Henni147

You're welcome. Just for the sake of completeness:

I think, it would have a bigger impact to enfanyu a colony of 8.000 emperor penguins waddling synchronously to the rhythm of the Seimei taiko drums That would ensure the support of all explorers and documentary directors automatically.

Wow, thank you! That's amazing indeed. How about an open air ice shelf GP next season to conquer Antarctica, too?

I'm not sure how they handle team event results in individual world standings. I don't think that they count at all...? My guess is that the cut will happen during the summer break, when the new season has officially started. Then season 16/17 will be skipped completely and 17/18 reduced to 70%. #Sidenote: it's so stupid that only the best or two best results in a segment count for the rankings: one ISU championship (Olympics, Worlds or Continentals) two GP events (Final included) two Challenger events That means: someone who finished on the podium at Olympics, Worlds and Euros (or 4CC) in one season, but missed the rest due to injury or sth, ends up with less points than someone who competed in all 7 events (minus GPF), but didn't medal anywhere...

You have to keep in mind that the 2016/17 results will be canceled at the end of the season. That includes Yuzu's victories at GPF 2016 and Worlds 2017, so he will loose many many points... 1890 in total and he hasn't competed that much since then. However, he will stay in the top 6 (which is important for GP selections and skating in the final group) and the rest doesn't matter.

Laureus is doing some kind of flashback/best moments 2019 marathon on their twitter page and Yuzu plus fandom are mentioned. Twice. This post again reminded me of the ancient fight for recognition of the international fandom At the same time it made me really curious, how many different countries we could actually get together, if all fans gathered...? Imagine all the nationalities colored on a huge world map banner... I'm about to start a poll, but I'm not sure, if Laureus is the best platform for this...

India! This is really special indeed. In Germany it's the other extreme: we have so much wintersport broadcast that figure skating doesn't fit into the schedule anymore... That's the reason why I haven't watched any figure skating since the Yagudin/Plushenko era around 2000... until 11th December 2016.

Yep, I agree with you that PW was exceptional. It's one of my all time favorite programs, because: 1. The transition work was sublime, especially in and out of his jumps. He made them look so easy peasy in Sotchi. The choreo was one big sequence actually. 2. Yuzu managed to highlight his elements and choreographic touches really well. He gave the audience the necessary time to view, enjoy and celebrate his jumps, spins and moves like the pistol pose. Most skaters do not give you this time to let it all sink in, but continue with the next element already. The way Yuzu played with the crowd's expectations and reactions was awesome for a 19 year old. However, Chopin was next level for me. Why? It's these little details that you do not notice at first glance. The way he accelerated, stopped and turned on the ice made my jaw drop. The smoothness and dynamics. Otonal is Champions League in this category. PW was a bit rougher in the movements imo, but it fit the playful music, so it's fine

PS: Thank you guys for mentioning GPF 2013. Didn't know that it was such a crucial point in Yuzu's career. GPF marathon will be next on my rewatch list

After rewatching the Worlds marathon yesterday my impression is that Yuzu's biggest improvement in transition work and skating skills happened during the 2014/15 season. Compared with any of his previous programs Chopin 1.0 was a complete different level of footwork, deep egdes, soft gliding and controlled body movements. It's been pretty close actually to the current Yuzuru Hanyu already. So retrospectively I agree with that 81 in PCS in Sotchi. Yuzu was good (probably even better than some other +90 skaters nowadays *cough*), but compared with his current skating qualities or Patrick's skating skills in 2014 the gap is indeed that big. Especially in Notre Dame and R&J2 you could see that Yuzu appeared very passionate, but wild at the same time. He didn't have that absolute control over his body, moves and the ice. It was a nonstop fight for every jump and step back then. If I remember correctly, Brian has mentioned something similar in a documentary. When you look at Yuzu's skating today, it appears that everything is obedient to him: his body, the music, the ice, the entire arena. Even if he makes mistakes, his skating is well organized, controlled and effortless from start to finish. For me that alone justifies these ~15 points difference between Sotchi and today. He has grown that much in these past five years. That's exactly the reason why I'm not a huge fan of generous PCS scoring. I'm sure that young skaters like Nathan or Boyang will improve a lot in skating skills, transitions and performance till Beijing, but the judges won't have the chance to reward that growth properly, because the bar is incredibly high already, especially in Nathan's case.

I took this evening to rewatch all performances from Yuzu at Worlds from Nice 2012 to Helsinki 2017... and I realized that I've never seen some of them before, especially some SPs.

Could imagine both designs Now it's been a bit less than two months that I've joined this forum and I'm really happy to be here. Looking forward to Worlds and the show marathon

Olympic Channel is officially the greatest Fanyu, Yuzuvier-shipper, TCC supporter and skating nerd in our Milky Way. That's some achievement If Yuzu wins Worlds, they'll propose to him.

In that sense the new judging system is a development imo. Nobody has skated completely clean, nobody has scored over 300 points in international competitions yet. No matter how many quads they landed. It will be interesting to see, how many skaters can surpass the 300 mark in Saitama...

Right. I only remembered the high score. He had negative GOE on four elements in total. So... Nathan is still waiting for two clean skates at a big event. Shoma dito.

That's my attitude, too. The competition won't be fought out on the planned layout sheets alone. There are countless other factors that will decide about the placements. 1. Daily form and mood 2. Experience 3. Mental strength and intimidation (on and off the ice) 4. Support or extra pressure by media and fans 5. The judging 6. Skating Gods' malice or benevolence ... Helsinki 2017 and PyeongChang 2018 have thought us a lot in that perspective. Everyone's talking about "what if skater XY skates clean", but... how often has it actually happened that either of them has done two completely clean skates at the really big competitions (Olympics, Worlds, GPF)? Yuzu did it once at GPF '15, Nathan at Worlds last year and Boyang at Worlds '17. So it's still something really special and I wouldn't bet my money on a clean final group in Saitama... I trust in Yuzu that he considers all these things in his preparation, too

Nah, I think he'll save these babies for next season. Otherwise it will be too exhausting to improve and break his own records #Footnote: Since I've guessed Nijinsky as his new FS correctly, I'm a bit worried that this is not too far away from reality...

Tuesday, March 19. Yuzu's first official practice: Wednesday, March 20. Planned program contents for the men's event are announced:

Yes! Even though he has choreographers, coaches and other advisers, who help him to create his programs and feed him with essential ideas, at the end of the day he's still the mastermind behind everything he does. EDIT: I think one difference between him, Plushenko and Johnny is their interaction/communication with the audience. Plushy and Johnny pull the crowd actively into their performance, while most of Yuzu's programs are more introverted. He says: "This is my skating world and you're free to enter", but Yuzu himself is locked in a bubble and dives 100% into his program. There's no distraction from the outside at all (same when he was singing full force at the rinkside). There's another key aspect, that Dick mentioned in the documentary: Yuzu really hates to fall indeed. He rather pops his jumps or forces himself into awkward landings, but he wants to stay on his feet at all costs, because a fall ruins his performance. (This might be one of the reasons, why he's more vulnerable and prone to serious injuries than others...) We've seen many skaters this season who gave themselves up after the first one or two mistakes and the entire program fell apart. If Yuzu makes mistakes, he fires up and throws some YOLO-jumps in to save what can be saved. He has this champion-attitude, fighting spirit and unbreakable will to win, when it really counts. I always have to think of his latest miracle at Rostelecom. Severely injured, changing his entire jump layout without any preparation and pulling of a performance like that... This is courage. One last thing: Yuzu's programs are still high quality content even with mistakes in them, because there are so many other highlights that can be rewarded. I remember his Chopin SP at Skate Canada 2015, where two of his three jumping passes were completely invalid and he ended up with mere 28 points in TES, but still scored nearly 45 in PCS, because everything else was so strong and worth watching. At CWW his career program marathon was a crowd pleaser without a single jump. In most cases the audience claps and screams after a quad or huge combo. Yuzu makes everyone freak out, before his step sequence has even started in Otonal... In that sense his performance is everything.

When I saw these backward crossrolls in the making of Seimei, I could see the entire fighting scene in front of me. Wise and clever Seimei avoiding a cascade of attacks from a dim and bulky opponent One of very few choreographies in figure skating that could create such a vivid and memorable image in my head. It was so simple and phenomenal at the same time.

I took the time to rewatch the NHK documentary with English subs and stopped at these words from Dick Button: I think the narrator misunderstood Dick here. The quad Loop was indeed a new jump, but still something within these "narrow rules". An additional quad increases your base value and gives you more options to create your jump layout. So it's worth (in points) to go for it. What Dick meant is something more rebellious I think. Completely new stuff that doesn't earn you many additional points in the current system or puts you even in disadvantage, but wins the heart of the audience and has the potential to change the skating world. Back in Dick's days big jumps and fast, well centered spins were something risky and really revolutionary. It changed the entire landscape of figure skating and laid the path for today's competitive format. In Yuzu's case there are some similar things like that: I think we can call him the pioneer of difficult and continuous transition work. Although you can earn high GOE for jumps with little steps and a lot of preparation as well, he prefers to go the more difficult way and melt all his elements into the choreo. Sure, he's not the only skater to do that nowadays, but he's the first who comes to my mind, whenever I think of "steps before jumps". The 4T+3A sequence is punished with a -20% reduction of its base value, but he goes for it, because it's cool and impressive. I can imagine that ISU will cancel this stupid rule after Yuzu's retirement and sequences will be popular alternatives to combination jumps in the future. At ACI this season Yuzu was asked, why he didn't put his SP combo into to the second half and he answered: "Because it fits the music better." I was really proud to be a fanyu that day. Same with the legendary backward crossrolls in Seimei. I really loved them even though they were not considered as "difficult steps" at that point... Shame that he was forced to drop them for his StSq LV... This is not really a technical thing, but it's cool that Yuzu's costume styles somehow break with gender stereotypes and are created with a lot of thought for a specific program. It doesn't matter which costume of Yuzu I see. I know immediately: Oh! It's POTO! Seimei! Origin! I was impressed, when Yuzu said that he doesn't like to change costumes for a specific program, because they belong together. It's part of the interpretation. Aye! Finally what makes Yuzu really extra and innovative to me: He's not only a skater, he's a creator as well. He chooses and designs his programs himself now with a story, a motive and a message. His care for details in the music cut, the choreo, the costume and the global concept is something unique. He's like an actor and executive producer in one person. That's why his programs appear so natural and authentic. They're his babies and you can feel it

A little personal experience: Olympic Channel stays a true Fanyu https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/stories/news/detail/laureus-comeback-award-hanyu-vonn/ Yuzu in the header, Yuzu in the headlines plus extra paragraph for him. I guess they're more disappointed than we are

15th February, 13:46 at TCC, Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

Ladies and Gentlemen: the complete 200-club of men's free skating It's actually the complete 300-club, too. Plus Pat-chan. (His highest combined total was 295.27 at Bompard '13.)

Under the current ISU rules 4+4 is an invalid combo. Only 4+3 or 3+4 is allowed. The 4A doesn't count as an Axel-jump either (because ISU ). So the highest possible SP score under the current system would be: 11.50 + 5.75 4Lz 8.00 + 4.00 3A (12.50 + 5.90) × 1.1 + 6.25 X 4A+3Lz (with change of rotation direction between the jumps) 3.20 + 1.60 FCSp4 3.00 + 1.50 CSSp4 3.50 + 1.75 CCoSp4 3.90 + 1.95 StSq4 ------------------ 76.14 TES 50.00 PCS ------------------ 126.14 TSS