TallyT

He really put his heart and soul into it...

Okay, any excuse to repost that breathtaking new photo....

I think also he and his choreographers (Shae for the FS especially) are extremely good at pacing it, to give the maximum breathing room (Seimei was a marvel for this, and that must have helped in the Olys). The cut in time has made that more of a challenge and I think all the skaters and their choreographers are on a learning curve they mostly didn't expect to make it work.

There are no words....

From what I gather it was a huge success... I am so so so glad. We miss him in the competitions though...

Lovely. I think that - as painful as watching the Olympics nearly slip through his fingers always is - it reminds me again that that free skate was a perfect example to me of why he is the champion of champions, the greatest. Because those two falls at the start must have felt like hammer blows, he must have realised he'd handed the gold to Patrick Chan with them, but unlike Patrick (or Nathan four years later) he gritted his teeth, didn't let go, and fought with everything he had to make the rest of the performance the very best he could. Even if he did think he couldn't possibly win - felt total despair, felt like he'd thrown away that perfect SP - he never gave in trying to win. It wasn't just that Patrick then blew his golden chance, it was that - when things started to go wrong for him - he cracked and got worse, pretty much did give in. And Yuzu didn't. And that made the difference. I just don't think Yuzuru gets enough credit for that.

Copyright is a complicated thing, and he's an artist by trade, I'd wager he'd know the rules better than we do. He may have gotten Yuzu's okay for all we know, it's not really our place to say. After all, he's unlikely to get even a fraction as much as much as that artist - was it last year? I don't know if it was ever stated that Yuzu gave permission for that either, but I assume he did.

How can we resist anything that starts with that murderface?

I'm not greedy. I want it all.

So I had to google, didn't I? You wouldn't have thought so seeing some of the stuff she graced the ice in.... And how, the best and most beautiful black ever in my totally objective and detached and not-at-all biased opinion

Just another day at the office....

And he still has room to grow in Origin certainly, Otonal maybe, as he builds up....

And even if they do for one comp, that just give shim more incentives and opportunities to increase his staggering WR haul (has anyone had fifteen before???)

Just because....

Even that isn't a given, I ran across a post on an American religious website once, comparing Yuzu with Tonya Harding (it was probably after the movie came out) and saying how he preferred Tonya because she had had a hard life, and Yuzuru had probably had such an easy, priveleged and ordinary one. Lucky for him you had to register to comment or I would have 'explained' in large unfriendly letters a few facts about facing death in the earthquake, injury, illness, bullying by Takahashi fans when just an infant, haters.... and asked exactly what he thought the word research meant.

Yuzuru wants to beat himself, and we want it for him. It makes me laugh - other skating fans say we all keep insisting he's utter perfection, but god did they hear Kurt and Carol of CBC gush over Origin on the weekend?

That is lovely! So talented....

Make a sacrifice to any passing GOAT gods?

To be fair (well no, to be evilly gloating) it must be tough on NBC when their loudly proclaimed "greatest athlete the sport has ever seen" and lock for the gold was well and truly thrashed by a guy on a dodgy ankle, painkillers and ten days jumping practice... Plus, they have to stand by and salivate at the sort of viewing figures Japanese TV gets pretty much every time Yuzuru blinks, let alone when he steps on the ice. Even the viewing for Shoma, Mao, Takahashi etc are more than their wildest dreams. The Olympic channel, on the other hand, have no problem choosing a favourite out of all the champions at PC. Wonder why? and we all heard the CBC's latest commentary when watching Origin... "greatest the world will ever see..."

New themes! I can see me switching on a weekly basis for the rest of the year, yes.

Echoed this weekend by Kurt's affectionate "meeeoow" at one of Yuzu's catlike saves

I have to say that from the atmosphere you can just hear in the videos (what it must have been in the area!) in the more intense/dramatic moments of Yuzu's skates (and both the choreo and Yuzu's personal commitment means they are super intense)... as he gets better and they get closer to the big competitions, it is going to get really insane. Even more than before, I would hate to be the one to follow him on a great skate. And I'm not talking about the Poohstorm. I imagine by the GPF and Worlds, the uproar will shake the building!

I just thank Providence that he chose, all those years ago, not to get into social media. No one could have known how mad it would get around him, but at least he doesn't have that pressure to deal with too.