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Yes, Yuzu put both hands down at the same time in 3F. In Patrick's 3A, both of his hands touched the ice but not concurrently. However, Patrick also put both hands down **at the same time** in his 4T. To me, the distinction is very small, and Yuzu lost 1pt, but Patrick didn't. My feeling is that Patrick got a slight advantage here. Fortunately, it didn't affect the ranking.

His FS in Sochi was not as polished as his later ones, yet still at a higher level than that of other skaters. The 4T is gorgeous. The spins are beautiful. I have another related question. Please refer to the video below. I’m wondering why Yuzu’s 3F at 39:37 was judged as a fall and received a 1-point deduction, while Patrick’s 4T at 30:53 and 3A at 31:08 did not, even though all three jumps involved both hands touching the ice and neither skater’s buttocks touched the ice. Under the current rule, a fall is defined as a situation in which “the majority of his/her own body weight is on the ice, supported by any part of the body other than the blades, e.g. hand(s), knee(s), back, buttock(s), or any part of the arm.” To me, the loss of balance on Yuzu’s 3F looks very similar to Patrick’s on his 3A. That’s why I’m confused about why Patrick’s 3A did not receive the same 1-point deduction, and maybe his 4T as well.

Thanks, Jenn, for finding the book and the translation. I began from Chapter 5 and haven't finished it yet. I love this book. I felt it was better organized than Yuzu's biography, at least with more details. His biography is more like plain transcriptions of his interviews, and this book digs deeper and connects everything better, more like telling a story.

To Jenn: Thank you so much for pointing me to the books and thanks for the translator. I am still reading them. Noriko Shirota is a wonderful lady and an angel who takes care of Yuzu, as important as Brian and Tracy. I only read part of the first book and will come back with more thoughts. To Martina: I just read your entire post using Google Translate. It's so dirty. I didn't know skatingscores can produce data like that. I will try to play with it more.

I didn't know the scandal of Davis/White's victory and just Googled it. How come Canada was the victim again, like in 2002? I really miss the era (pre-2016, or at least before 2018) when scores actually made sense, or at least weren’t wildly inconsistent. I also miss when commentators would genuinely appreciate the complexity of the transitions, be amazed by the size of the jumps, and how well the skaters maintained their flow before and after jumps. If commentators can recognize these nuances, there’s no reason judges couldn’t. I have one last question. Sorry that you are almost like my ChatGPT. In the video above, Brian describes how Yuzu first approached him—a mysterious phone call inviting him to a hotel room to meet someone he had never expected beforehand --- Yuzuru Hanyu. I'm really curious: who arranged this initial meeting for Yuzu? Based on the video, it seems Yuzu chose Brian Orser because of Javi. Javi had moved to Toronto a year before Yuzu, but how did Yuzu know Javi would thrive there based on just 5 competitions after the move? It's interesting that he didn't opt to train with Patrick, and after all, Javi wasn't the only skater attempting a 4S at that time. Having studied abroad myself at 22, I remember how anxious and uncertain that transition was. I was lucky to have a professor who encouraged and guided me through the process of researching and applying to schools. Without that support, I doubt I could have navigated everything on my own. It looks like he studied other skaters and coaches around the world and made the decision by himself. Amazing! Moreover, how did he communicate his decision to leave his former coach—the coach who had helped him achieve a World Bronze medal? It must have been incredibly difficult at just 17. Changing coaches is rarely easy. When Evgenia switched to Toronto, Eteri publicly criticized both her and Brian for months. When Boyang tried to move to TCC, his coach's son even called him a "traitor." The transition faced long delays, and the pandemic pushed it back further, so Boyang didn’t really make the move to Canada until 2022—after his prime had already passed. The whole process seems so complicated and emotionally charged, especially for such young athletes. I have a lot of admiration for those who manage these transitions so bravely.

To Martina: Thanks for the explanation. Score manipulation or the incompetence of judges not only affects a few titles or the color of a few medals, invalidates Nathan's world records or streak of wins, but also affects the credibility of Yuzu's titles or records. The last thing upsets me the most. If the score cannot properly reflect the level of a performance, then the competition means nothing. It ruins skaters' efforts and makes the rivalry nonsense. I heard from some Chinese fans that the French Fed chair met the JSF chair at the airport after GPF 2019, and asked why JSF didn't speak up for their skater about the scoring. Is it true? I couldn't find the origin of this. I really hope someone could have spoken up for Yuzu like Katarina Witt spoke up for Yuna publicly in Sochi 2014 that there should have been a bigger difference between the PCSs of Yuna and Adelina. When Adelina's FS scores were announced, the commentators were all surprised, including Kurt Browning. Johnny Weir said it is very very generous. Of course, Russia cannot control the US media. Has any commentator or media questioned Nathan's PCS?

When it comes to PCS inflation, one thing that has always puzzled me is that it’s not just a handful of biased judges—it seems to be almost all of them. Who has the power to influence practically every judge on the panel? And then I realized that PCS inflation and GOE manipulation have been standard practice in ladies’ events since at least Sochi 2014. For example, the PCS for the champion jumped dramatically—from the 7s to the 9s—in just two months. The same sudden increase in PCS occurred for several Eteri skaters (Evgenia, Alina, and the 3As). Whenever a new prodigy is promoted, the judges inflate her PCS to help close the gap between the newcomer and her predecessor. Eteri girls can easily receive GOEs of 4 or 5 as long as there are no obvious mistakes, while GOEs for other skaters are usually capped at 3. Judges also tend to overlook edge errors or underrotation in jumps for these skaters—but if any of these girls change coaches, the PCS bonus disappears and suddenly their jumps are heavily scrutinized. If judges have been systematically manipulating scores in the ladies’ events, there’s little reason to think they wouldn’t do the same in the men’s. In this article—Oleg Vasiliev: “The current system becomes obsolete. Judges have learned to manipulate the results within this system.” (source: ⛸ FS Gossips)—the scoring issues in pairs and ice dance are also called out as highly problematic. Realizing all of this, I can’t help but wonder: when did the scoring in men’s events become so corrupt? Should we say Yuzu was ‘lucky’ that Patrick Chan wasn’t American or Russian? If Patrick’s PCS at Sochi 2014 had been just a few points higher, Yuzu wouldn’t have won.

Okay. I can now see some connection between "YOLO" and his "changing layout on the fly" skill, but the connection is not straightforward to me. Didn't he also break the Zayak rule in the SP at Skate Canada 2015? He popped 4T to 2T, which invalidated the 3Lz+2T combo. Did I misunderstand the rule?

Thank you. I thought the first letter "Y" would be Yuzuru, but I was wrong. I still don't quite get it. It sounds to me that YOLO is something impulsive, adventurous, or reckless. One does it since he only lives once. However, Yuzu changed his layout with calculation, not quite a YOLO thing.

Can anyone tell me what the 4 letters YOLO in "YOLO jump" represent? I guess "YOLO jump" means that Yuzu changes his jumping layout on the fly in a competition, like in 4CC 2017 or in the FS in 2018 Olympics, but I don't know what the 4 letters YOLO mean.

OMG, I feel awful just reading your words. I cannot imagine how his parents bear with his burning candle behavior. The emotional roller-coaster of watching live events would be too much for me. I cannot watch a live competition unless I don't care about it. I have no problems watching old programs since I know the results. To be honest, I watch his programs for emotional serenity, soothing, healing, and inspiration. I do not have the mental strength to know more about him now. I have to distance myself a bit.

Oh~no. I wish I hadn't asked. He did three 2-hour shows with an injured ankle? How could he go on like that? Maybe he can change the format of the performance. Instead of doing live shows, he can film his performance or ice story as a movie, and then people can watch it in movie theaters. He can sell it overseas. I think the box office will be great. This way, he doesn't have to perform 10+ programs in 2 hours and can rest several days between filming.

I was deeply involved in another fandom for a 90s TV drama about 20 years ago. It was incredibly vibrant—fans produced over 10,000 fanfictions just for the main character! I stepped away from that community about 15 years ago, but returned around three years ago. To my delight, the fandom hadn’t completely faded and was still attracting new fans. However, most of the old forums had vanished. So many sparkling discussions and creative works were lost, including several of my favorite fanfics. It’s heartbreaking to realize that these things don’t exist forever. Now, whenever I come across something wonderful about Yuzu, I make sure to save it on my computer. I’ve learned from past experience that they might not exist forever. If I had followed Yuzu’s journey in real time, it would probably have been even more intense—filled with thrilling and heart-attack moments (like his difficult decision to withdraw from NHK 2017 due to injury). Many incidents were bloodier than described in his biography. The amount and intensity of criticism he received is more than I could have imagined. Still, I’ve also found plenty of cute and heartwarming moments. For example, Kurt Browning’s comments about Yuzu’s smile after a mistake in the FS at NHK 2012, and his saying that “building (choreographing) a program for Yuzu is like playing a video game, because Yuzu is able to do pretty much anything a choreographer can dream up.” This comment and the video game analogy made me smile. And finally, may I ask, who got a sprained ankle, David or Yuzu, in January?

Thank you, Martina, for asserting my observations. I am so glad that you are still active. Most YouTube channels about Hanyu that I enjoyed and learned a lot are dormant now (like "Figure Skating Fans"). In this past weekend, I came across the blog https://www.tumblr.com/the-real-xmonster. That blog is like a time capsule. From it, I got to observe how people have reacted to every Yuzu incident in real time, more detailed and more shocking than illustrated in Yuzu's biography. I felt like I was traveling backward in time to witness his journey. Moreover, her technical analysis and knowledge about figure skating is so good. I hope the content she left on the blog can be preserved forever, so valuable.

I’ve been checking out some other skaters lately, and now I totally get why Patrick Chan is a 3x world champ. People always talk about his “deep edge,” and honestly, his skating is utterly smooth. When I watch Patrick, I sometimes wonder if Yuzu could skate like that—though Yuzu obviously shines in other ways. I still don’t get *how* Patrick manages that flow; it’s like he never loses momentum. Javier’s amazing, too. I noticed his 3-turn entry into jumps, which Yuzu himself said he learned from Javi. Their styles are clearly different, but both have really strong skating, footwork, and jump quality (thanks, Toronto Cricket Club?). My favorite Javi program is his SP at the 2017 Worlds—the 109 he scored there was totally deserved. Sorry, I can’t break it all down better; I’m not an expert, just a casual fan. As for Shoma, his upper body always leans forward—he rarely keeps a straight line from his torso to his legs. His butt kind of sticks out all the time. Yuzu and Javi usually manage to keep their bodies in line, and it just looks way better to me. And honestly, I still don’t really get the hype about Nathan. Spins, transitions, body movement? I feel like plenty of other skaters are stronger in those areas!

To Martina: Your impact is huge. So many people cited your posts. It's a huge treasure for me to dig. My next plan is to study his ice shows and read your posts.

Hi Jenn: Thanks for referring me to Coach Ghislain's interview. I've studied Brian, Tracy, and Johnny, but haven't studied Ghislain. I found the full interview, and I like his way of dealing with those annoying things. He is a great coach.

To Yuzurujenn: I know 4A is his childhood dream, but it's indeed a way to redeem himself, in his biography (last chapter, vol3). I’m convinced the unfair scoring is real, and it makes me feel awful and angry. So I came here to vent. He said at his retirement press conference that he doesn’t need that kind of validation anymore. Now I finally understand just how much frustration and struggle those words were carrying.

To Yuzurujenn: I know he switched back to Chopin and Seimei at 4CC specifically to test the judges. In his biography (vol. 3, last chapter), he actually said that his Chopin at 4CC 2020 was the most perfect version he’d ever skated—and his coach agreed. But even then, he didn’t get the scores he was hoping for. The scoring system had changed, but the PCS rules stayed the same. That’s when he realized it didn’t matter how much he improved; he just couldn’t get higher PCS. I didn’t mention this in my first post because I was worried it would stir up more criticism against him. The last chapter of vol. 3 and the preface of vol. 4 go into a lot of detail about what was going on in his mind between GPF19 and 4CC20, including all the reasons he went back to Chopin and Seimei (regaining confidence was one of them). My English isn’t good enough to explain it all here, but those sections really dig deep into his thoughts at the time.

Wait! Are you the author, "Martina", of Sportlandia? I've read some of your posts. They are incredible. Please accept my highest respect. I cannot believe you responded to my humble post!! That's super exciting for me.

Hi! Martina and Yuzurujenn: I didn't expect I could get such meticulous and detailed responses in just a few hours. Thank you so much. English is not my first language. Allow me a few hours or days to organize and type my response.

I just noticed him in March 2026.

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? ====== 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. ====== 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. ====== BTW, Yuzu is so productive. Look at how many shows he created in the past 4 years. He is still unbelievable.