rockstaryuzu

All of this story is new to me, since I started following Yuzu seriously only after LGC came out, but having been both a competitor and a coach in Canadian amateur sports, and therefore knowing a little bit about how coaches are trained here, I can feel confident in saying that someone like Brian would never knowingly ignore an issue that big with one of their athletes. It's a massive no-no and completely opposite to the Canadian approach to sport in general. Brian must have been quite upset when he finally realized what had really been going on with Yuzu that year. When all is said and done and Brian finally hangs up his many team coats and retires from coaching, I hope he writes a book about his coaching methods and philosophies, because I really want to know them.

I remember watching the news coverage of the night the Berlin Wall came down, and thinking it couldn't be real, it was so unbelievable. Then getting up and checking the news again the next morning and realizing it really was true. It was an exhilarating feeling - as if the future was suddenly boundless and incredibly bright. And I was never especially affected by the Wall or the Cold War...just an ordinary teenager growing up under the global threat of nuclear war, but in a country where it wasn't a daily personal reality. What a time to be alive. It was like there was nothing the world couldn't do. [Admin edit: politics] as for Yuzu, his uni studies seem to be science-y related (honestly, the name of his major translates so awkwardly into English I can't figure out what he's studying) , so pegging him for anything other than the informal ambassadorship of cameraderie seems a bit unrealistic. But I do like how he interacts with other skaters. He and Boyang will hopefully have a good time with this now.

That being said, I really cannot get over both the Chinese and the Russians letting star athletes out of their respective countries to train in the West. Maybe all of you are too young to remember the Cold War and what things have been like in sports with those two countries for a very long time, but trust me when I say that this represents a sea change in thinking for both those nations. I'm marvelling. I'm also kind of marvelling that the Japanese skating federation/ Japanese government didn't express more concern about their star skating with a Chinese athlete, considering how tense the relationship between Japan and China can sometimes be. It's like geopolitical influences/interferences are slowly ebbing away from sport. It's so awesome but it's so weird to witness for children of the Cold War like me.

Wow, sad. Anyway, gossip aside, I'm REALLY looking forward to the next few years of competition now. I hope having all these great skaters together at TCC produces unprecedented excellence all round and that it'll be something the world has never seen and can only marvel at. So proud of Brian. I loved him back in '88 at the Calgary games when it looked like he got robbed of the gold medal by a hair, and I've loved him ever since, and what he's doing with coaching now is blowing me away in another way...proud of Tracy too, for the same reasons.

I've heard this before, but I've never seen much of it online so I honestly don't know what it might be referring to. Are Japanese tabloids worse than western ones? I can't imagine what someone could possibly say about Yuzu in a tabloid that would be so much worse than the usual celebrity gossip stuff that he'd feel the need to comment.

Lambiel and Vasiljevs have done this on several occasions. Also, I believe, Takahashi and Lambiel. It's not new. Would be very fun to see Yuzu and Medvedeva do one though. But on that note it would be very fun to see Yuzu with anybody. heck, I'd pay to watch yuzu read the phonebook. In Japanese. And i don't speak Japanese (much).

I know, right? It's like Pokemon Go, skater's edition. Brian's gotta catch 'em all.

welcome!

I hope so! I love SLB's choreography and am so curious to see how it looks on Shoma...

Is there still no video of Shoma's new Shae-Lynn Bourne-choreographed program? All I can find are some still photos from PIW... I'm dyin' here!