yuzupon

I was so surprised when I click next page and my theme changed. Love it, tho

Yay! Tracy's presence is indeed a more nurturing, calming one. I feel like Brian's where half the fire and fierceness (and smugness) come from. But also, I'll miss her commentating.

His giddy laughter near the end says it all, tbh. The director didn't do their job properly. Perhaps because they also have never done ironing themselves.

The last 2 articles by icenetwork make me want to throw a tantrum. This is it, isn't it? The propaganda machine in the works for Olympics season? I survived Vancouver and Sochi, mainly by being absolutely ignorant to the skating world as a whole, and only watching competitions, sometimes without commentary. Is it time to regret my decision to pay more attention to how the politics also wreck havoc in this world?

@¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I appreciate your differing opinion. What I admire most, however, is your faith that there is a genuine motivation behind the proposed changes. Perhaps, I am just way too sceptical a person. But my short experience as a spectator of this sport trying to understand the rules and their implementations has not really been assuring. I still think the majority of what they proposed will be counterproductive at best, at worst something else entirely. And I am going to repeat what I said several posts earlier. The current rules followed somewhat properly, in extremely rare occasions, has shown that it is possible for "quality program that is well skated" to win against "quantity program that is sort of skated", e.g. men's event in Riga JGP.

Yep. Didn't we see a no-quad program won men's single in this week's JGP, and a 3-(somewhat)-landed-quad program did not even make the podium?

Exactly, by this logic, all the single quad jumps in SP should have been invalidated. Or am I missing the rule for that particular required element in SP???

Pardon my sceptic self, but who exactly, are they trying to benefit from these changes? And I know that's like opening a can of worms, but gdi, this makes no sense. The main problem is the current iteration of judging, where judges pay little to no regards to the rules they should have been following. But, sure. Don't fix that, propose something else entirely instead. This is 'missing the mark' spectacularly! Argh! Okay, calming myself down, it's not yet set in stone.

...individually!

This belongs here for sure.

Happy Birthday, Queen! Oh, how I miss you...

I love that pooh-san is right there

Agreed. I personally do not like Prince music (I know! The betrayal! That's just me having poor/narrow range of music taste). I enjoyed LGC is because it's Yuzu and I am a Fanyu. When I showed my normal friends his program from the last season, most were mesmerised by H&L, were lukewarm about LGC (partly also because my friends tend to have similar music taste, and do not even make me start on how they reacted to the costume).

Yep.

Saw Yulia's lingerie costume on the other thread, and remembered this one. I always like her in blue, but this is my favourite. I cannot find a better picture

Adding more pairs. Before Massot, Savchenko partnered with Szolkowy, and some of their costumes...

Yeah, I remember seeing this in junior comp, after a friend of mine shouted "Look! There's a junior skater skating in lingerie!!"

This costume of Lena was also

About the edge, it has something to do with physics. I had to do some calculation re: the correlations of speed-angle-displacement-rigidity(muscle strength)-duration for something similar to this once in a mechanics course. Not a fun time. But, yeah, it's still magic that Yuzu can execute it, rather easily and regularly, too.

Oh, this was crushing! The ladies event in Sochi was full of heartbreak. Personally, I am a Yuna fan and whenever they are competing against each other I always rooted for Yuna. That does not mean I cannot appreciate and applaud Mao. When she ended up at the 16th place after SP I was just so crushed. But this comeback, tho... Knowing that she did not have the chance at the podium but skated the best she could anyway... same, Tat, same... I have always wondered how Mao would be if she had not change coach that frequently. Because while her footwork, 3A, spins, and spirals are marvellous, there's just something in her skating that did not click with me, and I cannot explain it. Maybe because of her jumps, which apart from 3A, were not as fluid, I don't know. I remember always feeling that she was going to fall every time she jumped. When she decided to relearn her jumps after Vancouver, I was very impressed. It takes a lot for a reigning World champion to reflect on her skating and decide she needs to work from the scratch again. And it cost her so much as well. Her career was very impressive and when she r****d earlier this year, I could not help but mourn the end of an era that she and Yuna lighted up.

Brian has perhaps let that go this season. And yeah, I wonder what Oda is smelling there...

Wasn't 'avoiding long build up to peaking' one of the reasons for repeating programs? Yuzu wants to wow the skating world from the get go. As for his health, it has become the main focus of Yuzu this year, compare to previous years, and so I don't worry so much about that.

As I was only paying attention to the ladies event during Sochi, I remember Yulia. The commentators were so hyped up about her during Ladies SP, but she fell hard during the individual SP, so I checked her performances during team event. She was brilliant in the team event, and I was marvelling at how flexible she was! This program was magical! The jumps were a bit wonky, but she seemed to make them look a bit more smooth than Medvedeva (the comparison is because they both have similar jumping technique, tho this is based on my untrained eyes, so I might be wrong). The spins (!!!) and expression were especially superb. And she does that at that age. It is so sad when skaters skating career got so affected by things that are not necessarily supposed to be a part of professional athlete's life (I'm talking about the excessive media attention). I guess the media was treating Yuzu much the same way, but I wonder whether it is the cultural difference or gender factor or both, that kept it from being as bad as what Yulia faced. I will miss her skating and will always wonder how a more mature and polished skating from her would look like, but I wish her all the happiness regardless.

"He has gone through very concentrated training since, and his condition is great. So great that I’d say he would be ready even if the Olympics were to happen next week.” Brian is this confident. My. God. "If it were me and what I would do in terms of the layout, I would go with the layout I already have and do it properly. Well, that is the option that the average, mediocre skater like me (t/n Nobu?!!?) would go for. " Well, about keeping the layout, he is right, I think. Most skaters will keep it if they repeat programs. But saying he is a mediocre This is the same man who land 4T-Lo-3S after 4 years of r****ment. Mediocre indeed. (I second your sentiment: Nobu?!!?)

I don't think it was a deflation of Chan's score. Rather it's the inflation of the other's.