Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for the link. You're an angel. I cried watching this because he really persevered and never gave up hope to go to the Olympics.
Figure skating is such a new sport in Malaysia mostly because its a winter sport. I remember telling people that I was going to go to watch the SEA Games figure skating competition with my younger sister (who bless her was the one to introduce me to figure skating) and people around me were rather perplexed that Malaysia has a representative and even an ice skating stadium. The SEA Games were held during the school holidays and many Malaysians were able to attend the games. The Malaysia National Ice Skating Stadium was opened last year just in time. Its the only ice skating stadium in Malaysia and all the other ice rinks are in shopping malls. Access to these rinks are only available in and around the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, and in Johor Bahru, the southern city near Singapore. I'm from the Northern part of Peninsular Malaysia so I drove for 2 hours and a half to Kuala Lumpur to watch Julian. It was wonderful that entrance for figure skating and ice hockey competitions were free as the organizers wanted to encourage people to come and watch the games.
It was an incredible experience because for years after only watching the sport on the screen, finally you have tangible memories of experiencing the sport. You can feel the cold, hear the blades gliding on the ice and see the rotation speed that is driven solely by the human body with your own eyes. What an other-worldly experience. Many of the audience who came to the competition were introduced to the sport for the first time. I was chatting to one family who told me that they came to see what the fuss was about with figure skating (Malaysians were wondering why on earth were there ice sports competing in a South-East Asian Games as all the countries involved are tropical countries). That family actually drove five hours to watch ice hockey and figure skating. At the end of the day the son was begging his mom for ice skating lessons and his sister wanted to join Malaysia's ice hockey team.
When Julian won the gold, Malaysia was so proud of him. He was in the news and was introduced for the first time in a nation wide coverage as a hopeful Winter Olympic athlete. Interest started to build among Malaysians on figure skating.
When I went back to school to teach (I'm a teacher), I was so surprised that my students were excited about Julian's success. They were watching Youtube videos and going on social media to find out more about the sport and other skaters. Wanting to capitalize on their sudden interest, I did some lessons about the history of figure skating and gave them homework to write an essay on their favourite skaters. Most of them chose Julian (because he's the pioneer to Malaysian skating and won gold at the SEA Games) and Yuzu (because he is so awesome and dominated the sport with his records). They were also struck by how as an Asian athlete Yuzu was able to reach the pinnacle of the sport that is historically dominated by the West and his mannerism is a great ambassador of Asian culture to the world. Many of them also chose Shoma , Boyang, Nathan, Keegan, Jason, Evgenia and Kaori. The class clown chose Javi as his favourite because of his aerobic class exhibition (lol), and a Malaysian indigenous student chose Australian Harley Windsor as his hero. Many Muslim girls chose the Emirati skater Zahra Lari as an inspiration. I was floored by their response and realized that this is probably the first time that my students were able to find athletes from one sport who represent them.
During the Winter Olympics my students went crazy. Sixteen were absent during the men's event and eleven were absent during the ladies' because they wanted to watch it live on TV (sorry NBC, I blame you for this). Had to have a 'heart-to-heart' talk with them about priorities. Now my kids are in a bad mood because of the off-season.
Figure skating is really having a big impact on my life right now and honestly I'm having the most fun. Sorry for the rambling reply. Just want to share my experience with fellow figure skating lovers.
