura kűr választás (ezt mondjuk kétlem) - rágörcsöl már a szezon elején dolgokra - nem talál rendes méretű zakót a jövő évben sem stb.

Ok, let's watch the CoC version of Etude then! There is a nice hd version of it on youtube.

Great cover picture!

I can only speak about my general experiences like @Danibellerika did I've been watching the Olympics also since the late 1990s and my first Olympics I followed was Salt Lake City 2002. I was more into ladies skating then, Irina was my favourite and I really wanted her to beat Michelle. It's a bittersweet memory now because she beat Michelle not only at the Olympics but at Worlds also, but at the same time I was disappointed that she couldn't win the gold. I was very happy about Yagudin's 2002 victory and the whole Yagudin-Plush rivalry until SLC was very exciting to follow. But things were really different back then in a way that I didn't have internet at that time, there was no twitter, youtube or instagram either...I could only hear bits of news when I watched Europeans/Worlds/Olympics in TV. I didn't hear that much about the intensity of their rivaly. So because of this, though I was waiting for the Olympic Games very much, the preceding months before it were less nervous. But not the competitions themselves, because I bit my nails off during them. Before Vancouver the Yuna-Mao rivalry was also great to follow but I was quite relaxed about Yuna, because Mao wasn't in the form of her life in that season and Yuna seemed very confident and dominant throughout whole 2009/2010 (well, except Worlds but it was after Olys). I followed the Plush-Lysacek rivalry from the distance, because I rather cheered for Brian, Johnny and Stephane, and I hoped one of them could medal, but it didn't happen. After Vancouver I started to do more research about the sport and by the help of fs communities, streaming sites and Youtube, I started to follow it on a more regular basis, which made me more excited about figure skating. I started to cheer for Yuzuru in 2013/2014 but the experience will be different this season than it was four years ago. In 2013 I hoped that he had the chance to win a medal in Sochi. But because of Patrick's dominance, I didn't dream about Yuzu winning the gold medal, which then immediately changed after GPF 2013...The last two months before the Games were really exciting, also because I had the opportunity to go to the last big event before Sochi, which was the European Championships in my hometown. Then the team events started soon after that and I was really optimistic that Yuzuru would win the gold. As Danibellerika also said, knowing that he already has OGM brings some comfort, because no one can take away that from him. At the the same time, because I know how much he wants to do his very best in PyeongChang + also because this season will be the peak of the last four years in many ways + other reasons as well, this coming months will be the most exiciting figure skating experience of my life I can't wait for it and cheer for Yuzu from all my heart

I find the article really insightful, not many figure skaters talk about so honestly about things like their concussions and their effects, or about their bodies. It is good to hear how she was motivated to get stronger after what Lipinski said about her - it really is a proof that a good mindset is always very important to get stronger and to not give up.

The black part looks a bit ill-fitting to me, but I love the colours of the costume. Does anyone know who choreographed his POTO in 2014/15?

I like Yulia's short hair, she looks great!

Oh these are gorgeous pictures, thanks for posting them @sublimeskating! I love Sui and Han so much!

Yes, it's cute!

Z - Zigeunerweisen

I think the Chopin Nocturne is a great choice for Evgenia, it is slow, beautiful and mature, something which she could interpret well. But personally, I can't get over the fact that when I was a kid, my mum used to play this piece on the piano about ten times a day, and I got bored with it so much that I can barely listen to it. Her FS music surprises me a bit that it's not a warhorse. And also because both her SP and FS will be quite slow pieces of music. I look forward to see what Averbukh has choreographed for her.

Thank you very much, Fay

I didn't vote for Yuzu or anyone else because I was also afraid to jinx it. Usually I am cautious about things like this, even if I know that it has zero influence on what will actually happen... But I haven't been so thoughtful in the past. I made a bet of 2€ on his victory in Sochi, something I have never done before or after it. I still don't know why it happened, but I felt an urge to do it

It was hard to choose but I still think an Olympic medal is more special than a Worlds title.