Sombreuil

Can’t get the link to copy, but the Times today covers the story of Liam Scarlett the Royal Ballet choreographer who is under investigation for sexual misconduct with students. As soon as a student made a complaint in August he was suspended and barred from company premises, which has caused problems for the company regarding work in progress, but this is the only way to react - get the accused away from the complainant and any other possible/potential victims and deny them access while the accusations are investigated. ISU and the various national feds need an emergency course on safeguarding.

No practice time - he can probably skate Chopin in his sleep....

Hannah Lim and Ye Quan - on ice perspectives of the RD https://youtu.be/cRrgwz13IDg

I’ve never really followed ice dance - too technical, and I don’t understand/often can’t see the nuances that make all the difference in scoring, though the new tech box (when they use it) is a great help with that. Then along came Utana and Shingo, and now Hannah Lim and Ye Quan and suddenly I see a lot of junior ice dance in my future watching.

She looks lovely, but rather fragile....

4CC17 - I watched it under the pillow in the middle of the night with headphones on a dodgy Wi-fi connection on the west coast of Ireland on a difficult family trip. Made me too tired to rise to the bait during the day so it was useful. This year I won’t even have Wi-fi for 4CC - and I’ve got a houseful of people the weekend of Worlds- but he’s been doing better in the comps I haven’t been able to watch live this year so maybe it’s for the best.

That’s great - I was hoping to follow some of this. I hope Roman Sadovsky does well - seeing him alongside Kevin Aymoz at one of the GP competitions I realised I liked his style better than Kevin’s - he has nice lines and Japanese knees and doesn’t need gimmicky transitions to fill the gaps.

I totally empathise with this - I can only buy one kind of headphones because they are the only ones I’ve found with earbuds small enough to fit my ears, and I’m sick of spending money on stuff I end up passing to the children. My mother had hearing aids fitted recently and there were similar problems. And I only use mine intermittently- he’s using his a lot presumably.

That’s why we love him - because he worked hard to correct that lip and wouldn’t be satisfied with a 4 lip either. It’s annoying that the judges don’t appreciate his efforts but we’re beyond that now - just grateful for every performance.

🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻That the treatment has done the trick and he can come back strong.

2.27 am here - Happy New Year everyone - hoping for a wonderful 2020 but tbh personally just grateful that you’re persisting in the face of all the odds Yuzuru. Very best of luck at 4CC and WC 🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

I don’t think he should have to justify himself if he doesn’t want to. People with chronic illness often prefer to under play these difficulties and that’s their prerogative

I don’t think it’s stamina per se - to me it looks like asthma. I hesitate to put it out there because no two people with any chronic illness are the same and I hate it when HCPs treat patients like model T Fords , but it looks like the ‘cold air takes my breath away’ asthma that I’m familiar with and which sometimes occurs as ‘your dog/ cat ‘ or ‘your flowers/ lawn’ or any other potential allergen takes the persons breath from them - and then you’re looking at wipeout followed by a variable recovery period.

I don’t know.... in the interests of pointing up erasure of certain athletes like Javier Fernandez & co who never get a mention in US outlets it’s probably worth it.

American media - so parochial 🙄

Merry Christmas everyone 🎄

So pleased that I’ll get the chance to see Kaori skate again this season 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

To be totally shallow I have replaced Masquerade screensaver with the bicep photo, less because of the muscles than the mop of spiky black hair. I really want him to use Sweeney Todd Epiphany- he could really do it justice, and I’d love to see what costume they would come up with.

The judging would certainly put me off - but I have no killer instinct, if something becomes unpleasant I tend to simply withdraw from it. He’s a champion and has the killer instinct in spades. None of us can know what he’s thinking - we can speculate from now until the day r********* is announced, but it’s pointless, and forgive me, a bit tedious to have all this conjecture every time he has a press conference, or someone does an interview about him, etc etc. Can we not just enjoy the ride while it lasts? This reminds me of someone very close to me who bemoans the short time we have together from the moment we meet til the end of the visit, and tbh ruins the time we do have together.

Better that media stays out of it until the investigation is complete. There is nothing worse than a case of this sort being compromised by irresponsible reporting.

It’s NBC employing Hersh to extract sound bites from TCC. I don’t think one needs any more information than that. As for TSL, there is an unpleasant vulpine avidity with which they pick over their scraps of information that I find deeply distasteful whether or not there eventually turns out to be a grain of truth in whatever they dig up. If they are trying to sow seeds of discord in a friendship as old as that of BO and GB then that is just despicable. From the moment Yuzuru went to Canada there was a hysterical element who were sure it would be disastrous, and a hard core still flips out every time there is the slightest suggestion of discord and NBC is probably poking at this soft spot , TSL regularly does so. Yuzuru chose to go to Canada, to a very different country from his own for the sake of his training, at a young age. He’s stayed there presumably because it works for him - if it didn’t I’m sure adult Yuzuru would be just as resolute in making the best decision for his skating career as the teenager was. I do think that TCC could probably do with a PR rep from the generation to whom social media is as natural as breathing to do the media stuff and let the coaches do what they do best.

I think JSF might prefer to give Shoma a chance to pick his season up a bit if he’s got himself together after the GP series. I don’t know how many skaters Japan can send?

This is very irritating. I hate it when people become fans of a particular athlete without any previous knowledge of the sport and assume that their way of performing skills is correct and actual correct technique is wrong or old fashioned. I saw it in gymnastics - a fans footage of the HB with their favourite American gymnast who was so much more ‘athletic ‘ and ‘exciting’ than the Japanese ( who won the event) who did the same skills. He wasn’t either, what he was was sloppy and uncontrolled and sloppiness and lack of control only beats beautiful perfect movements when the gymnast is doing really difficult skills where BV makes up for deductions on the quality of the movements, like Epke Zonderland. Sound familiar?

My son has very severe asthma, the needing to be admitted to hospital from time to time kind, and he described trying to breathe on a very cold day as like hitting a wall of ice - the lungs seize up and literally won’t function.

I really hope media don’t publicise too much detail and jeopardise any legal proceedings - I also hope they don’t dig out any of that poor child’s details and track her down.