barbara

Agree 100%. Origin is a beast. But it will take more than his brilliant artistry and incomparable transitions and jumps to beat NC - he needs fair judging. So, along with our support for him during what must be a quite trying time, we should all wish on the evening star, every evening, that Worlds has unbiased, fair judging.

Both his Origin and his Otonal step sequences are exhilarating. Sometimes I watch them on Youtube and concentrate only on his feet. They are magic all on their own.

Purple is good. But I'd probably be sporting purple hair until it all grew out. Light hair, blonde hair and grey hair just LOVE to turn a color and then hold on to it. How would you get the purple out? (I once turned my son's hair green for his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Halloween costume and the green would not come out. It took months. Of course, his hair was white-platinum at the time. The sort of hair color that turns green if you swim in chlorinated pools a lot.)

I don't think Yuzu would smirk about these unfair changes, ever. The judging is falling apart, the ISU is biased and falling apart. I think this is crushing him and he's doing his utmost to stand tall and win.

Yuzu is the only one who accepts responsibility for losing but Nathan does not deserve credit for winning. Even he must know that Yuzu is being under evaluated. I truly do not understand the mind set of the ISU and the judges who are behind this. Yes, Nathan can jump but he is nowhere near the artistic level that Yuzu is. No one is. He is motivated in a new way and, yes, if judged fairly and he re-takes gold at Worlds, there is no doubt he will astound and amaze us all with what he achieves in the next season. Otonal and Origin were meant to honor those who inspired him. Now, perhaps, he can honor himself. What you write here is so spot on and so utterly heartbreaking.

It's really pretty stunning that this news has been under wraps this whole time. And almost shocking that no one at TCC leaked it, because he has to have been practicing for months - even before Japanese Nationals. If this is true (and I'll believe it when we see it), he's more than likely to do Otonal or Origin for the "Gala". I feel like I've been thrown under a bus. I'm not sure why. I want him to take gold at World's and wonder if he can fit a fifth quad into Seimei while shaving 20 seconds off of it, in order to compete with NC.

You know, whether he knows about this potential typo (or is, in fact, going to make a change) there is no mechanism or PR-type person to confirm or deny. I suppose Brian or Ghislain could let people know, but they aren't in to revealing anything about any of their skaters, especially so close to a competition. And why would they? Eee gads, we are all so easily flummoxed! I see this as a symptom of YDS (Yuzuru Deprivation Syndrome). All will be better in just a few days....

His Wikipedia page has Otonal and Origin for his 2019-2020 season and I would go with that. The ISU doesn't seem to follow what Yuzu is doing very closely and who knows who made, what I think, is and obvious error. Just goes to show how little regard they have for him even though he's singularly responsible for the massive uptick in interest in figure skating in, at least, the past 8 years. There is no way he'd change his programs this late in the season.

Well, I stand informed. And also not interested, either. (Thanks.)

What is a "discord server"? Just curious.....

Thanks - if I become totally overcome by insanity and decide to go.

Thank you.....good info, even if I don't want to go to all the events. It'll come down to cost. The original prices were very reasonable but I suspect most tickets will now be very very expensive.

I would hope that all the TCC skaters arrive as early as possible, just so they have a shot at overcoming jetlag before the competition. A 14 hour time difference puts that Tuesday practice at 10pm-1am skater's body clock time. And Wednesday's starts at midnight, body clock time. I can't begin to grasp just how athletes get themselves adjusted to this huge a time change, but at least they'll have four full days before the Friday competition, which starts at 4 in the morning Toronto time.

I recognize the insanity of even considering 4CC - I've sent an email to the ticket people to see if it's even possible to transfer tickets. I can get there (checked this morning) though have a fear of being stuck there should the virus make it's way to Korea and the US blocks travelers returning. I'd say there's only a 10% chance of me going. It is, after all, only 6 weeks until Worlds. (but Yuzu, Jason, Jun, Camden, Roman, Conrad, Keegan, Nam etc...)

And now, I am, insanely, trying to figure out if I can go. So hard to get tickets, and the way all-event tickets are set-up (not that I want one, specifically) requires an actual physical hand-off which will be impossible for Chinese fans. I am, truly, out of my mind....but all my favorites will be there.

Thank you (and now I feel pretty stupid because I actually know to do that with Youtube videos - though sometimes the sub-titles are in yet another language I don't understand).

And he did. (I can't understand a thing he's saying here, but I love to watch him talk, anyway). In addition to his 4A attempts, he was more gracious (as always) in getting his silver medal than I could ever have been. And that SP still makes me cry.

But with a rope.... I am pretty sure he knows how to protect his ankles with the 4A, without a harness. I was really thinking of quints.... And, I wonder, why did he practice the 4A at GPF when he wasn't going to include it in his FS? Yes, he showed that he knows how to protect himself when he can't quite land it, so maybe it's a sort of intimidation. "I am not doing this one this week, but just wait....".

Yuzu is certainly a world above all other skaters - but I don't see him attempting quints (or even perfecting his 4A) without some sort of coaching. Those harnesses make it possible to practice without risk of injury and I think, there is no way to underestimate the value of a jumping coach. Yuzuru has great confidence in himself, but I doubt he truly believes it would be in any way prudent to push ahead with jumps no one else has done without guidance.

I am reasonably certain that he will not go to Beijing unless he knows he can win. Anything less than gold is losing to him, and that would be a very sad end for him. Plushenko could still win at age 27 and Javi at 26. Plushenko, I'm certain, believes he could have won at Sochi (at age 31!!) if he hadn't re-injured himself (although a part of me thinks he pulled out because he felt Yuzu would win and he didn't want a 19 year to steal his glory, especially in his own country). Yuzu only gets stronger and better - it really is going to be a case of staying injury-free and the ISU reigning in their ridiculously bias and seemingly blind judges.

I had thought of Michael Phelps in relation to Yuzu a while ago - both elite athletes with long careers - but I was thinking about Yuzu and what he will be facing at whatever point in the future he does retire. Michael Phelps has talked openly about how overwhelming his depression post-competition was. That there were times when he didn't want to be alive. Michael Phelps felt, and feels, that the organizations that athletes rely on (for our guy, it would be JSF and the Olympic committee) should be doing something. He "blamed the U.S. Olympic Committee for failing to help athletes transition from the grueling demands of training and competition to the letdown that inevitably follows." Michael started talking openly about this within a month or two after the 2018 Olympics and, at the same time, there was the question about Yuzu and would he continue to compete. Yuzuru is at a very different popularity level, of course, and even when he ends competing, he isn't going to disappear. But it will be, I think, a difficult transition. Yuzuru has a different support system and, I hope, will see the next phase as a challenge he embraces. (And no time soon, please...)

Maybe - but I'd only get up at 3 in the morning to go stand outside in the cold for hours in a crazy long line to see one person.

It's only 13 seconds long - I think it's from Skate Canada. Not NHK and not GP Final - there's the ISU symbol in the ice and he doesn't quite land on that - so SCI. And, yes, I just watched multiple Otonals to see if I could figure it out. But 13 seconds? How does 13 sec get a million views, and on what platform?

Anybody who is anybody was a ACI this year. (And I didn't know either....nor had I heard of her.)

I'd never heard of her (and do not read romance novels - ever) but I'll start following her on Twitter. What an amazing and diverse background (and -as a lapsed scientist, I am particularly impressed with the master's degree in theoretical physical chemistry that she never did anything with, other than doing all the stuff necessary to get it). She does use words so well - I had exactly the same reaction that she did at ACI. Magnetic. I was mesmerized. And in one of the videos I was taking, I was trying to follow Jun and his run-through and then - Yuzu. Immediate shift in the focus of the video. And she's only 43. Wow.