sweetwater

According to the official blog of Rika Hongo's fan club, she decided to skip this season after consulting with her coach and people involved. She is hoping to do her best to be able to compete again. Source

I'm afraid the speaker is not his grandfather but an announcer or a reporter. He is talking about Yuzu based on what he heard from others such as junior high school teacher who was in charge of the skating club of the school saying "話を伺いました" which is a respectful way to say "I interviewed him/her." The first part mentioning his childhood is probably based on his grandfather's comment. I think I heard the same episode in Tohoku Miraijin, a documentary focusing on his senior debut aired in 2010.

Are they skating to OST for Pina by any chance...? The second song is one of the songs I have been wanting Yuzu to skate sometime when he gets older. But it's a cute FD!

Longer footage of senior training camp

Thank you for the video! 4S attempt was by Yuna.

And this one (from 5:40-)

Saw Koshiro's 4Lz attempt in Team Japan training camp in Figure Skating TV. It was UR but his technique did not look bad. He took off tapping with his toe pick and with not-so-much pre-rotation. If he had a little more speed going into the jump and his jump had a little more distance, maybe he could have landed a fully-rotated one, I thought. They aired snippets of Wakaba's Poeta and Kaori's Matrix too, and both looked nice. (Kao chan fell while trying to dodge an invisible bullet though ) According to the commentator, Wakaba loves Flamenco and she was the one who asked Scali to make a program with Flamenco. They show the Stsq and it looked pretty good. Wakaba said she was depressed at the end of the last season. So she took three-weeks off to not to think about FS. During the time off the ice, she focused on school life and exchanging ideas with people she met there helped her to refresh and enjoy the sport again. Ladies were attempting a lot of 3As but all of them were UR or DG...

A bit OT but this is the making of the medals

I agree with you on various points but I think there is a few misunderstanding here. Firstly, in FaOI, there is a rule that the audience cannot hand a gift to a skater while they are on the ice. In FaOI, there is no time for a skater to collect gifts between performances. Besides, there are no boards between the ice and the audience, so allowing it is a bit dangerous both for skaters and the audience. FaOI organizer always asks fans to hand the gifts by putting them into the gift boxes until the end of the Zamboni time before the 2nd half. So, Johnny is breaking a rule when he receives the flower crown during the finale. However, I think it is probably overlooked because the giver seems to be more than a fan for Johnny. I have seen photos of Johnny and her having dinner with other skaters on Johnny's Instagram. The tradition of giving/receiving the crown can be traced back to Vancouver 2010, so it may be seen as a tradition between longtime friends or something. Secondly, Yuzu has never said that he doesn't accept gifts from fans. He just stopped reacting to each gift publicly to avoid troubles among fans. He half-jokingly said that if he gives a fan a special treatment, other fans may leave him/her out. When he was younger and had fewer fans, he sent hand-written thank you letter to fans who gave him fan letters and gifts. It wasn't rare to see him using some of the fan gifts until several years ago. Pooh is one of such gifts given a long time ago and now his comrade. I doubt any fan (whether older or newer) would attack Yuzu or the giver for Pooh being there. I doubt any fan would get mad at Yuzu for how he handles the gifts now either because obviously, it's the best he can. Since I don't know what happened between Johnny and Yuzu's team, I don't want to comment on the photo incident itself. I don't feel that I need to anyway because I know Yuzu is in no way afraid of wearing flowers (see FTT costume) and if he and his team asked Johnny to take down the photo there should be a good reason to do so. It's too bad that Johnny wasn't happy about it, but since they are two different persons there can be a disagreement. Also, Johnny might have had a good reason to act that way.

Wakaba has been struggling with her exams lately, so maybe she could not have trained enough because of that? I think she'll do well later in the season.

Cute Wakaba Yuna Aoki with Caro

According to this post, Mariko Kihara and JinSeo Kim are both working as coaches in Nishinomiya, Japan. Wishing them good luck on their new career!

Found a long interview with Sergei Voronov Sergei Voronov: “I am now looking ahead and not looking backwards” http://www.figureskating-online.com/sergei-voronov.html Original in Russian: https://fsrussia.ru/intervyu/4439-sergej-voronov-u-kazhdogo-svoj-srok-svoe-zhelanie-terpenie-i-volya.html

I was also in Toyama when he skated Origin as an encore but I never felt that he was saying good-bye to it. On the contrary, I felt like it was a prelude to the next season, something to put an end to the fun summer to get ready for the winter. Last night, while re-watching Toyama and Worlds I thought that it might have been just me having a flashback of the Worlds in Toyama but there is a possibility that it really was a trailer for Yuzuru Hanyu season 2019-2020? Anyway, I will support his choice whether he will keep it or go for a new one.

In Pino's video, he is wearing Under Armour when he is speaking in the studio, so I think the show has been recorded on that day, after the interview (and warming up after that I guess...) Also, he says, "ここに来てくださってる方々だからこそある背景があって、過去があって" ("There are certain backgrounds and past only those who gathered here can have") in the interview. "Those who gathered here" probably means people of Atsuma on the spectators' seats and the stage, not the 3 performers being interviewed. I'm so happy to be able to see Haru yo koi again so soon! But I also like the project itself because it would encourage the brass band to stay active and that would encourage other people to enjoy life a little more while trying to retrieve their normal life. Sorry for not making it clear, but The Ice Nikko hasn't been fully aired, so there is no video of the dance battle available on the internet I think. Here is a short news clip about the show. Although the focus is on Mao, you'll find a few seconds of Yuzu speaking at the end of it...

More photos of Yulia and Stephane in Hyoen Source: https://dot.asahi.com/dot/2019072700019.html?page=1

The photo was taken during the dance battle in The Ice 2012 in Nikko. I think I saw it in a magazine released in that year. There was a dance tournament held during the tour, and Yuzu, Javi, and Kanako Murakami fought in Nikko. According to a report, at the beginning of the battle they were all wearing this feather-ish thing on their hips. I don't know what happened between them and the birds but the hat was originally worn by Takahiko Kozuka, so Yuzu might have defeated Taka as well as the birds? He won the dance battle there and fought bravely as Yuzuki in Osaka but could not win the tournament. Here is an interview given during The Ice Nikko. There is no info about the feather, though. http://japanskates.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=529#529

Wishing Mai a fast recovery. It must be hard to control an autoimmune disease while being a top athlete but she's been doing it so well. Hope everything goes well with her...

Caro taking part in Team Japan Junior training camp as a coach

Congrats, Luca!

Hyoen 2019 will be aired by BS Nittere on September 1st, from 12:00 JST. http://www.bs4.jp/hyoen/ Nittere Plus will also air it on October 5th, from 17:00 JST. https://www.nitteleplus.com/program/stage/hyoen2019.html

Found an article about Kevin Aymoz. It was released almost a month ago, so maybe you've already read it, but let me share it. KÉVIN AYMOZ: LATE BLOOMER TO RISING STAR by By Susan D. Russell of IFS https://www.ifsmagazine.com/kevin-aymoz-late-bloomer-to-rising-star/

Wakaba with Massimo The caption says that they were polishing her new FP in Karuizawa.