micaelis

He has silver feet!!

There was definitely in CiONTU a sense that Yuzu was taking stock of where he was and how he got there, sort of like taking a deep breath before one goes on. Yuzu has had three significant crises in his career, the first being the quake, the second the crash in Shanghai and the third the injury of last year. The injury and the recovery from it resulted in his 2nd OG but the timing and everything else felt to Yuzu like this was a time to put a comma in his career before undertaking the completion of the sentence he'd been writing since he was a mushroom-topped urchin forecasting his first Olympics. To me the most significant thing he's said recently (and this more than once) is that he feels liberated now, so much that his intent is to skate what he wants and not what is absolutely needed for victory. The 4A is actually more symbolic of what I think his real intent is, which is to show the skating world what TRUE figure-skating involves. In that sense Yuzu is now a man on a mission and exactly where that mission is intended to lead us and the rest of the world he's not revealing (or perhaps he's not even quite sure himself so he is also engaging in a mission of exploration). Whether or not he is the GOAT is not for him an issue (if it's ever been?). The issue for him is to skate a program that is more than clean, a program that ascends to the top of skating's Mount Everest and plants his flag there and says to the world, "Here I am. I've shown you the way. Now get up here and join me."

A Universal Sigh of Relief!!!!!!

I was just joking. I realize that Yuzu prefers not to be the last one on the ice unless it's the last one to be called in a medal ceremony (if the gold is the last called, like they do in the Olympics).

Considering what I've seen landing on the ice over the years I can see quite a menagerie taking shape. I've seen a large stuffed frog (Wind in the Willows perhaps) and a number of non-Pooh bears. I once saw a brown bear landing near Yuzu when he was leaving the ice. The bear was 2/3 the size of the boy who retrieved him. I'm surprised we haven't seen any Tiggers yet. All in all, though, this makes every skate of his as interesting right after as in the skating itself. We never quite know what we might see plunging to the ice. All we know is that there will be a lot of it, sometimes so much that one commentator suggested they put a blade on a zamboni and just plow the stuff off. Even Javi commented one time saying he didn't like skating right after Yuzu because there was so much stuff they had to get off the ice. Quite understandable. They maybe should put Yuzu as the default last skater.

The biggest danger for Yuzu is not only his skating and all that's attached to that but, and it's not noted often enough, his looks, which have been described as 'boy band' perfection. The thing is that Yuzu seems to be blessed/cursed with permanent adolescent beauty, a beauty that will probably last into his thirties, long after he's retired. Put with the face his physique, which is very much like those of the young males pictured in the teen-idol mags, and the whole effect is deadly. I think he's probably conscious of that and that's why he keeps his off-ice time in public to a bare minimum. I am often surprised that Yuzu-worship has not taken off in the States, or is the obsession with Nathan sufficient to keep Yuzu off the radar?

Didn't really want to revisit this topic but I think I need to clarify some of my earlier stands on this issue. In observing Yuzu in videos over the last several seasons any comprehensive data is not available so I've had to do with inferences. I think most would agree Yuzu probably has a functional mastery of the day to day English required at TCC. After all he's been there now for some six years. There are also additional pressures to acquire more English as the language is probably the means by which athletes from various nations converse with each other. Others have mentioned that he is still pursuing some formal instruction in the language though how much and how intense remains a mystery. What is clear and remains basically unchanged from Sochi through PC is that in formal settings, such as press conferences, his English is very limited, probably not so much by what he knows but a lack of confidence in his abilities to handle the situations by the standards he expects of himself when dealing in Japanese, so he resorts to Japanese and translators. That's very understandable. If there is anything that has impaired his acquisition of English I would think it attributable to what seems to be a virtually complete lack of social life off the ice in Toronto. Understandable. He's pursuing a very demanding career as a world class figure skater and also a very demanding major in his university studies. In what spare time he has he has indicated computer games play a major role. All this is largely speculative since Yuzu pursues his privacy with an intensity almost as intense as when he pursues gold medals. I think that is one of the things that makes for the Yuzu phenomena, the deep mystery that surrounds him. He is an enigma and because of that he has a fandom wanting a glimpse into the person behind the enigma. I think it should resign itself to perpetual frustration.

My sense is that Yuzu's ability to communicate in English in casual, social situations is more than adequate. I will point to two events in videos I've seen (and which presumably many others here have also seen) in order to illustrate my point. The first takes place in Sochi where he is off the ice awaiting for the final standings to be announced. He's looking, I think, at a monitor or something like that and then he asks, "I'm first?" There is no answer, so he asks again, at which point he is answered by someone saying that 'yes, you're first', meaning he's won. He had fallen twice in his free skate so he had figured he was out of the running for the gold. The news that he had won the gold is such that without hesitation he says "Omigod", a very idiomatic English exclamation. To me it's significant that he reacts to this very important and surprising news by using a colloquial English expression without hesitation. There is no evidence of him trying to reach for the proper words. His 'Omigod' is right there. That says a great deal. The other is some years later, 2017 Worlds in Helsinki, where he's in the kiss and cry and waiting for his score after his free skate. He talks to Brian and Tracy, making a remark about his skating. He's not looking for words to express what he means and even more significant, he's removing his gloves while speaking. In short, he's capable of speaking in English while doing something else. Both of those examples are sufficient for me to say that his ability to handle English in situations where his use of the proper language is not critical is competent, probably near fluent if you are just looking at speaking situations. As far as his command of written English, both in the reading and the writing, I'm not in a position to say and there has been quite a bit of comment here that Yuzu is very uncomfortable with using English in public situations where much is riding on the words he chooses to use. But I have perfect confidence that Yuzu has the English skills to handle most social situations. How he acquired them is hard to determine definitively but I would say it's partly a result of the immersion into the daily routine at TCC and also probably the many English-language songs he hears when searching for suitable music for his programs.

What did the world do to deserve him?

Javi would have shone more if Yuzu hadn't been there? I'm not sure. It's quite likely he would have had great success over these last few seasons but the question might be asked if Javi would have shone as brightly had there been no Yuzu. Proximity to Yuzu was in many respects advantageous for Javi. Seeing Yuzu in their training classes gave Javi much greater access to the one who had to be beat than any other skater had. Yuzu was the one who had to be overcome and he was skating right next to Javi. Javi could see Yuzu's strategies given concrete reality as they trained. I wonder if Javi would have been as successful if he hadn't had Yuzu as a concrete incentive through those years. This is hardly to denigrate Javi, though. He has made his own mark in his own way. And he wants to continue to make that mark in the one area where his mark is extremely significant - the European Championships, where he is planning to compete for a seventh straight gold. Only one other skater has won six or more consecutive European championships, Karl Schafer with his eight golds from 1929 - 1936, which is a very long time ago. In essence Javi owns the European championships just as much as Yuzu owned the GPF before the injury. The result is that Javi has now struck out on his own but it will be interesting if he is as good as he was when there was Yuzu next to him showing him exactly what he had to overcome to win.

And facilities available to swim. TCC has a short-course pool and I'm sure instructors to go with it.

On bike riding and coming to it after being away for some time. In my case as a kid I lived on my bike even well into my teen years. I learned to drive when I was sixteen but before I got a full license I had an encounter with another vehicle in a parking lot. Nothing serious - it didn't even scratch the cars. I was so traumatized by it though that I told my dad, "Never again!" I went back to my bike and never drove again. Then came college and then moving out on my own. No bicycle for some forty years. A bike came into my hands more or less by accident and I decided to use it. Got on it and even after four decades there was no difficulty. An earlier person said 'muscle memory' and indeed that was the case. There were, however, some difficulties I had to adjust to. In my teens I could ride for blocks without touching the handlebars. I even made turns no-handed. That was no longer the case. My muscles might have remembered, but my sense of balance did not have full memories so I was then having to ride with my hands always on the handlebars. One of the penalties of living into old age. In any case the saying that once you've learned how to ride a bike you never forget is basically true with the caveat that after a long absence you might not have all your capabilities as a cyclist coming back to you. For Yuzu, if he's never ridden a bicycle he could easily learn, considering his innate physical talents. Does he need to? Not at all. I'm not even sure how much he drives a car. Does anybody know if he has a driver's license? That's a question I'd really like to see answered.

Given his fairly short height and slender physique you should be able to throw him quite a distance.

He'd also have to learn how to ride a bike first If he doesn't already know how I would say he'd learn very very quickly. You need a sense of balance to ride a bike and I don't think that is something Yuzu is lacking. The first requirement for gymnasts, divers and figure skaters is a sense of balance well above the average. That Yuzu possesses in spades.

Wow-wow-wow! Slow down, don't gallop. (sorry, I really wanted to use this ) It means something that in competition only one person did and does counter-3a and that person is two time olympic champion. It's clear that he mastered this but it doesn't mean that it's easy. It isn't easy but that's why he's the only one who enters a 3A in that way and if he can successfully launch a 4A that way and land it with equal virtuosity, then he'll attain what he wants from his 4A, a jump that garners for him not only the base value but a full 5 GOE points. He's said explicitly he wants the jump to get him the full five points and if there is anything that would be guaranteed to get those points it would be a launching and landing in a way that even if others are jumping a 4A he can be sure that nobody will be doing it the way he does. He isn't the master of the 3A for nothing and it looks to me he wants to patent the 4A in the same manner.

Amongst athletes with low body fat the one type of athlete who would probably win the low-fat sweepstakes if you were doing a general comparison rather than individual comparisons would be road-race bicyclists like you see in the Tour de France. They are well-known for having almost no body fat. Every part of their body must be as dense as possible with the premium put on musculature (particularly legs). In many respects Yuzu has the body design that would do well if he were in the Tour de France, with one caveat - bicycle racing is not the sport an asthmatic should take up. Trying to climb a road in that high-mountain air is not to be recommended. Otherwise, though, Yuzu, like most world-class cyclists is short and slender and ideal physique-wise. As far as flototation, I did some quick on-line research. The general judgment I came up with after going through a number of different sites trying to answer the question of why fat people float more easily than lean people amounts to this. Someone with Yuzu's physique would be able to float, but they would have to position themselves in the water to take maximum advantage of their high body density. They could float but they'd have to work at it. Some of a person's buoyancy is due not to muscle/fat ratios but also the air in the lungs. My conclusion is that Yuzu would not sink like a rock but he'd be strongly recommended to head for the nearest solid support (another boat, a pool's edge or the nearest shore. He'd be a lot safer on land than in the water. Considering Yuzu's general fitness I would not think he would be a drowning victim if he suddenly found himself on the deep end of the pool. We've seen him over the years and nobody could say that Yuzu does not possess very strong survival instincts. At ACI we'll probably be seeing just the top of an iceberg that's 90% underwater. Yuzu's real work on polishing off his program, as I see it, will take place in the approximately six weeks between ACI and Rostelecom. Basically Yuzu has almost another summer's worth of preparation he can do. More significant are the little snippets that have been getting out about his work on a 4A. We can deduce from those that he's getting the rotation (not surprising) but not the landing. In what state his landing's are we've no idea, but we can speculate based on his declared intention of a 4A with a 5 GOE. That means he wants a perfect 4A and I think that means he's going to use the counter-turn entry he uses on his 3A, a move he basically has patented for himself. As for a landing, I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to land into a spread-eagle. With and entry and exit like that he'd get his plus 5 and some would be giving him a plus 10 if it were possible. In any case what I'm finding rather delightful is his hanging the threat of a 4A over the heads of his competitors like a Sword of Damocles. They'll never know until after he's done his first jump whether they'll be dealing with or not. Like Brian says, 'Never underestimate Yuzuru Hanyu.'

Having watched Stephen Gogolev in the competition last weekend in Bratislava all I can say is that he's Canada's Patrick Chan, not so much in terms of skating skills but in terms of becoming a dominant skater. His win last weekend was comfortable and I would say he's the favorite two weekends from now in the JGP leg in Canada. I think it quite possible he could become the youngest person ever to win the Junior World Championships, since basically he's entering Junior level competition with accomplishments that would have him rated high (though not elite level) if he were skating Senior level. Competing last season at the Canadian national championships senior level he managed to come in 10th. Not bad for a kid who'd just turned 13. Comparing his skating last season with what he's shown us this season I have to say that Brian Orser, his coach, must be working him hard on skating skills, since there was a marked improvement from last season to this season. I think we also should realize that he is training in stellar company with Yuzu and Zhenya on the ice at the same time he is. Yuzu is almost certainly a major motivator for Stephen, although I'm not ready to say he is deliberately interacting with Stephen. I think we should all realize that we might be seeing the emergence of a superstar with Stephen. He's not ready to go head to head with Yuzu right now, but Beijing could be a different story. I don't think Stephen and Yuzu will interact personally the way Yuzu did with Javi but I do think that there will be in place these next few seasons the conditions that will create a competitive relationship analogous to Yuzu and Javi these last several seasons. Things are going to be very interesting at TCC these upcoming seasons.

The person at 7 seconds in I'm pretty sure is Yuzu. The body shape is right but the real tip-off is Yuzu's ever-present neckwear.

I REALLY really doubt that is the case at this point. His English just doesn't seem to be up to that level just yet. But maybe he should visit it, it could be good motivation to improve his English, so he can join in XD I also doubt you'd be that opposed, but I think it'd actually be fun... I wonder how fired up he'd be lol I think his English is better than most people think it might be. I'm remembering back at Sochi when he was off the ice and wondering where he was in the standings. He asked someone, "I'm first?" There was no immediate reply. Then he asked again, "I'm first?" and he was told he was, which meant he had won the gold. His immediate response was to exclaim "Omigod! Omigod!" It's significant that he maintained English when he was so surprised and that it was not formal English but an informal exclamation. I think he's comfortable speaking English in informal situations. He freezes up, however, in media situations where so much is riding on everything he says. Lacking confidence in such situations he prefers to use Japanese and have a translator. We should also remember then that that was over four years ago. His English must have improved even more since then. I'll repeat, I think he uses English in his everyday life but put him in front of cameras and he wants to make sure everything he says is perfect, thus the Japanese. He wants his media events to be as perfect as his skating.

Yuzu himself has said that the quake completely redefined his views on life, essentially saying his life can be seen as before the quake and after it. Because of it things were put into perspective. For a while right after the quake he seriously thought about leaving skating, but wiser heads prevailed and I think the rest of humanity benefited. Last night I was looking at an early interview with him, with that mop-topped urchin we all love and he was smiling and talking about his plans to go to the Olympics. I'm sure everyone here has seen those. You look at that smile and you see an enthusiastic innocence that after the quake you do not see. He still smiles but his smiles now are not his prevailing expression. He's been too close to so much death, even fearing for himself at one time as the quake was ongoing, to be always seeming happy. The thing is now his smiles come not from habit but from a specific experience right then. When he smiles now we know he really means it (unless it's his media smile and even then he means it, but in a different way). Yuzu has since 3/11 been a man on a mission. Exactly what the mission he did not know precisely back when his world changed but his non-skating public performances since then have been tied to doing what he can to help relieve those who suffered so much and have also been tied to his shared experience with all those who suffered from the quake. It is the children, the elderly, the ordinary Japanese person that he has given so much of his time to over the years. Also he dedicates each skate to the victims and he realizes that it is their involvement with him as he skates that keeps him going. The thing is Yuzu has become a national hero, one of the prime examples of one who has overcome the obstacles the quake threw into his path and he's done everything he can to make his successes their successes also. There is a word that describes that, one that is often misused, but in Yuzu's case it is totally accurate. He is, in fact, something more than a talented athlete. He is a very noble human being and his life enriches all of ours as a result.

Make it the best ever - not a 3A but the first 4A in competition.

Simple question having nothing to do with greatness or media day or anything else that's been discussed recently. 4000 posts are almost here for this thread. Will it hit 5000 by year's end? That's it, that's the question. Considering that the season hasn't started yet I anticipate the rate of posts will increase substantially once things are underway. I'm also thinking that the thread might double itself (10000) before the end of next year since with membership increasing there are more persons to post. That prediction is a bit more dicey however.

A couple individuals have responded to my assertion that Yuzu is not yet the GOAT. I agree fundamentally with their assessments of him and I have to say that I personally believe he is the Greatest of All Time. In my assessment of him I was being a devil's advocate, bringing out the reasons why the unconvinced remain unconvinced. And I do disagree with some in saying they will remain perpetually unconvinced. There are those who are by nature unconvinced of anything, not just skating. That is their nature. But I have seen over the years that Yuzu has been skating a consensus reached that he is the dominant skater of this generation and they see no reason why he will lose that status. What I was putting forth was the conditions that will bring the fence-sitters onto his side. It's not those who resolutely oppose Yuzu that I'm talking about. It's those who haven't quite made up their minds. I'm sure there are still some hockey fans who think Wayne Gretzky was not the greatest hockey player of all time. The same goes for Michael Jordan and going far back, maybe Babe Ruth. There are always those who will take a rigidly opposite view on such an issue. I mean there are still some people who subscribe to the idea that the world is flat. But if Yuzu dominates a second Olympic cycle like he dominated the recent one and then takes the gold at Beijing, the fence-sitters will by and large come around. The thing is that GOAT status is not only generated by the fans of a particular sport but by those who are viewing the sport from a position outside that sport's culture. It's like that in politics where the successful candidates are those who not only bring out their party members to vote but a sufficient number of independents to win the race. Those people are the ones who only go out to vote because they see a reason to vote. They are the ones who in a sport like figure skating only deal with it at the Olympics. That's why Olympic achievements are so important for sports that only come into widespread focus every four years. I saw a number of references in recent articles and commentaries by individuals outside of figure skating saying that Yuzu MIGHT be the greatest male skater ever. They were bringing up that possibility while not yet subscribing to it. If he does what I and everyone else here wants him to do then after Beijing in 2022 there will be few non-skating reporters and fans out there not subscribing to the idea that Yuzuru Hanyu can outskate every male skater who has preceded him. It's like in politics. Yuzu has to nail the independent vote to succeed. I and everyone else here feel he's already won the election. The thing is that there are still a lot of uncounted votes out there. We'll have to wait until all those late precincts come in to finally celebrate his victory.

Before 2015 NHK Yuzu was viewed everywhere as the dominant men's skater, the one to beat. That status was attained by him by through his 2013/14 season when he took the gold in the GPF, the Olympics and the world championships, the first to do so since back in the 2000s. With the NHK those into skating began really thinking that Yuzu was a legend in the making. Two weeks later in the GPF nobody was thinking he was not a living legend simply because nobody else had done anything close to that (skating two super-clean competitions in a row and simply taking ownership of the record books). There were probably some thinking GOAT by that point, also, but his subsequent failure to take the gold at 4CC and worlds kept those thoughts at bay. GOAT opinions remained marginal until Helsinki in 2017 when the narrative of him overcoming adversity in moving from fifth to first by skating a world-record program once again brought his major competitive virtue to the front - his iron determination. After Helsinki there were probably a fair number of non-Yuzu fans thinking he was the GOAT. What spread the opinion more widely was the Olympic narrative this year - coming from a severe injury and major time off the ice and minimal time to prepare to the Olympic gold. That was a narrative that would make for a great movie because it was one that spoke of determination on an heroic level. When looking at where we are now I think most of us, if we look at things objectively, can say that Yuzu is still auditioning for the role of GOAT. There are some previous holders of the title who have two things in their favor. Particularly if we look at Dick Button we have to recognize that he was a much more consistent skater than Yuzu. After a certain point early in his competitive career he simply stopped being lower than gold in every competition he entered. There was a point when if Dick Button was competing the competition was for second. Unfortunately Yuzu does not have that consistency. The second is longevity. Yuzu's period as the number one men's skater dates back only to 2013/14. Even though technically he is rated now at number three those currently rated above him have asterisks by their names because the only reason they are there is because of Yuzu's lack of competition points from last season. Those above him know that they still have to beat him if they plan to hold their current positions. Yuzu retains his status as the one to beat that he's held since 2013/14. If he continues to skate at the level he's skated the last several seasons and also wins gold at Beijing then he'll pretty much have GOAT in his pocket. If, during these next few seasons, he also achieves being the first to land new jumps in competition, he'll also bolster his historical standing. Everyone is looking at the 4A but there are other possibilities for new jumps out there. The first quint, for example, the first quad/quad combination also. A season in which his PCS scores are never under 4 from any judge in the SP or under 9 in the FS could also come into play. Another thing that he could achieve would be to take ownership of the record book with the new scoring and never relinquish it until his retirement. There are many ways that he could embellish his competition record that could embellish the narrative of his wins (many) and losses (few) the next few seasons. The thing Yuzu has going for him more than any other skater out there is his completeness. Others approach him there but none matches or exceeds him. Amongst the commentariat Yuzu as THE complete skater is a position he has held now for several seasons. Nobody out there can challenge him for that distinction.

People here were discussing late last spring whether Brian might be spreading himself too thin with all the new skaters (actually just two and we have to remember that he lost one also). The thing is that Brian now has two very high profile skaters (Yuzu and Zhenya, Zhenya replacing the departed Javi), an up-and-coming skater (Cha) and a skater who seems to have come to TCC to see how to fill out his skating and incorporate perhaps some aerial work (Jason). He also has a high-profile junior level skater (Gogolev) beginning his international junior competition this season. This is going to be very much a season where Brian's going to be earning frequent flyer miles. The thing is that there is more to being a coach than just working with the skaters at TCC and at their international competitions. There is also politicking involved. Brian will have to be at everyone of Zhenya's competitions this season in order to reassure the Russians that he is dealing seriously with her. He can't afford to be seen as not giving her high priority. With Jason the pressure to be at the boards will be less since it appears he came to TCC less for Brian's direct attention than to be working with Brian's team. As for Yuzu? He's been on his own before, though never at the crucial times. The thing is Yuzu's been with Brian long enough that they've pretty well worked out when they have to be together and when Yuzu can handle things himself. At nationals this year I think Brian will be there. Yuzu will be the favorite there (unless he's shocked us and the rest of the world by having a disastrous season) but Shoma will be extra-motivated. After all he's won nationals the last two years essentially by default. Yuzu wasn't competing and so I think he will be supercharged to finally be taking Yuzu on for bragging rights in Japan. It's not going to be a sure thing for Yuzu and Brian knows he'll have to be there to help Yuzu psychologically if things don't turn out right. Cha's only assignment is Skate Canada and since Zhenya is also there we can say with complete confidence Brian will be there. That leaves Stephen Gogolev at the junior level. He is the highest profile of TCC skaters at that level and so Brian will be there whenever he can (if it doesn't conflict schedule-wise with any of his senior skaters). This weekend will be dicey since Brian has some sort of fund-raiser in Canada but I think he'll be able to be in Bratislava for Stephen's inaugural junior-level international event. The men's free-skate is Friday and if Brian flies out as soon as possible he can make it back to Canada for his fund-raiser. All in all this season, though, Brian will be hard-pressed in having to decide where he needs to be and where he wants to be. Necessity and desire don't necessarily go hand in hand.