Fay

Hey, Plush could be a bird loving worms...

Voronov's bound to be quite a common name here. So it's ok.

For crying out loud, Voronov isn't married yet...

is his costume so badly faded because they put rather too much bleach into that softener?

Costumes back in the early 1990s were a hoot... hey, folks, you're being too hard on Latina NOW!

Guys, I translated a short article about the Rostelecom Cup impressions - if you feel like it, you can enjoy it here and relive those wonderful moments again.

This is an article in a local newspaper in the great Northern city of Arkhangelsk on the shores of the Arctic Sea - and it was written by one of the fans who came expressly to see Yuzu at the Rostelecom Cup. http://pravdasevera.ru/-1u9p86pm The Moscow trip for the Arkhangelsk fans. The Poohs are flying By Natalya Vereshchagina (her own photographs as well!) Yuzuru’s fans have a tradition to avalanche the ice after his skates with Winnie the Pooh toys of every possible shape and size. We decided we’d go to the Rostelecom Cup once we learnt that the Olympic champion and two time World champion Yuzuru Hanyu was assigned to it. He’s a biggest phenomenon in figure skating now, and it would be a crime to miss this opportunity to see him live The fight for room This competition used to be known as the Cup of Russia, so many fans still call it just Kapa. The Kapa has been taking place in the Megasport Arena for quite a while, but I don’t think it’s ever seen such a fierce fight ever since it was built. It was fans who were fighting – for space for their banners. Megasport railings can provide space for around 130 banners – and over 100 of them were won over by Yuzuru fans. On the first day of the competition the fans who wanted to hang banners for their favourites were there at 6 in the morning and entertained themselves by talking to each other, taking selfies and exchanging souvenirs. We found ourselves among them by chance – we had nothing to hang, but our train arrived early. But we learnt that these fans had sent pictures of their banners well in advance by email, and if they were in English, they had had to translate them into Russian, and when they were entering, the banners were checked against the approved list of banners. A girl holding Mikhail Kolyada banner told us she’d phoned Megasport and asked whether she could hang in on Friday, and she’d got an answer that she could try, but she was highly unlikely to find any room for it as there were far too many other banners. And we found out it was true when we arrived for the first practice at half past nine – every single space had already been taken. Most of the banners were for Yuzuru. By the way, people who think this Japanese skater gets banners only from Japanese fans are wrong. The crowd at the entrance of the arena was multicultural: besides the Japanese, there were Chinese and Russian fans, a nice Hungarian girl gave us a magnet with Yuzuru on it, and we had Yuzuru’s Finnish fan just before us in the queue. Then our new friend told us the battles for space were much more fierce in Japan – there’s even less room for banners, so people start queuing at four in the morning, and banners end up being hung in layers, one over another, and get opened up during the day each by turn. So the Kapa was a walk in the park for the Japanese fans. The peculiarities of national rooting. We had separate tickets for each day, so while the Kapa was going on, we managed to be seated in four different sectors and meet a lot of people. On the SP day we were seated among an international crowd – the Japanese ladies on the right, the Chinese girls on the left, our compatriots behind. The Japanese fans earn respect by their devotion to figure skating. They came to Moscow to root for their beloved Yuzuru, but they gave their support to every single skater. Some had a veritable collection of national flags including pretty exotic ones like Latvia and Armenia, and they waved them so enthusiastically that you could help being infected by their love – our palms ended up pretty sore and blistery for all the cheering we did that day. The Chinese fans next to us gave us a few cards and generally were very friendly to us once they spotted Winnie the Poohs in our plastic bag – it meant we came here to root for Yuzuru. Winnie the Pooh Love on the ice. Yuzuru Hanyu has had a Winnie the Pooh tissue box for many years – he’s been carrying it around for his practices and competitions. When asked why, he once answered: countries, skating rinks and environments change, but Pooh’s face stays the same and it comforts him. The tissue box has become the favourite object for television broadcasts and Yuzuru’s fans developed a tradition to organise avalanches of Poohs of every possible shape and size after his skates. We’d seen it on TV, but it turned out that the screen never ever reproduces the magnificence of that moment. Big and small yellow Pooh bears started getting thrown on to the ice once the last chords of the Hanyu’s short program were over. This Poohvalanche lasted for quite a while since many had to come down the isles from the back seats closer to the rink board. We threw our own Poohs and applauded and shouted something, Poohs were still flying over our heads, and the ice was transforming into a plush blanket. The Poohvalanche might look like a universal madness, but it also made everyone deeply emotional. It was both crazy and mad. We felt slightly sorry the flower boys and girls were so deft about collecting the toys as we wanted to see all of them on the ice at once – I’m sure there would have been several layers of them. We aren’t Yuzuru’s fierce fans, just fond supporters, so we were planning to take part in this hot figure skating flash mob just once and throw our Poohs only on one day. But we didn’t hesitate to get another pair of Poohs next day and we relived this wonderful moment on the day of free skates. Just four days. Do you think Yuzuru won? No, he lost. But that’s the effect of being at a live competition – it upset us far less than it would have if we had seen it on the screen. By the way, the girl wearing a ‘Yuzuru costume’ who our commentators thought was Japanese and was crying because he’d lost – in fact, she was Chinese. And she was crying because it was the first time she’d seen her favourite program live and it moved her to tears. We never lost a sense of celebration during those days of the Kapa and we took it along with us back on the train – we looked through photographs and videos and we couldn’t stop talking, because during the Kapa itself we’d had no time to share impressions relishing every single detail. The practices started early in the morning – 7.30 in the morning on Saturday! After that we had the competition itself which finished at around nine p.m. So we had around 20 minute breaks while the ice was being resurfaced to talk to each other and to other fans. The memories of that celebration are still with us – whether we talk over the social networks to the people we met during the competition, or see a picture of our own toy on the ice - and it wasn’t only Yuzuru we threw toys to. And it’s so great to find out ourselves in fancams – as we can see how happy we are even from far away.

Max Aaron (USA) (25 y.o.) (World Standings #12) An American skater, the 2013 U.S. national champion, the 2015 Skate America champion, the 2011 U.S. national junior champion Currently coached by Tom Zakrajsek and Becky Calvin, his previous coach was Doug Ladret Maxwell Theodor Aaron was born on February 25th, 1992, and he began skating as a hockey skater at the age of four and took up figure skating at 9 to improve his skating skills. He continued to pursue both sports until 2008, when he was injured. His powerful and athletic skating along with his open-hearted charisma have charmed quite a lot of fans, but he’s been quite inconsistent too. Max finished third at the Audi Cup of China after winning the FS with a new best result – 176.58 points His personal best overall score is 261.56 at the 2017 US International Classic, his best SP score is 87.03 at the 2015 Tallinn Trophy, His SP is Les Miserables His FP is The Phantom of the Opera Both his programs were choreographed by Katherine Hill Alexander Samarin (RUS) (19 y.o.) (World Standings #11) A Russian skater, 2017 Junior World Championship bronze medallist, 2016-2017 Junior Grand Prix silver medallist, 2017 Russian Championship silver medallist. 2015 CS Warsaw Cup gold medallist. Currently coached my Svetlana Sokolovskaya, his former coaches were Elena Buyanova, Inna Goncharenko and Lubov Fedorchenko. Alexander was born on June 15th, 1998 and started skating in 2002. An ambitious skater eager to make his presence known, Alexander has done his best to acquire as many quads as possible, though many find fault with the way he jumps them. He’s surely got a long way to go to develop his artistry too, but his first outing at the 2017 Skate Canada International was a pleasant surprise for many Russian fans: he improved all his personal bests – he got 84.02 for his SP, 166.04 for FS and 250.06 overall. His SP is Moonlight Sonata/I’m No Angel His FP is La Naissance de Yaha/Unforgiven Ill/The House of The Rising Sun His choreographers were Maxim Zavozin, Irina Tagaeva, Tatiana Rozanova Alexei Bychenko (29 y.o.) (World Standings 9) An Israeli skater, He is the 2016 European silver medalist and 2016 Rostelecom Cup bronze medalist. Winner of the 2016 Golden Spin of Zagreb. Currently coached by Galit Chait Moracci, Roman Serov, Nikolai Morozov, his former coaches were Craig Maurizi, Vakhtang Murvanidze, Galina Kukhar, Elena Amosova Alexei was born on February 5th, 1988 and began skating in 1993. Up to 2010, he represented Ukraine, but then he moved to the USA and decided to skate for Israel. He’s the first Israeli skater to win medals at the European championship. Last year, he was able to win two spots for Israel at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyongchang. Alexei had quite a strong performance at his first GP event – NHK Trophy – where he placed third with 252.07 points. His personal best overall score is 255.52, his personal best SP score is 86.81, his best FS score is 168.81, all of the set at the 2016 Rostelecom Cup His SP is Hava Nagila His FS is Pagliacci Both of his programs were choreographed by Galit Chait Moracci Javier Fernandez (ESP) (World Standings #3) A Spanish skater, a two-time World champion (2015, 2016), a five-time European champion (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), a three-time Grand Prix Final medalist (2014–15, 2015–16, 2011–12), and a seven-time Spanish national champion. He is the second man after Yuzuru to break the 100-point barrier in the short program, the 200-point barrier in the long program, and the 300-point barrier in the total score. He’s the first Spanish skater to ever achieve so much success in figure skating – and in 2016, they were recognised when he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit by the Spanish government Currently sharing training sessions with Yuzu under the watchful eyes of Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson, Javi is also coached by Daniel Peinado. His previous coaches were C. Sanz, J. Lafarga, Nikolai Morozov, Ivan Saez Javi is a charismatic and artistic skater with the flair for comedy on ice, and is a skilled and powerful jumper, landing beautiful 4S and 4T. He has landed a few 4Lo in shows too, but seems to have decided against introducing the jump into his competitive programs, thus choosing safety and security over risk. He had a disappointing short skate and a disastrous free skate at the Cup of China, where he finally placed 6th with 253.06 points due to a stomach trouble and thus losing his chance to qualify for the Grand Prix Final. But he can certainly put up a pair of strong skates at the Internationaux de France and upset the results for other hopefuls. His personal best overall score is 314.93 at the 2016 World Championship, his best SP score is 109.05 at the 2017 World Championship, his best FS score is 216.41 at the 2016 World Championship. His SP is Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin soundtrack) choreographed by Antonio Najarro His FP is Man of La Mancha choreographed by David Wilson. Shoma Uno (JPN) (19 y.o) (World Standings #2) A Japanese skater, 2017 World Championship silver medallist, 2017 4 Continents Championship bronze medallist, two-time Grand Prix Final bronze medallist, 2016-2017 Japanese National Champion, 2015 Junior World Champion and 2014-2015 Junior Grand Prix Final champion. Coached by Machika Yamada and Mihoko Higuchi. Shoma was born on December 17th, 1997 and started to skate at five thanks to Mao Asada. His skating idol is Daisuke Takahashi. Shoma has got gorgeous skating skills and incredible flow across the ice, but his jumping technique has been the subject of heated discussions all over the figure skating world about the amount of prerotation in them and the suspect landings. Nonetheless, he’s been adding loads of new quads over these two seasons and has landed four quads at competitions – 4T, 4F, 4Lo and 4S. He’s also got wonderful musicality and interpretation abilities, and has rightly been seen as the top contender for any competition. He won his first Grand Prix event - the Skate Canada International – and is probably the favourite to win at this event too. His best overall score is 319.84, his best SP score is 104.87 and his best FP score is 214.97, all of them set at the 2017 Lombardia Trophy. His SP is Vivaldi’s Winter In his FP he revisits his Turandot program of the season of 2015-2016. Both programs were choreographed by Mihoko Higuchi.

Going through this dramatic GP series, now we’re approaching the penultimate event - 2017 Internationaux de France (Grenoble). So now it’s time to introduce the following skaters: Romain Ponsart (25 y.o.) (FRA) (World Standings #96) A French skater, the 2012 Triglav Trophy bronze medallist, coached by Rafael Aratyunyan. His former coaches were Brian Joubert, Nikolai Morozov, Annick Dumont, Pierre Trente, Guillemette Ancelet, Elena Issatchenko Romain was born on April 27th, 1992. His career has been hampered with frequent coach change and injuries, but he’s been landing 4T and 3A successfully. According to ISU profile, his personal best overall score is 184.12, his best SP score is 63.51, his best FS score is 120.61, all of them set at the 2015 World Team Trophy. But at the 2017 Cup of Nice he received 143.48 for his FS and 72.31 for his SP, thus resulting at 215.79 overall and finishing fourth in the competition. We hope to see him improve on that result at this Grand Prix event. His SP is Imagine/Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band His FP is Moulin Rouge Kevin Aymoz (FRA) (20 y.o.) (World Standings #33) A French skater, the 2015 Coupe du Printemps silver medalist, 2015 Lombardia Trophy bronze medalist, and 2017 French national champion. Currently coached by Katja Krier, his former coaches were Didier Lucine, Sophie Golaz, Véronique Cartau, Claudine Lucine, Françoise Bonaud, Catherine Faure, Bernard Glesser, Jean-François Balleste Kevin was born on August 1st, 1997, and started to skate in 2003. Aymoz finished 7th at the 2017 Junior World Championship. His personal best overall score is 218.63, his best SP score is 77.24, his best FS score is 141.39, all achieved at the 2017 Junior World Championship. He’s improved on these results at the 2017 Denkova Staviski Cup: his FS score was 150.04. and he accumulated 225.29 points overall and placed first. His SP is Wicked Game, his FP is O by Coldplay, Conquest of Space/Run Boy Run. His programs were choreographed by Silvia Fontana and John Zimmerman. Denis Ten KAZ (23 y.o) (World Standings #32) A Kazakhstani skater, first skater from his country. 2014 Sochi Olympic Bronze medallist, 2013 World Silver medallist, 2015 World Bronze medallist. 2015 Four Continents Championship Champion, 2017 Winter Universiade champion, five-time national champion. Currently coached by Frank Carroll and Nikolai Morozov. His previous coaches were Elena Buyanova and Tatiana Tarasova. Denis was born on June 13th, 1993. He is a gorgeous and expressive skater with a charismatic presence on ice. But, unfortunately, his last two seasons were not as successful as his peak period of 2013-2015 as he was dogged by injuries and had to withdraw from quite a few competitions. His earlier performance at the Rostelecom Cup was probably below what he had been hoping for – he finished 9th overall with 214.35 points. His personal best total score is 289.46, personal best SP score is 97.61, personal best FS score is 191.85. He achieved all of these results at the 2015 Four Continents Championships in Seoul, Korea. His technical arsenal includes 4T and 3A, and last season he tried landing 4S at several competitions. His SP is Tu Sei by Vittorio Grigolo His FP is SOS d’un terrain by Dimash Kudaibergen Both his programs were choreographed by David Wilson Moris Kvitelashvili (22 y.o.) (World Standings 30) A Georgian skater, 2015 CS Mordovian Ornament bronze medallist and the 2016 Santa Claus Cup gold medallist. Currently coached by Eteri Tutberidze, his former coaches were Marina Selitskaya and Elena Kotova. Moris was born March 17th, 1994, and started skating in 2000. Up to the season of 2016-2017, he skated for Russia, starting with last season, he started competing for Georgia. He was notorious for his inconsistency while he was competing for Russia, but his release to represent Georgia seems to have worked wonders for him, since he performed very well in the 2017 European Championship, where he ranked 6th, and the 2017 World Championship, where he finished 13th overall. Moris has got two quads – 4T and 4S in his repertoire – and landing these successfully allowed him come 11th in the free at the world championship last season. Moris had quite a good start at the 2017 Rostelecom Cup in Moscow, where he showed two quite strong performances: his SP was 80.67, his FS was 169.59 and thus he accumulated 250.26 points – all these results were his new personal bests. He placed 5th overall. His SP is Feeling Good performed by Michael Buble His FP is Radioactive/Dream/Believer by Imagine Dragons His programs were choreographed by Daniil Glekhengauz and Alexei Zhelezniakov Vincent Zhou (USA) (17 y.o.) (World Standings #22) An American skater, the 2017 World Junior champion, 2017 Bavarian Open champion, and 2017 U.S. national silver medallist. Vincent is coached by Tammy Gambill, Drew Meekins, Tom Zakrajsek Vincent was born on October 25th, 2000, and is the youngest skater in this competition. He started to skate at 5 years old. Vincent is an accomplished jumper who can jump an impressive array of quadruple jumps, which has been instrumental in his being able to finish 1st in the 2017 World Junior Championship. His personal best is 258.11 at the 2017 World Junior Championship, his best SP score is 80.53 at the Junior Grand Prix event in Yokohama and his best FS is 179.24 at the 2017 World Junior Championship. Vincent finished fourth at the Audi Cup of China with 256.66 points. His personal best overall score is 258.11 at the 2017 Junior World Championship, his best SP is 80.53 at the 2016 Yokohama Junior Grand Prix event, his best FS score is 179.24 at the 2017 Junior World Championship. His SP is Chasing Cars His FP is Moulin Rouge OST Both programs were choreographed by Jeffrey Buttle Misha Ge UZB (26 y.o) (World Standings #21) An Uzbekistani skater, four-times national champion, who has won seven international medals. He has finished in the top-ten at four ISU Championships, including 2015 Worlds (6th), and competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics, finishing 17th. Currently coached by his father Jun Ge and helped by Alexei Mishin. His former coaches include Frank Carroll and Larisa Ge. Misha Ge was born on May 17th, 1991, to Larisa and Jun Ge, both skaters. He’s of Russian, Chinese and Korean descent. He started skating when he was three and a half, but he started training seriously when he was 10, after he moved from Moscow to Beijing, China. He started representing Uzbekistan in 2010. At the end of last season Misha announced he was considering retirement, but fortunately he reconsidered his plan and stayed on for another season. He’s set a new set of personal bests at the 2017 Rostelecom Cup: he received 85.02 for his SP, 170.31 for his FS and 255.33 overall. He finished fourth overall. His SP is Ave Maria For his FP he selected Meditation of Thais by Massenet Misha choreographed both his programs himself. He speaks Russian, Mandarin, and English, so we’ve seen him do some work as an interpreter for Boyang Jin at the Helsinki World Championship. He often also offers thanks and says hello to his fans in these three languages at major competitions. Ge has taken choreography courses at the Beijing Dance Academy and the Hollywood Dance Academy. He’s known to choreograph his own programs, and lately has been choreographing for quite a few competitive skaters, among them Anna Pogorilaya, Elena Radionova, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Kevin Reynolds, Gracie Gold, Alexander Petrov, Sergei Voronov etc.

If you can, would you translate her wishes to recover soon and post it in the WeLoveYouYuzu thread?

Well, she didn't say much. She didn't reveal that much - only that many skaters were sad it happened

Dubbed English translation of Yuzu's interview

I know, I had extensive classes of phonetics at university when all these subtleties were hammered into my head... quite a lot of sounds are different in British and American accents. I try teaching my students to identify different British accents now - and that's a gargantuan task!

That they tend to pronounce 'sorry' with a more open sound than the one existing in British or Canadian English?

Right. As in the U.K. saw and sore are pronounced the same way in RP... but I get you!!!

Brian Cox's Northern accent isn't very identifiable to me either. Ok, 'add them UP' was probably pronounced... but we digress - I wish everyone in the U.K. Would speak the way Brian does. Find myself in silly situations regularly when I'm not able to understand what is being said..

What's the difference between American and Canadian sorry? And I can't tell these two accents apart to save my life...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/sports/olympics/yuzuru-hanyu-injury-figure-skating-nhk-trophy.html

Guys, the three top men underperforming or getting injured has nothing to do with our prediction game. Really. These things just happen sometimes...

As I stopped caring, I'll continue playing just to take the hurt out of my mind...

Whoever wrote this, thank you very much - and thank you for acknowledging the planet! Whatever the decision and the result, I'll always trust the boy... http://archiveofourown.org/works/12675150

Guys, I'm sorry, I don't mind people joking at darkest hours of their lives, but could you tone the poetry down, please? It's not helpful for the others to see his pimples and his bottom praised at the moment like this. I find the fact we're in fact the only forum who's trying to produce such jokes slightly distressing. I'm not speaking as a mod, I just beg you to have some sympathy for those who can't be as light-hearted as you now.

I know quite a few people who hate him... for whatever reasons. Mostly because he stole their favourites' titles. So... I'd be happy with most people liking him!

I just suggest everyone bring their Poohs and have them watch Yuzu's skate...