Yatagarasu

You sure you want an answer to that?

There are those of us who are both. Or a 3 in 1 really. Caffeine, alcohol and chocolate. Basically, all addictions welcome!

Yes because she was involved in that whole meldonium thing, not Sochi itself. That whole affair was epically botched to be perfectly honest. She did test positive and of course, provisionally suspended only later on, she fell under the pardon that was issued for quite a few athletes because they had no idea at the time just how long it stays in your body. You can see some of it here - click. ____ Those uniforms remind me of old Adidas stuff. I cannot say that I missed it

*coughs* So my friends, the time has come! We cordially invite you to join us in our first Olympic Games thread! Grab your wine, grab your chocolate, clock is going tick-tock, tick-tock!

Nothing can happen this season without a maximum amount of stress, that seems obvious. Can you still switch to mobile if things go iffy? Or does that also have some unknown catch that can implode any moment? Oi vey. What can I say but fingers crossed, and toes, and hair braided and the skating gods better be stressing you all out only to look benevolently on Zu in the end.

When Yulia first came to her, Yulia's mother told her right off that Yulia is age-eligible for Sochi and she thought she still has to learn to jump, and here they're already planning for Olympics and then there was a part with Yulia post Sochi. She said something like - when Yulia got the medal in Sochi, she said mama, mama, is this the medal you wanted? It's an Olympic medal and Yulia's mother said yes. Eteri says that she saw something turn off (I'd loosely say maybe die in English) in Yulia's eyes then (we need the right translation, this is me stumbling about). I think this is the biggest thing. The rest is more or less the usual, about kicking out Alina, motivating students, etc.

One counts! (and we'll get stuff from the closed ones too, we managed to get videos of the cave at the last 4CC) And I know, that whole train thing was especially ... I mean I was just watching from the sides and good grief, that was a nightmare. I hope you all have a fab time, he achieves his dreams then you can all get properly drunk and party the night away! In other words, I hope it ends up so, so worth it!

Yes The tickets sold out in seconds (probably literally, come to think of it) because Hanyu fans are a beautiful and frightening monster (we're Borg. Only pretty. I wonder if that actually makes us 7 of 9) so there'll hopefully be videos and photos. We should get something from the airport too because by then the Japanese media will be champing at the bit to get some info, any info at all.

Hello, hello! Welcome to Planet Hanyu and to skating! Every competition has practices a few days before the actual event. They're scheduled by disciplines, so that the skaters can feel the ice they'll be competing on and practice their short and long before the big event on it. So Olympics has the Team Event first, and the individual later. The official practices for the TE begin February 1st (this is the, unfortunately, somewhat complicated schedule for the Games - click) and the TE Men's short program is on Feb 9th. Now right now we don't know the assignments for the Team Event; Yuzuru may skate either the short or the long, or both (or neither but I find that very unlikely), so he will show up before the actual 9th to attend some of those practices. It won't be Feb 1st, too early, but I think the 5th sounds plausible!

There is also an Eteri interview and from what I saw, we might as well get popcorn again Eteri's interviews, the gift that keeps on giving!

Months But I am really excited because we're practically there. Ten days and practices begin and I'm more than ready. To be honest, a part of that is also to simply get it over with as this season's been terrible but I am also genuinely excited. To put it simply, I have now entered the come the heck on already mode and am wiggling in my chair!

He loves Yuzuru's intensity and hopes he will be fine

Errr. @kaerb yes, that'd Diana. She's an ice dancer. And she is, isn't she? Yay for Dima at the Olys. Woot woot!

Did he give himself a hair cut?

Predictions? What predictions?

This is going to be waiting for you, up up

No can do. You must survive until mid Feb at least.

Yes, unfortunately while doing a -3Lo combo but hopefully next season at JGP she'll be at full strength. She should have gone this season along with Trusova and the others but oh well. This is my fave of hers, FS from last season.

She is incredible, truly something. And she's coming back from a broken leg so though her jumps are a tad lower, they're getting there. She has a fully, nicely rotated 4T though they won't touch that one until the summer. I like that they're reintroducing it all slowly. But she is just wonderful.

Anna's short, ! edge call, 63.33, first place

Sorry this is late but I had passed out by then, it was way late on my side of the pond x_x And they said they received texts with that and some other info. You can find it in this podcast, ~52 mins in

She was the first clean skater so that contributed a lot, after a series of eh free programs. Talented girl, she has great charisma but she's behind the top juniors in pretty much everything. Lot of work there to be done, especially as she's already 16 and is essentially with this turning Senior. I hope her team sort of gets to it now and forgets any 3A talk, but gets work done on some of the basics and gets that Lz back.

Because yes, that's exactly what you should be doing when you're URing all over the place and have shown so little improvement overall.

Starr is not injured. She decided to WD because apparently JWC would be too draining to do as she wants to do the Senior 4CC. More points ... plus her Lz is not there, and it's the obligatory jump in the Juniors this season. And of course, it probably pays off more in general. She is still very very raw, massive work ahead of her, so since she cannot do anything at JWC with the Russian, Korean and Japanese girls all ahead of her, she might as well try and grab a top 10 at 4CC considering a lot of people are giving that one a miss.