KatjaThera

It's still not a quote from Brian, though, so we can't be sure it's not just an interpretation of Brian's words. But also, they did say he wouldn't do the Lutz back in August although he already had his mind set on it, so nothing would surprise me. (I'm pretty sure there'll be some kuyashii if he leaves it out...) I doubt it's a mental block, since he probably knows best the injury wasn't because of the lutz, it just happened when he jumped the lutz.

Actually, it could be strategy, following Nathan's "I'll decide on my layout after practice." Like Lutz isn't perfect - cue in rivals feeling a bit relieved - but not saying he won't do it. And we know he landed it on his first competition, so it's not impossible he'd do it again - cue in rivals confused. I just want Yuzu to make whatever decisions he needs to make to try to not have any regrets at the end of the day. I'm still a bit worried about loop, though. It was very moody in the beginning of the season, even though it was supposedly good in practice, too.

I like that stylist, I hope they got her again! (No more good boy hair!) I don't remember the pictures of this photoshoot, though... the only AERA I remember is the one where he was still a school kid...

I didn't even notice...

Ah, I hadn't realized that ^_^; Funnily enough, then those are the only ones where he probably was at 100% health wise.

I think it's three times... NHK'15, GPF'15 and Worlds'17? Or did I forget one? And I guess it depends how one defines healthy lol In the first two he already foot problems, and in the last he was coming off of an asthma attack. Of course we don't know how much - if at all - these things affected him, but I'm not sure I would say he was 100% in any of those... ETA: I was just looking at Yuzu's wikipedia page and it made me laugh again at the inconsistent comments... Out of 38 senior competitions he participated in, he has only 6 non-podium finishes (a 7th place and 5 4th places), and out of 32 podium finishes, only one is a third place. 31 are 1st or 2nd. 16 1st places, 15 2nd places. (That said, I know that some don't mean the result when they talk about inconsistency, but about landing jumps. But still.)

I half wonder if they might postpone the documentary, if indeed there is post-injury footage. Not ninja enough (but since it's NHK, not sure that's likely)

Well, maybe he wasn't then, but was then super kuyashii and perfected himself just because? lol He did say his younger self had a lot in common with Yuzu. But yes, I'm pretty sure that is the case and it's one of the things he's learned from his own experience.

I don't know about that, but in Team Brian, Yuzu says he pretty much focused on just jump training and hadn't worked on skating skills since he was a child (which would mean he did do it at some point and I'm not sure when the switch happened, but if I were to guess, I'd say when he started doing quads). I'd look up a more precise quote, but I just realized I left my copy at the office >_<

Honestly, for this part, I'll believe it when JSF or someone from Yuzu's team says it. (I haven't read the actual article, but depending on the wording, it could also mean the recovery ended later than expected, as in he's recovered, but as it was later, he had less time to practice than initially expected...) I also personally wonder if he might not have skipped TE even if the injury had never happened. He's in a completely different position from Sochi and it makes sense to focus just on the individual event. A week between team and single is too much and not enough from many points of view. Not enough if you think of them as two competitions, and too much to go without a proper chance to train - aside from official practices, which IMO are not ideal. Also, remember Javi said that his coaches had already decided he wouldn't do the GPF even if he had qualified for it. Of course, they wouldn't do that with Yuzu, who is very adamant about making his own decisions, but I'm sure Brian & co. would have suggested he sit out the TE with many valuable arguments. TCC was obviously in a 'conserve energy for the events that matter the most' mode. So I tend to think he was never going to do the TE, but it became a maybe after the injury if they decided to use it as practice time. But in the end, it just wasn't worth it. I also don't think not doing the TE has anything to do with convenience. For someone as patriotic as Yuzu, it wouldn't be an easy decision. But in all fairness, Japan would benefit much more from a second OGM than simply having him on the team, even if he broke records or whatever. It's just a pointless waste of energy better spent training. But you can be sure he stressed a lot before accepting that. On the other hand, I think he trusts Shoma to do as well as he himself would have done to help Team Japan as much as possible (or they could totally spin it like that to counter the rivalry stuff ) And I understand the panic that he might not be fully healed, but I don't see the point in speculating about that, either, when there are cons to doing the TE even if he were in 150% shape, that others have already mentioned. I think a lot of it has to do with us not being used to knowing he was badly injured while he was actually injured and knowing he has competed while injured, so we always worry he might be injured or not in top health. We probably won't know the truth for a while, though, so maybe we should try to learn from TCC and not waste energy worrying about things that may or may not be true and that, in any case, we can't do anything about. (Although admittedly, I refuse to think he might still be injured because if he is, then Milan would quite definitely be a waste of energy, too, and I can't do that twice...)

I'd like to point out there'll be panic even if he has good practices lol But thank you for being the voice of reason. To be honest, I joked about cue in panic, but if it really got panicky in here, I'd probably have to take a step back to stay calm myself ^_^; I was one of those not thinking skipping the team event was a disaster and I kind of saw it coming, but panic is pretty contagious...

Ah, yes. I doubt they'd speak randomly, but yes, it'd be nice to see a JSF statement...

For me, it means only one day of having to go to work after waking up at ungodly hours to watch FS, instead of three... I kind of expected it, too. Now I wonder if only Ghislain will stay behind with him... or if maybe Javi will skip the opening ceremony and stay back as well, therefore having either Tracy or Brian himself staying back as well...

IronKlaus quoted a tweet of Mainichi Shinbun, which I think is quite trustworthy

Aaand now we know... cue in panic

Javi has many friends, so I think having someone who knows what he's going through in ways his others friends never could probably is important, especially as he achieved success. He and Yuzu pretty much climbed to the top together and I think doing it together helped both of them. I'm curious what he meant by things Yuzu has that he doesn't... Also, they've certainly got different attitudes and views and so on, but I don't think they're that different like day and night... although admittedly Javi should know better lol

I was thinking the same thing, but the 0:30 confused me. Then again, 0:30 in the afternoon should be 12:30pm, so I think that's it. Weird, though, that they have it set up like that on the site...

Just to add to the confusion, clicking on that link shows: 2018年2月7日(水) 午後0時30分(45分) for me...

Yep. And that's also why I doubt the accuracy of that... whether my memory of it or the original account I read ^_^;

But he kind of did need a distraction during his off time, so... who knows... (imagine a black and gold Seimei... )

I think rather than being uncomfortable, his necklaces got stuck in the neck sparkles. If he found a solution for that, I don't think he'd have to change anything... And I love Seimei as it is, too. I do still wonder, though, what was up with the new skate guards, though. (And I am somewhat amused, because I remember reading somewhere that Brian (?) told Yuna not to wear gold at the Olympics, so she even removed a gold ring she used to wear, and apparently there's a superstition about wearing gold at the Olympics. So what does Yuzu do? GOLD GOLD lots of GOLD He should show up wearing gold UA, too lol)

Thank you for your analysis! It's very interesting. I think it'd be great to have 300+ scores at the Olympics, as it'd show just how far the sport has gone in four years. (The scores in Sochi, aside from Yuzu's SP, were lower than other competitions before that.) I do wonder if we will get that, though. There haven't really been many scores over 300 this season and the consecutive days thing plus the difficulty levels makes splatting very possible. So while I hope you're right, I'm not as sure it'll happen... Also, aside from Shoma and Javi, have any of the others gone over 305? (including Nationals?) Getting PBs at the Olympics would be great, but I'm not sure how likely that is. As you've probably noticed, I ignored Patrick completely ^_^; Well, he himself has said he's not really a contender for singles. And if he's toned down his technical content even more, the only way he'd have a chance would be for everyone else to fail in epic ways. (And then I think guys like Adam or Dimitri might have a big chance of stepping up, too.) I also admit that while I haven't watched Patrick much, despite his PCS, he seemed to be very inconsistent in the sense of actually landing his jumps. Although, like with Javi, mistakes on a lower BV program are less costly than on a higher BV program. I still can't shake off the idea that Shoma doesn't really have as much political backing now as he did after Helsinki. I'm not sure whether that means anything or whether it'll impact his scores, but combined with 4cc scoring, I can't shake it off. If so, then yes, there might be a more correct/strict scoring at the Olympics, too. (Now I kind of wish Nathan had been at 4cc, too. It might have given us an even better idea of scoring trends.) I also still wonder how he'll react under pressure. I have the image of rookie Shoma skating after Javi in Boston and looking so terrified in my head. I know he's been really cool and seemingly not phased much since then, but he's also never really been under pressure. In Boston, I'm not sure if it was because of Worlds, or because he'd done well in the SP, so he felt the pressure of doing well in the FS as well, or if it was skating after Javi, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone look that scared and shocked before he even started skating. I wonder if he's really moved on from whatever caused that reaction, or caused it to be so intense. For Javi, the main reason why I refuse to underestimate him is Brian. If Brian believes Javi can get gold in the right circumstances even with lower BV, then I believe it, too. Of course, it depends on a lot of things, including his rivals making mistakes and himself being clean. But neither of those is impossible. But Brian knows how scoring and judging go, so... Also I think Javi's Boston score is still higher than most scores this season. However, Javi has also been quite inconsistent about landing his jumps lately, too, so it can go either way. And is Boyang's scoring really stable? I admit I haven't followed his numbers and although he has 'sneaked' by the other favorites on a few occasions, my impression was more that it was due to others' mistakes than his own scoring being good. But like I said, I haven't really followed his scores. If it is, though, then it is interesting and makes him less of an outsider than I thought.

After a google search with that image, it seems that's also from the closing ceremony: http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2014/02/24/gazo/G20140224007655440.html

I think at this point all we can really do is trust him and his team and wait for news as patiently as we can. Meanwhile, as I mentioned in the general chat thread, here’s my take on the top 5. this is based entirely on impressions and not numbers - I know there are some people here who have done the number crunching as well and it’d be great if they brought them here, either to support or argue against my impressions - so they are just impressions and could very well be wrong. I’ll only refer to Yuzu, Javi, Shoma, Nathan and Boyang, as I haven’t really followed Mikhail and it feels wrong to say anything then. Now, neither of these 5 are known for being particularly consistently clean. For obvious - many quads/high difficulty - and not so obvious - Javi? - reasons. However, assuming all 5 are clean, this is how I think things are: Clean Yuzu - High TES with highest GOE and probably highest PCS Clean Shoma - High TES with high GOE and highish PCS (yes, they did score him same as Patrick once or twice, but generally he’s not that super highly scored I think?) Clean Javi - Not so high TES but very high GOE with highest or second highest PCS (Javi is often on par with Yuzu or immediately after in PCS even when he’s not squeaky clean; Brian’s work, I suppose) Clean Nathan - Very high TES with possibly high GOE (if they ignore bullet points just because the jumps are awesome) and medium to high PCS (with several exceptions, he’s never gotten outrageously high PCS - to rival Yuzu or Javi, but a clean program might still get him in the highs) Clean Boyang - High TES with possibly high GOE (though possibly.lower than Nathan) and medium PCS. Boyang doesn’t have much of a PCS reputation and although he’s been working on improving, his improvement hasn’t been rewarded as much as Nathan’s or Shoma’s. So I’d say if all five go clean, Yuzu should still have the upper hand, with Nathan probably second and Shoma third. But it depends on the BV difference between the last two, as well as how crazy judges go with GOE and PCS. Technically, Shoma should have higher PCS, though. If they are not clean: Not clean Yuzu: highish TES (especially if he rotates his jumps), high GOE on every other element (assuming he doesn’t do a 2012 and fall on a spin or step sequence) and highest PCS (of the top 5; I think only a clean Javi would beat a not clean Yuzu in PCS, though I could be too optimistic) Not clean Shoma: highish TES (especially if he rotates his jumps), not so high GOE and medium (possibly to high) PCS Not clean Javi: highish TES (because he doesn’t have as much to lose compared to others), probably high GOE on his other elements and high PCS Not clean Nathan: highish TES (especially if he rotates his jumps), not so high GOE on other elements and medium (to high? but the PCS candy he usually gets is for his jumps, so…) PCS Not clean Boyang: highish TES (especially if he rotates his jumps) not so high GOE on other elements and medium PCS (because judges are less likely to throw candy at him) Of course, this entirely depends on where the mistakes are. A fall on a quad lutz is different from one on a toeloop and a fall on a combination is different from one on a solo jump. But these are the trends in my view. I think when not clean, Javi gets closer to the top 3. Yuzu should still have the upper hand and Boyang is the most disadvantaged. Of course, in real life it probably won't be either of these two and some will be cleaner than others. So I'd say it's pretty impossible to predict. Technically, I think, even a not disastrously not clean Yuzu should still beat everyone else, no matter how clean they are. But again, there are degrees of cleanness, so it's really hard to say. I also think Javi is not to be underestimated. He's got lower BV, yes, but for the judges, he's top quality and he will get high scores unless he stumbles every step of the way. He's beaten Shoma and Nathan this year, even if Nathan was in a fluff event. And he wasn't clean then either, unless my memory fails me. But mistakes for Shoma and Nathan - and Yuzu, though less for him again, because he has other high quality contents - are far more costly than they are for Javi. And Boyang as usualy finds himself in the ignored outsider position, as usual. But as we know, that suits him well and it wouldn't surprise me to see him on the podium. I suppose Mikhail is pretty much the same, though probably even more outsider than Boyang. It's got to be hard to have the responsibility of being Russia's main candidate for a medal, I think (since I doubt Aliev can get it; though who knows).

Ah, yes. The special one is the sold out one... *sighs* I must resist the temptation to buy the same magazine in two editions just for posters (that I have no room to hang anymore) and postcards...