Cerunias

You have solved the mystery from those subtle hints re the SP and LP music decision!

Tabloids trying to peddle their wares and make money... They only stop if they think there won't be interest... For them, curiosity and interest is then converted into money... Think of them as kids, attention-seeking. Reaction for or against is their lifeline...

Wasn't one of his spins marked down a level in his SP at PC - which probably would have just about been the difference from having a new WR?

I had been of the understanding that the shortening of the FS by 30 seconds was to also be accompanied by reducing the number of jump elements by one. So spins/steps/choreo remain unchanged, and I would imagine time spent on those elements would change minimally. It's "Where's Wally?". Only Wally is now black and white, and Japanese...

"Mewtwo"! I could barely see him, I must admit, but then again, I should have known better than to expect him be anywhere but the middle!

Maybe it's just me, but I thought it'd be easier if I pasted the proposed new rules (for the Congress to consider in June) here for any other member or reader who may not be as familiar: SINGLE AND PAIR SKATING / ICE DANCE Pair Skating – increase the number of qualified Pairs for the Free Program, from 16 to 20, at ISU World Figure Skating Championships. Short Dance – Change the name of the segment from “Short Dance” to “Rhythm Dance”. Grade of Execution (GoE) – increase the scoring range from 7 to 11 with the introduction of a wider Grade of Execution score from -3 / +3 to -5 / +5. Jumps – In order to have more varied Programs and to give credit to Skaters that can perform different quad jumps, any quad jump can be performed only once in a Free Skating Program. Illegal Elements/Movements – in order to eliminate unnecessary restrictions, the list would consist of only two such elements: somersault type jumps and lifts with wrong holds. Jump Sequences: a proposed new definition: a jump sequence consists of 2 (two) jumps of any number of revolutions, beginning with any jump, immediately followed by an Axel type jump with a direct step from the landing curve of the first jump to the take-off curve of the Axel jump. Correct me if I'm wrong, but re Single Skating, the encouragement to have as many different quads as possible and to only use each one once in a FS program strikes me as being of benefit to Nathan Chen (of the current Senior competitors) - I believe he has landed the most different quads currently, and on the most 'regular' basis? The change to GoE, if used properly, would probably be of benefit to Yuzuru. My main concern is that the current GoE -3 to +3 system doesn't seem to be used to the fullest (people tend to all score in a very narrow band of GoE regardless), so if the system is still not fully utilised as a -5 to +5 system, it will just end up being a score-bloating exercise with the exception of when you have a fall or technical error on a jump. Maybe just my inaccurate beginner's perception of the current situation?

I think we need to write to that global team, and suggest they start looking in Japan or Toronto, Canada (season-dependent). The other place to look would be in the forest where all the Poohs are...maybe... <insert appropriate Pooh emoji here>

Looks like it's a measure of how often people search his name eg on Google. It would be somewhat inflated than a "typical year" because of the PC Olympics and how he was the first man in 66 years to defend his OGM - that would've generated some headlines, which would have led to some people googling his name a bit more. The ESPN article is a real shame though. I honestly do believe you could've written that by just sitting in front of a computer and googling for info...the whole article just seemed superficial. For other athletes, they linked to webpages about that athlete's stats for the last season (or more) and so on eg Ronaldo, LeBron. I can understand they don't link to eg an ISU page of Hanyu's stats (particularly given he was out for much of the 2017/18 season), but it strikes me that a fair comparison with the other athletes would be if the article mentioned not only back to back OGM but how he has broken world records not just once, but multiple times, often beating his own records. I can't remember where it was, but there was another media outlet that tried to draw comparison with how he has broken his own world record by scaling the scores to be equivalent to Bolt's 100m record and what the new 'scaled record' Bolt would need in the 100m. And then emphasised that Hanyu hasn't just done it in the "100m equivalent" but also the "200m equivalent" as well. I think for newcomers to the sport, this helps give a sense of Hanyu's sporting achievement.

Interesting how his search score is about double of the average, and about 2/3 of the Ronaldo "baseline" of 100. By search score, he ranks 19th. I'm surprised they couldn't estimate his endorsements, given that after Sochi, Forbes was able to come up with a "worth" of $2m, which undoubtedly would be in part influenced by the value of endorsements.

Grizzle grizzle grizzle... ...I feel like I'm being wound up...and then when all the FaoI stuff comes out, it'll be like an anti-climax...so which Yuzuru am I out of those nine from the Olympic channel tweet above? Right now, #3, #7, and #9. No news is good news I guess?

And it begins....time to find all the different Yuzu's and catch 'em all! BTW, as an observation, it looks like he's cut his hair?

I think competition rinks are 30m x 60m, ice shows often use 20m x 40m. Yuzuru himself has commented that he used ice shows to help practice for competitions after the Sendai 'quake, but found it hard because of the size differences. So my understanding was that he wanted to do PotO and Orser's interview on that subject matter seemed to suggest that when the TCC team said yes, it was with a degree of reluctance - I believe Orser's word were something on the line of "we finally had to say yes after his success at the Olympics". Which also makes me think that it would be less likely that we will see PotO2. I don't know why Orser seemed so reluctant about it, but after listening to that interview it seems that Orser seemed to believe that Yuzuru may not be able to live up to it technically - do remember that Orser has been heard in another interview to say that he thought Yuzuru skated "a bit fast" and "a bit loose" when he initially arrived at TCC (and that was Orser's explanation for why Yuzuru would sometimes "land on his bum") and that they started working back at his technical foundations initially. From that same interview, the impression I got from Orser was that Yuzuru wanted to do PotO because of the challenge that it would present. Note also that Orser has been heard in yet another interview to say that Yuzuru is the kind of person who constantly looked for a challenge to strive to meet (one of the early post-PC interviews, discussing the special training-bond between Yuzuru and Javier, and where Orser also said that he didn't know what Yuzuru's exact plans were - I heard that interview again recently as well, so I presume it was in one of the recent links in the last few pages). Of course, there is a degree of extrapolation and speculation here, particularly in the reasons why Yuzuru himself wanted to do a PotO program. I suspect that won't be likely, since Yuzuru strikes me as a person who would not bring out a new jump unless he was reasonably satisfied that he had a high chance of landing it and more importantly, landing it properly (cf his comments after bringing out his quad loop, and then his quad lutz). But what do you think the reaction of people (fans and otherwise) would be if Yuzuru showed up at ACI with a whole program of quints and Nessie, and the whole program ended up being a carrot cake? Especially since, it seems to me, that Yuzuru's skating is held to such a high standard... Oh...also, was Nessie on the list of terms to include in a glossary? By the way, re his Hana ni Nare costume, I don't recall any other costume with a wide sleeve where he does not have a subtle sling within the sleeve to hook around his middle finger to stop the sleeve sliding down his arm when he skates - anyone able to confirm or refute that?

Despite everything I've picked up going through the 3500+ pages in this thread, I've not come across "double carrot cake". And here I was so pleased that I was getting the hang of the lingo...(or so I mistakenly thought)!!! UA I knew - yay! After all, U is for Under Armor https://sportymags.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/yuzuru-hanyu-my-yuzu-a-to-z/ Sparkle salad, Seaweed and Potato sack pants, Trashbag pants took a bit more thinking. Still not 100% sure... But I'm sure I've got Strawberry and Boobskirt down pat! CiONTU helped there...

Woah...he's like a human cannonball (horizontal speed-wise, and revs-wise).

I did think it was likely another inaccuracy - given I had watched the clip where Yuzuru was talking about how he cut the music for Seimei and timed everything down to the last second (if not half a second) which would make it hard to swap a jump element with a choreo sequence. I do know that Yuzuru, after almost falling on his 4T/sal combo (the first negative GoE he got in his PC program) that he changed his 3A/toe combo to a 3A/sal (which is also the 'presence of mind' that Orser previously has talked about with respect to Fernandez unfortunately not having during Sochi, leading to him repeating one of his LP jumps, dropping even more points, and missing out on a podium finish). Perhaps it is this reorganisation of his jumps that these analysts were referring to? And I was just listening to the last two or three clips (ie the pre-FS commentary) and just noted the mixup between a back counter and 3-turn, but I've lost count of the inaccuracies now. It's a shame, because I don't know the actual technicalities well, and have been mostly picking it up from watching YT clips, as well as Wiki and other written resources (although it's always a bit different seeing it written to seeing it performed), so these inaccuracies do detract a bit, for the confusion they cause. I only recognised Yuzuru's "trademarked" back counter into 3A because of previous clips and CiONTU (aka 'torture Mura' sessions)! Further to the confusion was that I didn't even know that Yuzuru even had a triple loop jump in his PC Seimei (that was contrary to my understanding and what I had previously read). I get that commentators and analysts are human and make mistakes after all, but you would think that analysts, having a bit more time to 'digest' what they have seen and consider what they want to say, would be able to avoid making so many errors and confusing their audience? All the more surprising since these analysts are former skaters themselves, so you would think it'd be second nature to them to differentiate from eg a back counter from a 3-turn? Please 'scuse the ignorance, but COR = ?? Thanks for pointing out @kaeryth's hard work! Makes it so much more easier than the hunting through YT I've been doing...

Newton developed the Law of Gravity. Hanyu sets out to disprove it, saying "screw that Law, what's gravity?"... Props to yuzutao for this one. I know "repetition is the mother of perfection", but this is like deja vu...

Interesting listening to that fluff, certainly gives another perspective. It's a shame that the commentary/analysis is not the most accurate - eg Agosto in the post-SP commentary indicated that Hanyu had had a knee injury leading up to PC! An analyst in one of the other fluff segments suggested that Fernandez had added a jump in his long program in Sochi and hence he missed out on a podium finish - I thought the problem was that Fernandez missed the combination on one of his jumps, and so his later jump (which Orser himself had commented that it was a shame that Fernandez had not been able to troubleshoot whilst skating and change that jump to something else) ended up counting as a repeated jump (and thus not scored the same BV as if he hadn't missed his combo), as opposed to an extra jump "added"? I also had to laugh - the after-SP discussion talked about Uno, and in the video clip of him skating, they (initially) labelled it as Yuzuru Hanyu! It reminded me of the time that commentator attributed Hanyu and Uno as being from China! They did make an interesting observation - that Hanyu reordered some of his elements in his PC Seimei (they said a jump and the choregraphic sequence were swapped around, they also said that a triple axel was changed to a triple loop) - although given the number of inaccuracies in other parts of the analysis, I'm not sure if anyone can confirm if this observation was true? I couldn't find any other YT clips of Hanyu's 2017/2018 Seimei to compare to his PC program.

That circle motion reminds me of him circling his PC gold medal around the 3D cam during the recent Sendai parade

I can't find the clip again that mentions the topic, I must admit it may have been in reference to one of the other costumes - in my mind, it was a clip either about the Zig or the RJ2 costume...we need our resident clip-finders' help I think! I blame my poor memory on having attempted to digest this whole thread since PC started - everything just blurs together and I can only remember random tidbits of info. I think these would sum it up: I would not be surprised if his reaction was similar to the time he was unexpectedly told (after the press conference had started) that he would "take questions in English first". I seem to recall he has been recorded to say that he's not a fan of non-Japanese food! There was an interview about foods he likes; again, I can't for the life of me remember where I saw that clip and will need help!

I must have heard wrong - I thought it was the opposite, he thought it was too sparkly and took some stones off. I note "two dinners". Guess that's needed, since Yuzuru himself has said he doesn't eat a lot.

This same article states (regarding Yuzuru and Javier) "The training partners are perfectly cordial"...given the infamous clip of Yuzuru's reactions during each of Javier's jumps in one particular long program, the interaction between Yuzuru and Javier as they were moving into position during the PC gala (as caught on fancam), and other numerous clips of their interactions, I would have thought that "cordial" is a slight understatement?! I had a slight chuckle reading that comment; it seems to me that people who are merely cordial would not have that kind of (repeated) interaction!

Safe to say that there are those here who agree to disagree with each other's respective view. Sorry, but I didn't mean to offend: my point was more "let's not argue", and "let's not accuse". Let's be happy!! I'm just waiting for the barrage of news and pics when FaOI starts!

@KatjaThera @Toni ?? play nice peeps! ?? Let's keep it constructive. There are a range of interpretations and emotions, as demonstrated by the range of expressed feelings by members of this forum. It does raise some important topics of discussion of the impact of media and the impact of speculative news. Clearly Yuzuru felt it was important enough to raise it in a monologue (and seemingly link his Plushenko interview obliquely with this monologue's subject matter). As to whether there were any underlying objectives/motives for him doing so, other than what he stated, remains pure speculation to all but those who know him personally or whom he has shared his personal thoughts. What we decide to do with this is up to us. And I would hope we use it constructively and learn from it.

As the old sayings go: true beauty is within... ...and... beauty is in the eye of the beholder... There's too much emphasis nowadays on the superficial, on the outward appearance. So what if you look like a plastic Ken or Barbie? If you're rotten to the core inside, you might as well be Snow White's (or Cinderella's) wicked stepmother...and we all know how they ended up...

Was it not the music from his Seimei program?