TallyT

I assume it was Yagudin she unfollowed? Be interesting to see who else does.

On a flippant note and having seen recent pictures, he has a right nerve talking about people not being beautiful More seriously, he's an ex-sports star turned commentator, and a sad number of them turn out to be ugly people outside the sporting prowess (not all, of course, but they were never famous in the first place for their character, and a lot of fans don't care)

This is such a beautiful, evocative picture....

It's probably none of my business, but was it ever announced how much Yuzu received for the Citizen endorsement? Given that the ESPN 100 estimated (probably conservatively) his endorsements this time last year as over 13 million US, it occurs to me that it would be pretty amazing by now...

I can't see it......

290 million............. No wonder Citizen is paying him what is probably millions. What is really amazing when you think about it, is that it was a Chinese-American who won against him, a Japanese skater, with all the weight of historical hostility there, and still the vast majority of Chinese fans choose to support Yuzuru. When you think about it, and his popularity in Japan-unfriendly Korea (there were people on the skating forums about 2013 swearing no way would a Japanese skater be allowed to win in their country in 2018) and Vietnam etc into account... never mind the ISU, the UN should be wondering how to manufacture Yuzumagic.

The ninja lives!!! ... and I want one of those bears

It's sad - every cancellation is sad - but I understand why. Some domestic sporting events have been allowed here, under strict condition and and of course crowdless, but we are in such a different position risk-wise.

Maybe some of the competitions could try what the NRL here did (they have just started crowdless competitions), and fans can pay a small amount for a life-size cutout of their photo to be put in a seat. Sure there were pranks (some folk bought 'seast' for their pets, and there were a couple of not so nice ones with pictures of criminals - and Dominic Cummings - but for the most part it was popular and they appear to be going to keep it.

It's extremely unfair on poor starved fans, our wallets are taking a pounding. Would anyone but Yuzu be worth it?

Umm... let me get this right, you buy a clear file and you get the bedding free? I mean, I adore the man but that sounds....

Thank you

Thanks to Fay's post, I spent the whole morning messing with that wiki stats thing, and came up with some recent totals. I don't know how to cut for length, if it's a nuisance can someone help me? Wikipedia hits since 1/1/2019 for all the skaters I thought to check who were over 400,000 (note this is just their specific page, no linked ones) Yuzuru Hanyu - 2,455,145 (ja 1,215,346; eng 614,746; zh 227,196; ru 150,796) Alina Zagitova - 1,769,588 (ru 801,591; ja 453,508; en 349,314; de 29,181) Nathan Chen - 1,296,431 (ja 752,254; en 418,990; zh 46,171; ru 38,286) Evgenia Medvedeva - 1,214,063 (ru 488,879; en 345,715; ja 249,657; es 25,595) Marin Honda - 776,768 (ja 715,439; en 38,279; zh 11,414; ru 4,781) Rika Kihara - 898,447 (ja 703,803; en 114,519; ru 50,942; zh 17,062) Alexandra Trusova - 807,686 (ru 299,427; en 239,767; 182,235; de 18,223) Shoma Uno - 632,297 (ja 432,513; en 126,583; ru 29,994; zh 19,009) Alena Kostornaia - 625,969 (ru 238,247; en 184,958; ja 166,072; de 7,587) Anna Shcherbakova - 502,197 (ru 169,865; en 167,532; ja 119,703; zh 16,372) Alysa Liu - 430,132 (en 378,961; zh 17,349; ru 15,851; ja 15,659) Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - 419,661 (ru 214,202; ja 102,442; en 83,265; es 3,561) To give an idea of how current and older stack up Evgeni Plushenko - 799,642 (ru 316,127; en 152,557; ja 150,500; it 37,913) Mao Asada - 772,316 (ja 601,238; en 94,291; zh 23,082; ru 21,646) Yuna Kim - 678,114 (en 293,622; ja 123,467; ko 91,383; ru 50,983) Michelle Kwan - 654,794 (en 533,828, ja 37,786; zh 20,931; ru 18,096) Tessa Virtue - 591,063 (en 418,074; ru 27,429; fr 24,802; ja 24,113) Javier Fernandez - 442,306 (es 149,538; en 112,372; ja 66,959; ru 53,809) Daisuke Takahashi - 393,975 (ja 319,584; en 37,179; ru 24,060; zh 4,589) Wikipedia hits since 1/1/2020 for the same current skaters Yuzuru Hanyu - 649,846 or 4304 per day (ja 283,284; en 174,956; zh 73,554; ru 37,314) Alina Zagitova - 316,755 or 2098 per day (ru 132,519; en 77,923; ja 59,850; de 8,759) Evgenia Medvedeva - 229,982 or 1523 per day (ru 81,743; en 74,957; ja 37,273; es 7,158) Nathan Chen - 201,287 or 1333 per day (en 107,782; ja 60,998; zh 11,369; ru 10,923) Marin Honda - 199,100 or 1319 per day (ja 184,267; en 8,913; zh 3,799; ru 887) Alexandra Trusova - 186,603 or 1236 per day (ru 64,668; en 63,880; ja 26,275; de 7,216) Alena Kostornaia - 162,414 or 1076 per day (ru 63,404; en 57,168; ja 24,946; de 3,693) Rika Kihira - 145,108 or 961 per day (ja 101,389; en 24,627; ru 9,141; zh 6,816) Shoma Uno - 119,280 or 790 per day (ja 77,631; en 26,711; zh 4,705; ru 4,143) Anna Shcherbakova - 116,009 or 768 per day (en 42,647; ru 40,022; ja 17,995; zh 4,610) Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - 62,777 or 416 per day (ru 31,945; ja 14,825; en 11,251; es 878)

That was lovely, and it sounds like he has such warm and great memories of Yuzuru. I especially liked We all agree about the emotions

Speaking of the endorsements... given the current situation, what might we get?

I wonder if Yuzu knows the effect PPOS made and still makes on his audience's and fans' less than angelic minds? (Part of me wonders if he knows about the PPOS label...)

Normally at this time of year, he's in Japan anyway with the ice shows (at least Yuzu won't be too badly hurt financially by losing those fees, even though I would bet he is highest paid. Some of the others I do think will really feel the loss of the fees as well as the joy of performing)

Hey, Yuzu's number exceeded many of the streams over the last year or so of competitions that were live but Yuzu-less Partly, I know, because people are desperately missing both him and skating in general, but still...

It sounds like he and his team have thought long and hard, and worked out how to manage the balance of on-ice need and on-ice cost as best they can, but it's a worry. Especially given that Roman, as Canadian national champion, possibly gets better funding than a lot of lower ranking skaters, the rising or even beginning stars. I have to say that - along with quite a few other sports where the financial layout is already sizeable - skating is going to lose people who simply can't afford it. Another reason for Sendai to be grateful to their favourite son, his donation to their rink was perfectly times and I doubt will be the last.

Love that Pooh is there ahead of so many of the actual skaters....

People are still wondering because [a] we are going stir crazy without any watering of the cactii during the drought and the few drops we have received, he has gone to such pains to hide any clues that we go more crazy. It's going to be a looooong off-season.

They never run out of reasons to clickbait our boy, do they? Men (though Javi, oh Javi...) and pairs are easy for me, the others... mmmmm.

They asked me if I had a preference for another delivery system and if not, they would monitor and try again when the situation changes, I was happy with that. I may have to wait, yes, but in the scheme of things it's not a big problem....

You may find it difficult depending on where you are, I ordered the Satomi costume book from CD Japan, they sent it but then I got a terribly apologetic email saying it had been returned to them (border problems wit COVID, damn you!) and they are trying to work out when and how they can resend it....