rockstaryuzu

Not just part of the game - it's an important part of keeping your athlete feeling focused and confident. Imagine going into Worlds with a coach who was saying to the media "Well, you know she's not that great a skater, but thank God the federation saw the light of day and decided to support her out of politics so at least she has a shot" - what kind of performance would you produce as an athlete? All of you trashing Brian for saying the process by which Med got selected was 'fair', give your heads a shake. For one thing, he may not be fully aware of all the politics going on in the Russian federation; and for another, he knows full well that the federation has control over Zhenya's career as a skater, in terms of providing funding, etc. For him to criticize them at this juncture would be the height of stupidity and would sink Zhenya dead in the water at once. Who knows what he really thinks. But in public, he has to say nice things or his skater will suffer. And that would truly be unfair. And another thing: if you really think Brian's doing 'PR' for his skaters when he talks about them in interviews, you really don't understand journalism and interviews. All Brian is ever doing, in any of them, is answering questions that the interviewers ask. He coaches many different people, in all the same sport. If he talks about one, then it's only natural that others will come up on conversation because they're all at the rink together. That's not PR and saying that it is, is like saying that Brian does PR for Boitano, every time he talks about the Calgary Olympics and his own silver medal. I sometimes wonder if folks are watching the same interviews and reading the same articles that I'm reading, or if the meanings of them just get really, really lost in translation, or what. Because the wild misinterpretations there are of some the things Brian has said simply astound me.

That's seriously not how it works here. In any sport. Well, maybe in hockey, but in any sport not played by teenage millionaires, no. There isn't enough money or prestige in Canadian amateur sport for that to be worthwhile

I just hope she has a better Worlds than last year. Now that was a meltdown.

At first I thought that, but the person re-appears later in the video skating off the ice, and by the way they're moving, I'd say it's Jun. Hard to tell though.

For the free skate. SP programs are 2min and a bit, it goes by quicker. Technically I was correct, each group takes at least half an hour...

When the news story breaks on TASS, you owe me for the idea...ahaha... I wish I was joking, but seriously, fan forums must be where they get some of their news 'stories'. They're so far-fetched. Don't know what happened with my formatting here...but yeah, just read the whole post to see what I'm trying to say.

Those numbers are pure fiction. Toronto is an expensive city, but not that expensive. Zhenya would have to be living like a Kardashian to go through that much money. There's no way.

I honestly don't see how they'll be able to do it this year without it looking like blatant racism. The Japanese ladies have all just been that good. Meanwhile, Alina's POTO is an aesthetic mess and both Zhenya's skates are still rough around the edges, and Samodurova is just...bland.

Only if there's Russian judges on the panel. Also, PCS scores or no, it's the Japanese ladies that are bringing it in terms of technical elements this year, no one else besides the Russians even come close. If your BV is high enough, PCS matters less. It still matters, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't, but even on that front, compared to the rest of the world, the Japanese should be highest in PCS, they've had all the best skates this year.

I'm thinking the same thing.

Wow, RusFed. Way to put everyone on eggshells..."you've been selected but don't forget we can change our minds at any time..."

Ladies' drama aside, this interview makes my heart ache for Misha. You can tell his confidence in himself is getting rattled. I hope he can find the right mental space to be in for Worlds, and at least give two strong, clean skates. He needs it badly. Never mind medals.

You know, even though I'm a Zhenya fan, I honestly thought the Worlds spot would go to Liza. And I don't want to diss Alina, but I don't think going to Worlds is going to work out well for her, given her injury issues and the season she's had. The pressure's on for Zhenya now. She absolutely has to turn in a clutch performance in Saitama, regardless of whether she podiums or not. And I'm concerned that she isn't ready to do that yet. IMO, this team selection of Russia's makes it far more likely that we'll have an all-Japan ladies' podium at World's.

The Pyeongchang reaction looks like he's ticking 'step one' off a list, sort of as if he's saying "Okay, done and dusted! Next step!"

Every group of six skaters takes roughly half an hour to get through, so it depends on how many groups there are.

I thought Jason Brown was Tigger...so bouncy!

I'm booking vacation time for that week. I need to use it up anyway.

I love it!

And to put it in context, here it is used in a sentence: "The fanyu first became enfanyued when Yuzuru Hanyu pulled a Hanyu* for the umpteenth time at WC2019." * pulling a Hanyu = getting injured mid-season and being unable to train for weeks or months, then coming back after minimal training to win big or podium at a major competition. (see also: Pyeongchang Olympics, most of the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons.) Rapidly becoming Yuzu's most signature move, much to our chagrin.

It's a long cold winter in Antarctica, and they may or may not get much Internet...we could try sending them souvenir DVDs of all Yuzu's performances to date. They'd be a captive audience, easy to brainwash...err, I mean, convince. Btw, @Henni147: 'enfanyu'? LOL. Perfect word coinage. Well done!

Oh, I haven't seen that one before - pretty cool! The graph I saw had all the countries people were from on the x-axis, and how many from each country on the y. Wish I could remember the thread it was in... ... Found it!

Not long ago, someone posted a bar graph of all the satellites' location stats. We have people here from everywhere. Including Mongolia. And all those tiny Pacific island nations. I think Antarctica might have been the only continent not represented.

Good question, and I wonder if Yuzu's past performances at Worlds can really be used to predict his performance this season. Don't forget, he started out this year by winning every single competition he did (okay, it was only three of them, but still...) which he'd never done before. And with the exception of the FS at ACI, where Jun topped him by 3.5 tiny points, he's won both the SP and the FS. You could argue that his competition wasn't all that tough at these events - he wasn't going up against Nathan or Shoma in any of them, and Javi's gone - but the fact remains that Yuzu skated superbly, even compared to his own previous performances (well, he wasn't happy with ACI, but first pancake and all that). So, hmm, making predictions is a tricky business, but I'm expecting two solid performances this time, rather than something like Worlds 2017.

You may be right, but you're making a big assumption there, namely that Nathan reads what people say about him on social media. For his own sake, I kind of hope he doesn't! Honestly, most of what fans say online about his performances, any responsible coach would also be saying to him. Raf doesn't seem like the kind of guy who pulls his punches. My guess is that he read Nathan the riot act after the Olympics, and Nathan listened.

Agree with you here, but, thankfully, a good number of skaters appear to take PCS with a huge grain of salt and just keep working on getting better anyway, regardless of score. I think they're taking their cues from Yuzuru in that. He keeps on improving. The guy's the tip of the top, the very last grain of stone at the pinnacle of Everest, nothing left to prove, and yet he's still not satisfied and keeps on growing. I love it. And yes, in my opinion Nathan is one of those skaters who has decided that PCS is not an accurate measurement of his performance and that he has to work to improve his performance to suit his own standards. Look at him a year ago vs today - heaps of improvement in performance value. He moves better, his body lines are more precise, he's trying to hit the music better, if he'd just ditch the Vera Wang 'oh-look-i'm-a-skating-monk' outfits, I'd enjoy his skates immensely. If he were taking his PCS as Gospel truth accurate evaulations of his skating, none of that would have happened.