xeyra

Some new photos from the Olympics Number issue: That Shoma photo is gorgeous! And the Kaori/Mai friendship is so heartwarming.

Whoa! so much for your explanation!

Figure Skating events do love their pink/purple, don't they?

Boyang's Olympic bio has Yuzu listed as his hero. D'awww.

Yuzu's bio at the Olympics official site.

Nathan's superbowl commercial is really cool.

Oh, I didn't know that! Yay, finally a decent 'our boys are the best in the world and going to conquer PyeongChang' cover instead of the usual rivarly angle.

Most of these pictures where he has super neat hair just make me want to mess it around. Let his hair's natural wildeness live! Antenna included.

I actually like that checkered sweater shirt.

This is SUCH a busy cover but I like it. This must not be the full cover, though, since I'm seeing half an arm on the side (maybe a Japanese figure skater lady?). I guess it continues into the backcover. Any images of that one?

I'd just like to point out that the Russian analysis doesn't really determine whether one is artistic or not, only the relative difficulty of their programs for purposes of comparative SS/TR and possibly CO scoring. I consider Shoma plenty artistic even if his FS is not as complex as others (his SP, on the other hand, seems pretty good comparatively in that analysis), because he excels in Performance and Interpretation. I do wish to see him branch out a bit more into less intense and more loose, relaxed programs in the future, so we'll see post-Olympics, but I don't want people to read these analysis and think the amount of one-foot skating is what determines artistry. I do like it when these analysis highlight how bonkers it is when some judges give Nathan the same or better SS/TR scores than Yuzuru or Patrick or even Javi, though (I am looking at you, 4CC 2017/CoR 2017 judges). And for all that Shoma has some of the best edges in the business, I don't think he should ever get higher SS scores than Patrick Chan, which is what happened at Skate Canada. And possibly never higher than Yuzuru, whose complexity really is unmatched. But that doesn't make Shoma's artistry an optical illusion.

Go Waka! 4 years of revenge.

I'm surprised that 4CC 2017 didn't have a bit higher ratings than that. It was basically Worlds without Javi for the men. It did spike up in the FS a bit, though. Do you know at which percentage it's considered good ratings?

Yuzu's greatest inspiration and idol is inspired by him in teaching jump technique to his students.

I've updated the tables in the quoted post as shown. Tidbits: Despite having only two competitions this season, Yuzuru still has the best GOE on solo and combination quads, as well as the 3A. Europeans 2018 have shaken up the Top 10 ranks in SP/FS PCS, TES, GOEs and scores a bit. And 4CC saw the addition of one more top 10 for Boyang's FS TES.

What were the ratings for 4CC in 2017, I wonder?

*slow clap*

He landed his 3A in the SP, yay! But had an invalid spin.

Possible but he said it, he now has to fess up!

That's exactly it! Also, there's a comment there by Vincent Zhou saying he's done this. Why no video too, Vincent!?

Not in competition. We've seen some counter 2As from the ladies but no one dares on the 3A. I remember seeing an instagram video of someone doing a counter 3A in practice (don't remember who, not even sure if our lady of memory @kaeryth remembers it) and it was basically called 'doing a yuzu'.

A whole program dedicated to Yuzu's counter 3A entry and spin entries and how difficult they are.

What he lost in muscle he might have gained in fat for being a 'lazy' ass, then.

Not if he was eating meat like a madman for muscle growth, a la what was said after he withdrew from NHK.