sweetwater

It says that if you want to buy the brochure of FaOI Niigata, be sure to finish purchase application by July 30th, 23:30 JST. http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Accessories_000000000066788/item_パンフレット-Fantasy-On-Ice_8023628

Rachmaninov or Mary Poppins...?

Adelina from the rehearsal of The Ice

According to related articles, Kaori Sakamoto also participated in the open practice in Morioka, Iwate with Mai Mihara. Benoît Richaud was also there to give them advice. According to Mai, Richaud said that her performance was better than he thought. She moved one of her jumps into the second half of the program to get a higher score, and is working on her stamina to be able to skate her new programs perfectly. Kaori is considering to add a 3A in her FS. She said “Otherwise the Olympic berth won’t come into sight.” About her success rate of 3A coach Sonoko Nakano says “I could say that she had landed the jump. However she rarely pops. She can always maintain a tight air position and rarely falls.” Seems like the coach is thinking that Kaori needs to wait until she gains enough stamina, success rate and becomes able to skate the program as it is. http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/winter/20170728-OHT1T50183.html http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/winter/20170728-OHT1T50168.html

Satoko Miyahara decided to take time off from university to focus on skating to get an Olympic berth.

Technical Panel Handbooks for Single and Pair Skating Technical Panel Handbooks 2017/2018 for Single and Pair Skating have been published. http://www.isu.org/en/single-and-pair-skating-and-ice-dance/news/2017/07/technical-panel-handbooks-for-single-and-pair-skating-2017-18 Singles http://static.isu.org/media/1002/2017-18-singles-technical-panel-handbook_17-07-28.pdf Pairs http://static.isu.org/media/1003/2017-18-pairs-technical-panel-handbook_17-07-28.pdf

Han Yan doing off-ice training http://www.weibo.com/tv/v/FejU2fJg4?fid=1034:f7efca16656a5fed60e55dc437120d05

The photos are probably from The Ice 2015. I love her pale green dress

Japanese girl pop group “Momoiro Clover Z” released a music video features some athletes including Nobunari Oda. Nobu played a table tennis coach cheering Reni Takagi and Momoka Ariyasu competing with real table tennis players. During the shooting, there was no need for them to voice anything because it was a music video, but Nobu actually cheered for them saying “Do your best, you can do it!” 　(source) BLAST! by Momoiro Clover Z

Kana, Mao, Takahiko. Preparing for The Ice?

Interview with Kevin Reynolds by Japan Foundation Kevin talks about how he has been learning Japanese. You can see some footages of his trip in Japan this year. Interview is mainly in English. When he speaks Japanese there is English sub. Transcription of this interview in English *Found this video shared on twitter yesterday but the video itself seems to be uploaded in June, so sorry if this has been already shared.

Thank you, @robin! It was so fun to look back at past season with everybody. I’ll have a dream of vertigo

Thank you for sharing! It was indeed a great read. Many ex-elite-athletes says it’s hard to adjust themselves to normal lives, but she described how she had been while competing and after r****ment so straightforwardly and very skillfully. It shows how strong and intelligent she is. The way she focused on “why” rather than “how” was also interesting. Hope she’ll be successful as a journalist too.

It's from DOI 2015

It says Figure Skate TV on July 22th will have a segment which features Yuzu’s performance in FaOI Niigata, and on August 12th they’ll air Yuzu’s encore in FaOI Niigata and Paoadakis/Cizeron EX which was also performed in Niigata. I’m guessing Chopin on July 22th and LGC encore or PW encore on August 12th.

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From Prince Ice World in Kumamoto Plu-san taking photo of audience while they were taking photos of him. Nobu attempting 4S in practice.

I’m curious about who played who. Yagudin was Mercutio, perhaps? Anyway it must have been an gorgeous ice show.

Michal Brezina has announced his program music. SP: Kodo (probably the same music he used in 2010-2012 seasons) FS: “Stand by me” and “Human” (this might have already been announced via his twitter or instagram and shared in this thread.) source *see “Updates” section.

4CC 2017 FS Japanese commentary video Announcer: Takahiro Nishioka Commentator 1: Takeshi Honda Commentator 2: Daisuke Takahashi *see this post for their profile. Note: Mr. Nishioka is very passionate about telling the audience how Yuzu is fighting in his situation—about Yuzu’s YOLO second half, he is probably the most excited one among these three. However, his passion and effort to be catchy to make this program (Fuji coverage of 4CC FS as whole) exciting made some of his comments very hard to translate word for word, so I paraphrased some of them, though I tried to do my best to convey what is being said here. Sorry in advance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nishioka: Here comes Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, taking pride in having created a new era. In this competition his rivals have had great performances which could have ignited Hanyu’s fighting spirit. What kind of performance will this Olympic champion and the game changer show us today? Nishioka: Representing Japan, Yuzuru Hanyu. His free program music is composed by Joe Hisaishi. Nishioka: Opening 4Lo. Honda: 4Lo, landed beautifully. [Real time TES counter: 4Lo BV: 12.00 GOE: 2.00 TES of current skater: 14.00 TES of current leader: 98.69] Honda: 4S. Nishioka: He nailed the second jump! [Real time TES counter: 4S BV: 10.50 GOE: 1.50 TES of current skater: 26.00 TES of current leader: 98.69] Honda: Flying Change-foot Combination Spin. [Real time TES counter: Flying Change-foot Combination Spin BV: 3.50 GOE: 0.93 TES of current skater: 30.36 TES of current leader: 98.69] [Real time TES counter: Step Sequence BV: 3.90 GOE: 1.63 TES of current skater: 35.89 TES of current leader: 98.69] Honda: 3F. [Real time TES counter: 3F BV: 5.30 GOE: 1.60 TES of current skater: 42.79 TES of current leader: 98.69] Nishioka: Here comes the jump which is crucial to his win. Honda: 2S… [Real time TES counter: 2S-1Lo (red = to be reviewed) BV: 1.98 GOE: 0.07 TES of current skater: 44.83 TES of current leader: 98.69] Nichioka: Final quad. Honda: 4T. He nailed it. Nishioka: He did it! [Real time TES counter: 4T BV: 11.33 GOE: 1.67 TES of current skater: 57.83 TES of current leader: 98.69] Honda: 3A-3T. [Real time TES counter: 3A-3T BV: 14.08 GOE: 2.43 TES of current skater: 74.38 TES of current leader: 98.69] Honda: 4T-2T. Nishioka: Wow, he attempted it here! What a challenge… and he nailed it! [Real time TES counter: 4T-2T BV: 12.76 GOE: 1.20 TES of current skater: 88.34 TES of current leader: 98.69] [Real time TES counter: Flying Change-foot Sit Spin (red = to be reviewed) BV: 3.00 GOE: 1.00 TES of current skater: 92.31 TES of current leader: 98.69] (*TES of Chsq seems to be skipped in this video) Honda:3A. Nishioka: 3A as the last jump! [Real time TES counter: 3A BV: 9.35 GOE: 0.00 TES of current skater: 105.53 TES of current leader: 98.69] [Real time TES counter: Change-foot Combination Spin BV: 3.50 GOE: 1.00 TES of current skater: 112.70 TES of current leader: 98.69] Nishioka: Aggressive! He fought quite aggressively until the end! The last quad he attempted there showed us the Olympic champion’s enormous mental strength! He was supposed to do a 3A combination, but he changed the plan on the spot! As we know, he is an athlete who can pull off things which really surprise us. Yet again he went beyond our expectations. Well, Mr. Honda… Honda: Yes. Nishioka: I feel that I’ve seen something incredible… Now he seems to be counting over the jumps he executed. Honda: You know, after he popped the Salchow in the second half, he jumped slightly. Nishioka: Yes. Honda: That should be taken as 2S-1Lo combination. Nishioka: Uh-huh. Honda: So he was also counting how many combinations he executed. Nishioka: I see. Well, at any rate, Mr. Takahashi… Takahashi: Yes. Nishioka: …it was incredible. (During replay) Takahashi: Yes, indeed. I felt that the program flew by so quickly. I was drawn into his performance that much. It’s a pity that he missed the Salchow, but the rest of the performance was so great that it made me forget the mistake. Nishioka: …And the way he recovered the mistake…you know, moving a 3A to the last and attempt another 4T is not so… what do you two think about it? Takahashi: Well… could we say that we could only see quads and 3A in this program? Nishioka: Oh, yes. Takahashi: …Could we, really…? (*They seem to have forgotten about 2S-1Lo and 3F.) Honda: Well, he switched the last 3A combination to 4T combination and placed the solo 3A as the closing jump because he considered it as his favorite jump which he could nail at any point in the program. However, very few skaters can do such thing. Nishioka: Yes. Honda: Besides, he changed how to enter those jumps on the spot. I think it showed his strength pretty impressively. Nishioka: …I see. He’ll probably look for his perfect layout going into the second half of this season. In such phase, this challenge must have been very fruitful for him. More than anything, it conveys his new strength to us fans when everyone else is chasing him, raising the bar. This challenge could have been an answer to those younger skaters coming after him. (The camera showing Kiss and Cry) Nishioka: His season best is 197.58 scored in NHK Trophy. This season he hasn’t scored over 200 yet. Mr. Honda, I think this time the look on his face was different from usual. He didn’t change his expression after he finished his performance. Honda: He was very focused during the morning practice too. Nichioka: Yes. Honda: He was intensively reviewing the Salchow which he failed in the short program, and he was also doing a lot of imagery training focusing on details. Nichioka: Uh-huh. Now he is explaining how he came to the decision to his coach Brian Orser. Perhaps Mr. Orser was surprised at his decision too. Here comes Hanyu’s score. First of all, will it be over 200? His free program score is… over 200! It’s 206.67. Hanyu has scored over 200 for the first time in this season! Over 300 in total! This is the fourth time that he broke the 300-point barrier! After all, he is the key player of this game-changing era. He showed us an amazing performance and an amazing score!

Ah, he’s from Ice Rink Sendai. He skated with Mao in NHK Trophy Special Exhibition and also participated in Sendai Monument ceremony this April with Yuzu and Shizuka. Cute

Kristi Yamaguchi was interviewed by Japan Times during her stay in Japan for a dance show “Love On The Floor”. The interview is mainly on what she is doing now, but she also mentioned some Japanese skaters and praised Yuzu for his performance in Worlds this year. If you are interested, you can read it here.

4CC 2017 SP Japanese commentary video Announcer: Takahiro Nishioka Working for Fuji TV and has been doing play-by-play announcement for figure skating competitions since 2005. Commentator 1: Takeshi Honda Former single skater. Two-time Olympian and World bronze medalist. First 4CC champion and six-time national champion. He is also the first Japanese skater who landed a quadruple jump in a competition. He is now coaching in Osaka. He had been training in the Ice Rink Sendai in early 90’s with Shizuka Arakawa. Commentator 2: Daisuke Takahashi Former single skater. Olympic bronze medalist and World Champion. Two-time 4CC champion and five-time national champion. Since 2016, he has been involved in Fuji coverage of figure skating competitions as “navigator”. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nishioka: Loud acclamations. For the next year, what kind of trace will Yuzuru Hanyu leave until he reaches a huge goal of winning two consecutive Olympic titles? His challenge never stops fascinating us. Nishioka: Yuzuru Hanyu, short program. Nishioka: Going into his first jump to the vocal by Prince! Honda: 4Lo. He nailed it! [Real time TES counter: 4Lo BV: 12.00 GOE: 2.00 TES of current skater: 14.00 TES of current leader: 59.58] Nishioka: The second quad! Honda: 2Sal…-3T combination. [Real time TES counter: 2S+3T BV: 5.60 GOE: 0.47 TES of current skater: 20.07 TES of current leader: 59.58] [Real time TES counter: Flying Camel Spin (red = to be reviewed) BV: 3.20 GOE: 0.83 TES of current skater: 24.21 TES of current leader: 59.58] Honda: 3A. [Real time TES counter: 3A BV: 9.35 GOE: 2.71 TES of current skater: 36.23 TES of current leader: 59.58] Honda: Change-foot Sit Spin. [Real time TES counter: Change-foot Sit Spin BV: 3.00 GOE: 1.25 TES of current skater: 40.48 TES of current leader: 59.58] [Real time TES counter: Step Sequence (red = to be reviewed) BV: 3.30 GOE: 1.50 TES of current skater: 45.28 TES of current leader: 59.58] Honda: Combination Spin. [Real time TES counter: Change-foot Combination Spin BV: 3.50 GOE: 1.00 TES of current skater: 49.78 TES of current leader: 59.58] Nishioka: There was a slightly frustrated look on Hanyu’s face. He opened his program with a gorgeous 4Lo, but the second jump became a 2Sal-3T combination. However, he is receiving huge cheers from the crowd in the venue, and his program conveyed his attractiveness to us. What’s your impression of it, Mr. Takahashi? Takahashi: Well, uh, after he landed 4Lo, the audience seemed to be drawn into his performance, and they kept on clapping all through the program. It’s a shame that he popped the Salchow… Nishioka: Yes... Takahashi: …but the way he commands the crowd reminds me what Yuzuru Hanyu is capable of. Nishioka: Indeed. Mr. Honda, I think the opening 4Lo gave us the impression that it changed the atmosphere. Honda: I agree. The 4Lo was nailed really beautifully. Nishioka: Yes. Honda: However, I got a feeling that when he was going into the next jump, 4Sal, he was slower than usual. Nishioka: Uh-huh. Honda: Like he was trying to slow down a little bit. (Seeing a replay of 4Lo) This 4Lo was clean. It would get positive GOE with no problem. Nishioka: It was his best 4Lo done in his SP during this comp… during this season, but after that… Honda: This is 2Sal-3T, so he’ll get 5.60 BV and probably positive GOE. This jump will not be kicked out. (He means that this jump will not be invalidated.) Nishioka: I see. Honda: This is the 3A after that. It really had good flow and height, and was landed with ease. It was also well timed to the music. An excellent jump. Nishioka: And the reaction from the audience in the rest of the program… To become one with the audience has been Hanyu’s biggest aim in this short program for this season. The loud hand clapping never ceased in this Gangneung Ice Arena. Hanyu: Thank you very much! Nishioka: In Kiss and Cry he is waiting for his score to be announced. Compared to when 4S-3T is nailed, his score (he means TES here) will be lower by around 10 points, I suppose. Honda: I agree. Nishioka: Though in PCS, in five components, how much could he cover the loss? Honda: He usually scores around 9.5 points, (for each component) and I think he’ll get such score this time too, so his PCS score will probably be about 45-46. Nishioka: The current leader is Nathan Chen and he scored 103.12. Hanyu’s season best score is 106.53. Here comes Hanyu’s score. His TES is 50.11, and as expected, there is an array of 9s in his PCS. He got high marks. 97.04 in total. He is currently in 2nd place behind Nathan Chen. Was he a bit worried about his score? His expression makes me think that he might be relieved to see this score.

Haven't read it myself yet, but probably the latest interview with Josh Farris!