shanshani

It occurs to me that China's quarantine rules are very strict, so I wonder if that's going to be a problem. If the competition is allowed to happen with international competitors, and the quarantine rules aren't lifted by then, then whoever does CoC can't do SkAm or SCI because they would have to start quarantining for CoC two weeks earlier. But then, I can't imagine that the competition would even be open to international competitors under those conditions--this is strict, you-are-staying-two-weeks-in-a-hotel-without-contact-with-anyone-except-the-people-testing-you-for-covid quarantining we're talking about. I don't even think they're letting in people on any other visa but a long term employment visa right now. That would really mess up the Grand Prix structure, so they might even have to hold it somewhere else. I really don't think the ISU will go for the same setup as last year, given how hard they pushed to make world's happen this year and how it's Olympic season. So we could be in for some weirdness. I suppose it's possible that China might make an exception because of Olys and only make athletes do soft quarantining so that they can still train and prepare for the competition. Or maybe people with the vaccine won't have to quarantine any more at that point (but how are all the athletes going to get ahold of vaccines?) I really don't think they'll wind up lifting the quarantine rules entirely though, because China is vaccinating pretty slowly.

My rink just opened like a month or so ago, but only for lessons, so I only get to skate 30 minutes a week. Doing everything again after not skating for a year was rough, but fortunately things are coming back at a somewhat reasonable pace (given the 30 min/week practice time). It's weird, I feel like I'm going through skating 101 in fast forward. The first time I stepped on the ice again it felt like when I first started to skate, and each week since I get a few things back. This week: forward crossovers (these are way scarier than supposedly more “advanced” elements ), waltz jumps, and one-foot spins. I even did a not-completely-shit one foot slalom. Maybe I'll sign up for two lessons a week just for the extra ice time, but ugh it's so expensive. One thing that really surprises me is how tiring everything is. I think because I lost a lot of muscle over a year of not skating, so now my muscles have to work extra hard to do the same things. I guess since I gradually built muscle as I was originally learning how to skate, it wasn't so exhausting (since the stuff you do in the beginning isnt particularly intensive). Now, I have the muscle memory for various things but the actual muscles of a couch potato, so I am winded extremely easily. Skating with a mask can't help either.

Apparently there's a lot of confusion and a bit of friction about how the olympic qualifying rules actually work, and this confusion might not be just among fans but among the actual skating federations that voted on the rules. Right now it's apparently unclear whether skaters like Donovan actually qualified for the Olympics. I think I also heard that the US is protesting the qualification rules because they don't want to have to confirm their third men's spot at Nebelhorn, lol https://twitter.com/rockerskating/status/1375812615876788224?s=20 Jackie is apparently getting his info from US Fed (lol, of course), but: https://twitter.com/brezinamichal/status/1375885581927002121?s=20 So he backpedals: https://twitter.com/rockerskating/status/1375896310386192388?s=20 Former lawyer chimes in on ISU rules: https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1375986783603859456?s=20 Not going to lie, if this blows up in the ISU's face I'm going to enjoy it, since this will have been entirely the fault of their own rule drafting process and all the fed politicking that goes into their decisions. It really sucks for Donovan and everyone else who thought they qualified by making the free though--they still probably did, but that there's any confusion at all is horrible.

Now that I think about it I think there's a high likelihood that Yuma picks CoC regardless of whether he gets NHK. It's the most convenient GP for him other than NHK, and CoC and NHK aren't back to back or anything. So: Option 1: Option 2: Option 3: Skate America Nathan Nathan Nathan Skate Canada Yuzu Yuzu Yuzu Cup of China Yuma Yuma Yuma IdF Nathan Nathan Yuzu NHK Yuzu Yuma Yuma Rostelecom Yuma Yuzu Nathan Edit: Orr Nathan might pick CoC actually. In which case, nevermind about this eep I misread the schedule, NHK is actually before IdF. in which case Yuma would not do CoC and NHK So there are two different series of competitions we're talking about/trying to make predictions about. First, there's Senior Bs (ACI, Yuzu's traditional first competition, is this type of competition). Most elite skaters will do one of these competitions at the start of the season in order to give their programs an outing, and I think this is mostly just a matter of preference. I'm not really sure what the criteria are for Senior B selection, but there's not a single Senior B which would turn down Yuzu, so this is pretty much just up to him. The second series is the grand prix series, which has specific rules. There are 6 events prior to the final, and the three medalists at worlds can't meet at any of them, so you can be 100% certain that an event with Nathan won't have Yuzu, etc. Winners get to choose which events they want to do, followed by silver medalists. The top skaters do two grand prix events, so basically you can sort of predict who on the podium will go to which grand prix event based on the podium order/where they train/which country they represent/the order of events. Since Yuma placed before Yuzu he gets to choose first, which is why he might get NHK, but it's possible that Yuma/JSF/Yuzu will talk and Yuzu will get NHK instead.

That would be logical, so I guess the odds of ACI are still higher than the odds of anywhere else. Still a lot of pandemic-related ifs though. I think Yuzu will probably get SCI because Nate won't pick it since it's back to back with Skate America, and Yuma has no reason to pick it either. That makes CoC unlikely, because CoC is right after SCI (and I'm not sure I would want to go to CoC if I were Yuzu--not necessarily because of collision memories, but because air pollution levels tend to be high in Chinese cities and I'd be worried about triggering asthma again). I'm not sure whether NHK will go to Yuzu or Yuma--Yuma did place higher at Worlds so he gets to choose before Yuzu, but a lot of this stuff is probably negotiated behind the scenes, so Yuzu might get it anyway (plus, he's still the Jnats champion). If Yuma gets NHK, then that leaves Idf or Rostelecom for Yuzu if we exclude CoC. Blech, I wouldn't want to go to either of those places. Idf because Idf is always a mess and Rostelecom because Rusfed has been the worst about managing covid, and even if the pandemic has died down somewhat I'm doubtful it'll be entirely extinguished. Rostelecom is also the last GP event so it won't leave that much time to recover before the Final. The pandemic situation is still pretty bad in France as well. Thinking about it, both Rostelecom and Idf actually make CoC look like an attractive option by comparison, since at least the pandemic is under control there. But it's still back to back with SCI, so unless Yuma picks SCI for some reason, or Yuzu is just kind of screwed on his GP picks, CoC is still unlikely. So fingers crossed for SCI and NHK I guess. If Yuma wants to be really nice he could take CoC (close to Japan, pandemic under control, afaik Yuma doesn't have asthma so he doesn't have to worry about that, so it's not really an unattractive pick for him) and Rostelecom (he's young so he'd have an easier time with the short time interval between that and the Final, but if I were any of the top men I'd be trying to avoid Rostelecom like, well, the plague), but that's maybe a little much to hope for/ask 😅

anyone with eyes can tell that PCS isn't scored properly but I wish more people like him spoke up about it

Would he go to ACI though? It doesn't seem like he'll go back to training in Toronto any time soon, so it's not as convenient for him to go there as before (although it will be more convenient for his coaches, I guess). Though I also don't know where else he would go for a Senior B, since nowhere is particularly convenient from Japan--Asian Open is in mid October, I think, so it overlaps with the Grand Prix. All of this is also assuming the pandemic will be under control enough by September, which I don't think is something we can be sure of. As far as I know, Japan has been pretty slow about vaccinating. Edit: if we don't limit it to Senior Bs, he could do the Japanese Open, I guess, though in that case I would hope his first GP isn't too early since JO is in early October. good luck getting tickets for that though--actually, I'm kind of skeptical Japan will be open for travel by then

It's not even like, just self-affirmation though. It's clearly true. He skated a pristine 4 quad program at nats, this time with a clean(ish) short, and he honestly looks stronger than at any point in the past. This competition was unfortunate, but I really don't think there's anything he could do back in 2014-2018 that he can't do now, and there is at least one thing that he is very close to being able to do now that he wasn't back then (hi 4A). It's not like he never had a disaster worlds back then either. It's only a shame that his injuries interrupted his training so much, which meant he couldn't make as much progress the past few seasons as I'm sure he would have liked, and then this awful asthma attack had to happen--but if that's why he had a bad FS, then it's a just a bad day, not because his condition is declining.

Did people forget that Jnats happened? if he had repeated his Jnats performance at worlds then he could have won (well, shitty judging aside ). His score total was higher there than Nathans was at worlds, even with the invalidated spin. It's not as though he's physically incapable of pulling off a winning skate, it's just that he had been injured for a good chunk of the last quad and then when he finally started getting back to good condition, covid happened. Then he happened to have terrible luck and get an asthma attack during Worlds, no doubt helped along by everything that was wrong with this competition. people will say blah, blah, making excuses, but the point is that he put out 2 clean skates very recently (well, ignoring the spin invalidation), so there's no reason to think that suddenly, now that he's a few months older, he can't do it again. He does look stronger to me now than he has at any point in the past, and in fact, his Jnats performance was his best competitive showing since the 2015-2016 grand prix. Will that be enough to beat Nathan? Maybe not. But lol if you think Rusfed wouldn't kill to have a competitor nearly as good as Yuzu. Plus, Nathan is not perfect, and Yuzu still has room to grow, so nothing is for certain. In any case, imagine saying of any other competitor who reliably podiums at every competition "oh, their career is over." Are you joking? Most skaters are lucky to podium at worlds once. (Also, Keegan Messing, who is 29, should have won the SP bronze medal just saying). Maybe his time as the assumed #1 is over, and of course that hurts, but not being #1 doesn't mean you have to retire, or that you can never win. Whether or not Yuzu actually wants to compete with Nathan or just wants to land 4A and be done or whatever else is his deal and we will support him either way, but the idea that his career has to be over and he can accomplish nothing more is ridiculous.

I think it wasn't as set in stone though. I mean, who wouldn't be tempted by the possibility of 3-peating Oly gold? But unless Nathan has a disaster next season, it does look like a major uphill battle, to say the least. I also think Yuzu is acknowledging how much uncertainty there is in the world right now--Beijing Olys may not even happen, or they might be significantly delayed, and it's entirely unclear when he'll even be able to go back to Canada and train and whether and under what circumstances he'd want to. So I imagine he feels like he really can't be certain of a lot of things. The one clear and obvious goal he can work toward is the 4A, and it's the only one remaining on little Yuzu's goals list, so that's the one he's focused on. It's also something that he has far more control over than things like Olys. It's possible that he himself hasn't come to any firm decisions about anything outside of the 4A, and his vagueness is a reflection of that.

something inside me wants to believe that if I feel sad for him, he can feel less sad, but that's not really how that works, is it? I would feel better if I knew he felt better too, but I also don't want him to feel any obligation to share (or worse, fake ) his feelings for our sake. The worst thing about parasocial relationships (fancy word for fandom, lol) that it feels like you can't actually do much at all to help the other person. It's so frustrating, especially because I'm sure Yuzu has helped a lot of us through difficult times, or just made our lives happier. And it feels so impossible to return the favor

...what are the odds he'll have to do WTT?

I wrote that the average age was 23 in the original post--you must have missed it

Yuma definitely seems the most promising at the moment, but he would need to pick up an extra quad or two and improve on his interpretation and performance (well, if those things mattered to the judges anyway). Then there are a few others who sort of have the extra quads but would need to become a lot more consistent. They're also further away from Yuzu in terms of components than Yuma is.

I was bored so I looked up and recorded the ages of everyone who qualified for the men's free at WC this year and discovered that the average age was 23, the median was also 23, but the mode was 26! See, Yuzu isn't that old after all--he could go another quad. (Plus Alexei Bychenko qualified, and he's 33!) On the other hand, I also have to note that Yuma Kagiyama was 7 when Yuzu made his senior debut

I would bet money that Nate retires before Yuzu. actually it would be kind of funny if he does. no one else is really that close to the level of those two yet, so minus Nate, Yuzu might not actually have much competition. he will then be this veteran elder skater, who the new generation has to struggle to defeat. the final boss of men's figure skating the ISU would have an aneurysm

Mind linking to the survey?

vent:

and there is 0 doubt that Yuzu is the cat and Jason the puppy

well he can enjoy his effect on me anytime lmao sorry not sorry haha maybe they're taking it again to save the rest of Canada from us. this time they should know how to handle the tidal wave, right?

the ticket prices are amazingly reasonable though. I told myself I wouldn't go again this year, travel to Canada is too far, I want a gala too, etc., but it's so tempting

but when did he get flirty??? it feels like he is suddenly, uh, owning his sexiness and I am not okay lmao I can't believe I just typed that

hm, I have to second freaking out at Origin 2.0. I have literally never lost it that way in my life also Yuzu blowing a kiss towards my section of the audience at 4CC. am still dead from that

wait, that's what that is? I've been trying to figure out what that jump entry is supposed to be for ages but I keep going over it. probably because the curves are usually unclear for most skaters