So, I’ve only known Yuzuru Hanyu for three months. Honestly, I missed his entire competitive career because I was a working mom with two kids (born in 2015 and 2018), and life was just crazy busy. My days were all about work and babysitting, and I barely had any time for myself until my kids started school.
I’d heard his name before, but I just thought, “Oh, must be another good-looking skater who has a ton of fangirls.” I never bothered to check him out until one day I watched a few intro videos about him on YouTube after the 2026 Olympics. And wow, I was completely shook by how much he’s accomplished and just how young he was when he did it! I felt kinda embarrassed for myself, comparing what I’ve done in the last 16 years to his record. Sure, fan videos might hype him up, but what really blew my mind was the wisdom he showed in interviews—especially the “Olympics is Never Fun to Me” one (link).
Anyway, I ended up buying all 4 volumes of his biography (in Traditional Chinese), hoping to figure out how he's so successful, how he stays motivated after reaching the top, how he handles challenges—basically, I wanted to see what makes him tick. At that point, I was way more interested in his life story than his skating, tbh.
Here are just some random things that stood out after a month of “studying” him:
Most celebs write their biographies after they’ve lived a lifetime, but Yuzuru published his first one when he was just 17 and a half. Which is kind of insane.
He is human most of the time, (though occasionally he is not)
He has made tons of mistakes, had setbacks and failures. When I mess up, I hide. When things go wrong, I bail out. I don’t have the guts to keep trying. But he actually uses mistakes and regrets as fuel to push himself further.
I can’t believe how many interviews he does—even about his mistakes. He could have chosen privacy and avoided scrutiny, but he spoke openly even about his regrets. In his biography, he’s frustrated with his mistakes, but never dismisses the entire experience. After listing his errors, he also outlines the parts he handled well and the lessons learned.
He’s so grateful for everything, big or small—his skates, the ice, his coaches, teammates, just everything. Not just out of politeness, but wholeheartedly. It’s almost unbelievable that someone with such a pure, noble soul exists. Honestly, his sheer existence makes the world better.
He does what he says, says what he means. No pretending, no drama. Just authenticity and determination. Almost unreal!
There was this interview where he was asked how his parents raised him (because Japanese moms are obsessed with figuring out how to raise their kids like Yuzu). Honestly, it felt like a trick question—he was only 19 or 20! But he just said, “Everyone is unique, has their strengths and weaknesses. I have weaknesses, too. Look at the strengths, not the weaknesses in your kids.” That’s the perfect answer. And it’s not just talk; he REALLY lives by that. I am sure people around him are not all pleasant. He recognizes and appreciates their merits, so he gets along well with everyone.
Those were my thoughts after month one. I was maybe naive, but his story made me feel like I could step up too if I learned from him. He was my role model, though he is 14 years younger.
Then things kind of changed.
The more I learned, the sadder I got instead of feeling inspired.
I try not to get into those “underscoring” debates—honestly, it’s pretty discouraging if it’s true.
I don’t want to believe someone pushed him away from the sport he literally poured his life into.
It just rocked my belief that working hard and being nice means the world will treat you kindly in return… I wish it were true, but it’s clearly not.
I watched most of his competitions and started to understand figure skating a bit more.
He only skated clean maybe less than 20% of the time.
That’s because he kept raising the difficulty level, always pushing himself. Making two mistakes would cost 20-30 points easily.
But still, whenever he actually nailed a clean performance, he basically broke the world record.
From 2013 to 2018, he always managed to make a comeback with a big win after setbacks.
But between 2019 and 2022, that didn’t happen.
I kept telling myself, “No one’s actually against him—the real enemies are age and injury.”
He can’t push his limits forever; that’s just how it is for athletes. Sooner or later, he has to retire from competition. When he reaches 40 or 50, he as to retire from performance as well, just like Brian Orser, Plushenko, Kurt Browning, and Johnny Weir. It’s sad, but I gotta accept it.
I also told myself, the change of scoring in 2018 is not against him, since IJS 1.0 also heavily rewards quads over spins or choreography.
Nathan could do two more quads than Yuzu, which gave him a 10–20 point lead.
Yuzuru had to be perfect elsewhere to even catch up, which is really tough.
He never landed two clean programs head-to-head against Nathan after 2018.
The scoring system isn’t perfect, but I get why they use it—it’s more objective to tally up jumps than argue about choreography.
And even if judges gave him weirdly low GOEs, the system tosses out the highest and lowest to reduce bias.
When he skated clean, he still got high scores. I didn't see evidence of huge underscoring, at least not big enough to change the results.
What I overlooked at first is that he was actually shocked by his results at GPF and JNats 2019, lost his confidence, and switched back to old programs (Chopin and Seimei).
He said in his biography by 2020 that he realized he couldn't get higher PCS, no matter how much he improved.
Honestly, I don’t get why he seemed so discouraged, since a 0.74 points difference in PCS (48.40 in 4CC 2020 vs. 49.14 in GPF 2015) wasn’t enough to beat Nathan’s technical scores anyway.
But then, I finally got it — Nathan’s PCS was insanely high, even greater than Yuzu (e.g., 95.78 for Nathan and 93.64 for Yuzu in GPF19). It was like he couldn’t beat Nathan on PCS or GOE. The only way left was to raise the base value. So he changed his goal; he tried to redeem himself by challenging 4A. OMG.
Nathan's PCS really puzzled me. For example, Nathan had a PCS of 97.22 at the 2022 Olympics, higher than Yuzu’s 97.08 at Worlds 2017. His FS in the 2022 Olympics is definitely not comparable to H&L in Worlds 2017. What's wrong?
I’m definitely not a skating expert, but a program with PCS of 97.22 should be so mind-blowing even casual fans should go “wow, that’s perfect.” But I can see many places to improve, so why do judges think it’s flawless? Are there “Picasso on Ice” that only judges can see and general people are too dumb to appreciate?
At that point, I am convinced the scoring was problematic.
Nonetheless, though problematic, none of the over/underscoring was big enough to change the results of the competition.
Why risk the sport’s credibility by favoring anyone? Is Nathan really so much better in both technical and artistic aspects? I’m confused. Even with fair judging, Nathan would still be hard to beat, but not totally impossible. Maybe he wouldn’t have felt so desperate, risking his health to challenge 4A? At least, he would feel that his improvement in skating skills got recognized?
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Despite all that, Yuzu didn't become cynical but remained kind to the world and cordial to everyone. He congratulated Shoma genuinely, not just for show; he was truly happy for him, knowing Shoma had gone through a tough year. He didn't collapse and moved on to complete the Gala and the MOI as planned. One could barely notice his frustration and desperation.
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I honestly have no idea how to wrap this up. There’s no happy ending, and I can’t find any meaning in it. I don't know how he felt about the 4 years now. Losing the gold in 1988 haunted Brian Orser for decades. For over 10 years, Brian couldn't watch his own FS in the 1988 Olympics. I don't know if the same feeling haunted him, but I was haunted by many **What if** thoughts in the past few weeks. I really need to get them off my chest by posting them here.
Many fans must have gone through a similar process 4 years ago, and hence, my post probably adds no new value to the world
Thanks for reading and letting me vent.
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BTW, Yuzu is so productive. Look at how many shows he created in the past 4 years. He is still unbelievable.
