EisElle

LOL I did much worse than you, I was watching live Sochi men fs (I'd missed the sp tho) and I literally switched my TV off after his second fall...feeling a bit sorry and a bit snarky about the guy...and the costume...well, I wasn't impressed (or rather I was impressed in the wrong way) sorry, such a bad fanyu Years later karma came back to bite me in the form of Sochi PW Never underestimate Mr. Hanyu

I guess that's where cultural differences come into play... ...and of course some people don't hunt the web in search of every snippet of video or news Yuzuru-related still, poor Kikuchi

Thank you @banbourg for your translation @¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sadly the writer was the same 😅 which means that: a) he wanted to troll his readers with his first article b) he rushed to jump on the bandwagon after Yuzuru won c) he had an epiphany halfway on how to do his job properly d) Kikuchi the witch heard him and performed a spell on him, making the poor guy unwittingly join the army of Yuzuru's minions Pick your favourite Btw what is it with Spanish media thinking Kikuchi is a warlock or a spiritual advisor? I remember the Spanish commentators from tdp saying he is a spiritual advisor too... Kikuchi's presence might help Yuzuru mentally too, but it's not his main job there Is it that hard to see that he actually helps Yuzuru for his warm-up? Tho Yuzuru's warm-up routines are quite unconventional (tho I'd say that they are very systematic and strategically planned instead ). And who are these skaters who feel so uncomfortable around Kikuchi? That poor man looks so friendly and polite Anyway, it was an interesting read

Re: men worlds podium I am quite torn because my sentimental favourite is Boyang but tbh if all are clean he has no chances to take the gold, as he doesn't get a pass on pcs and goe like Shoma and Nathan...but I also want Shoma to win so the 3 spots for Japan are safe and also so haters won't blame Yuzuru and accuse him of not caring enough for Japan's slots. Also why on earth in the last week have I seen so much criticism and nonsense against him from so many sources? Starting from the nonsense about his "ugly" SE I guess naysayers are regrouping after Yuzuru's 2nd OGM left them #shook and gaping like fishes hopefully the other team Japan guys will do enough to help Shoma. Nathan has always been a "favourite" mainly because of his BV potential more than his actual results, iirc he hasn't managed to go over 300 in any international competition yet this season. But he showed he can land all those quads in the fs and I think judges will be ready to bump his scores up thanks to the reputation of that "redemption skate"... not that his two consecutive bombed sp (and lackluster gp series) hurt his pcs that much, anyway Imo right now Nate has higher or equal chances than Shoma, and Shoma now has that famous "weight of olympic medal" BESP were bemoaning as the reason why *some skaters* usually get high pcs (I still haven't forgiven that one). Rn I think Boyang has higher chances for bronze than silver or gold (but I'm rooting for Boss Tian to pull a Yuzu and win against all odds and media erasure) Halfway through the season I thought Mika could be a real contender and I hope he can still pull himself together. And I'd love to see Dima do well too. I only hope panels will do their job properly and whoever will win a medal will do so deservedly, not because judges inflate pcs and goe or tech panel is hit by (the usual) selective blindness. It will be my first live competition and I want to fully enjoy it while I'll mourn (a lot) Yuzuru's absence (and I'll also mourn the money I lost for tickets of events I can't attend anymore and apparently "true skating fans" don't want to attend either, it's not like they are lining up to buy the tickets "evil fanyus" are reselling sorry for the snarkiness)

To all belated happy 3000 pages!!! Yay for the most extra forum and the most extra fans for the most extra (and most adorkable) skater! And for the most extra thread, I guess keeping up with it should become an olympic sport too... higher faster stronger it's quite a fitting mottoit's the ultimate test of a true fanyu's devotion Re: PW and LGC I love that those programs highligh a different side of Yuzuru's skating and character and I'd like to see a few more programs like that in the future (tho I just want to see more Yuzu programs in general) But not Hello I love You, that's...not my fave, really. Instead, once again I'm going to celebrate what an amazing program Change ex is (when skated by 20 years old bubbly Yuzu without ugly gloves ). I love when Yuzuru is basically telling people "watch me and have fun with me" re: auction. I hope trolls had enough "fun" and will leave it alone from now on. People playing with charity don't have any kind of human decency (just like those who see other people's misfortunes like chances for making money), I'd pity them for their sad and unfullfilling lives, as all they want is making everyone feel as miserabile as them, but I am angry so I'll just wish for whatever piece of technology they use for fake bids to suffer a most timely demise (and I am very close to wishing for their real bank accounts to be hacked, so they learn that playing with other people's lives through a screen isn't funny at all)

Don't worry, it's ok! 100% I would have bombed at least 3 out of 4 disciplines anyway Thank you for your hard work I'm a bit sad Worlds will be the last round of the season, I'm going to miss our predictions

Yay I'm in top 10 Considering I've failed to predict each and every gold right, I'm quite Congrats to everyone! Question: are we only predicting senior worlds or junior too?

Tbh I don't really see an issue with this, men is already the only discipline with different factoring, so it is already different from the others, and it's the only one were top scores show an obvious unbalance between tes and pcs. Since the start of this judging system the aim has always been to have top (or potential top) tes quite close to top pcs, that's why ladies, pairs and ID have a lower factoring, because their top tes are much lower. So changing the factoring would actually be the most obvious and natural thing to do in order to have again top scores with balanced tes and pcs (while now there is a 30 points gap). And rn, for men 40 tes in SP is actually way easier to get than 40 pcs, so a change imo would be reasonable. The real problem, as always, is how pcs are awarded, not their guidelines nor their factoring. If I could really trust judges, I'd say that would be 100% a positive change. But I don't really trust judges Re: positive goe My guess is that the bullets might be the same, maybe a couple more bullets to have 10 of them so you need to hit two for each +1. Or reduce them to 5, each one worth +1 (I don't think this would be good tho). I wonder if a couple features might be worth a +2. Maybe big jumps could earn a +2, or maybe even delayed rotation which makes jumps way harder to rotate. If I'll see a bullet for proper take off and proper technique I'll be happy, tho those should really be part of basic requirements for 0 goe and anything less than "proper" should get a range of negative goe, depending on how bad technique is.

I've just been on twitter and saw those supposed rule changes. If they will be confirmed... well, I knew there would be issues, but this is going to be really Useless rant under spoiler, nothing much to add to what's has been already been said...but you know, I've already wrote it, so I'll post it

This was pages ago but it deserves a proper thank you, so here we go: thank you @yude for sharing those bits from Yuzuru's new book And I feel I don't thank enough all the translators and everyone posting stuff and sharing photos and videos and thoughts about Yuzuru, so here is a thank you to all of you too Re: some (very sad) human beings acting like jerks towards people who never did them any harm I was writing a longish (and quite sorrowful) post but now I'll just say that Yuzuru has the respect of the people he admires, he is loved by the people he cares for, he has his family, his friends and the support of many people, and many many reasons to be happy, and this is the only thing that matters I'm such a pessimist most of the time, but Yuzuru makes me a believer And people like Yuzuru make me believe that human beings can be darn amazing. See, he turned my post into a tooth-rotting and squishy thingy @holina welcome!!! As others have already said, TCC is Yuzuru's safe haven and it's a good thing it will stay that way (tho I totally share your desire to go and see him) I take the chance to invite people lurking (I know you're there) join the fry, we have wild Yuzu and lots of squishiness and fun for you tho of course take your time! I know I did, before I started posting (I confess my shallowness in enjoying too much all the yuzumoticons and other assorted emoji on this planet...I need to use them!)

RE: WR with new rules I don't think a score will be considered a new WR unless it exceeds the current WR (or PB, if we want to be strict and use ISU terms), the rules aren't going yo be really drastically changed. I think even after Vancouver, when the BV of quads was changed, they have kept considering the all scores since the COP system replaced the 6.0 (some of the listed PB are from 2005) http://www.isuresults.com/isujsstat//phsmto.htm we are talking about the guy who skated his SP with 4Lo and 3A and 4T-rippon3T on a ice-show ice rink (they are much smaller) and with gala lightings, so no, take it easy isn't something Yuzuru can do, not even in shows. And actually he has skated a clean Chopin ballade once in FaoI Makuhari, and Max Ambesi fanboyed tweeted that Yuzuru would have broken the SP world record with that skate (which he did, a few months later) btw you can check the big-ass parade that Sendai organized after his Sochi medal, featuring the iconic ill-fitting grey suit gosh that was an awful suit...

gosh, those half-covered boots, how I hate them too And I love Alena K. too, whenever I read people criticizing backloaded program I always feel annoyed on her behalf because she is actually a skater who can make a backloaded program look very beautiful and complete and balanced...and her InaBauer is so awesome) back to the serious stuff, you know who doesn't telegraph some of his jumps? The italian junior Daniel Grassrl. He is a few months younger than Jun Hwan and he has landed 4Lz (tho I can't say anything about his technique, I haven't paid attention...), he is very unpolished and he has tons to improve in ss, but I rememeber he made me enjoy his performance and he has some nice spins and he looks like Stephen Gogolev's older brother Also, apparently he is coached by Lorenzo Magri, who I think might be the very man who predicted our young Romeo would make ISU change rules... please, skating gods, send Daniel to Brian I think he's the type of skater who could improve a lot there... and as a bonus, it would make for a new legendary rivalry for the dark times ahead after yuzu's r***... a skater from "small fed"(Italy instead of Spain, tho Italy has a big skating tradition) training alongside a skater who is his country's superstar (JunHwan), then in a few more years we can add skater from big fed (Stephen). I'm already liking this scenario a lot! Tho of course as long as Yuzu keeps competing I'll always root for him first an foremost..sorry you other talented guys, there is only one zuzu in my skating fan heart and you can't have his place

You're forgetting the big-ass parade Sendai is organizing (we will get...how much? An hour or so of Yuzuru standing on a truck making cute faces and scruntchy smiles and a few iconic poses, possibly with a fitting suit this time) Re: the award tbh I can see Yuzuru declining it, he might feel "not worth" of such a big honour yet (and tbh it scares me a bit that he could receive that award. I mean, sure, I know he is THE Yuzuru Hanyu, but such an award would make that even more official, idk, it seems like a huuuge burden for someone so young and who already places so much pressure on himself. I know he takes pride and strenght in representing his country, but I also hope he can be just himself, just the person, just normal, like Yuzu would say). But others here pointed out it would make him very grateful and proud, too, so idk. Of course I hope they will decide to give him that award, there are no doubts he is inspirational and he brings lots of happiness and strenght to many people, not only in Japan.

Re: Shoma and Javi scoring Shoma's 4Lo: what's really puzzling is that the jump was put under review (the square was yellow, not red despite the -4 goe so panel had it marked for review) and yet the panel decided it wasn't even UR. For how bad camera angle and quality of the recording might be, that UR was still mightly hard to miss that's one of those instances when to give the benefit of the doubt and to blame the poor equipment is reaaaaaaaaally hard imo some of Javi's goe could be a bit too generous, too, but overall I think there are no doubts that, with correct tech calls, he would have gotten silver, so I admire that he really doesn't hold a grudge. tbh the reaction of many commentators when Shoma's score came up and they learned he was silver makes me think they were expecting Shoma to be bronze. I was so freakin' happy for Yuzu that I missed the standings recap twice and I had to check the isu page to see who had gotten silver and I was a bit surprised. Scoring talk aside, I'm happy Javi could have the best FS of the season when it mattered the most Also, for some reason this was the Turandot I appreciated the most from Shoma tho I don't know how much it weighted that after his first mistake I stopped biting my nails for Yuzuru and I could relax and everything became unicorns and rainbows for me sorry that I'm quoting you in this thread, I just wanted to keep discussing this. IMO there are no doubts Brian and Eteri have very different approaches when it comes to training, but Eteri isn't wrong and she isn't being "harsh" when she says that if Zhenya and Alina want to aim for Beijing they need to sacrifice everything. She's merely stating the truth, which is terryfing but is the truth, in the context of what a Russian lady needs if she wants to even be picked for the Olympic team. I've come to appreciate Zhenya and I'd like to see Alina develop her real potential (no more ballet, thanks) so I'd be happy if they could both be still there by 2022, but tbh I think it's quite likely that at least one of them won't even make it to the olympic team, let alone aim for gold. Quite a few of the wunderkinds we saw in J GPF won't, either. There are just too many good skaters. That's the actual state of Russian ladies skating, the field is so scarily deep even an excellent skater can be swallowed by it and never be sent to any major international comp. And it's going to be even worse., because Junior ladies' field is crazy talented. Just considering the upcoming Jr Worlds, you have at least 3 or 4 more girls who would have deserved to go and would even have battled for podium, but weren't even selected (3 out of the 5 in the gpf aren't going, and I'll miss wild child Tarakanova the most). And Anna Shcherbakova wasn't even in the mix because of her injury and now she's back she's defeated little monster Sasha Trusova, just to say what is the level we have now, among juniors who will be senior by 2022. It's likely in the few years at least a few of those ladies will jump a quad or a 3A and all of them are consistent, too. Alina will soon lose her TES advantage among senior, Zhenya already has. It's not that the coach is pushing for them to kill themselves. The depth of the field demands that. If you really want the OGM there is no other way than killing yourself because the field is that crazy. It is a sad but it's not Eteri's approach that it's wrong, hers is actually the only one possible in that specific context (you need to be hungry, you need to be tough, because if you falter there's plenty people waiting to take your place) and imo that's why her skaters are doing so well in both senior and junior. Those who can't keep up are left behind. It's cruel, but it's not Eteri's fault, it's the whole system and the fact that there are too many skaters and not enough spots. True, for some skaters Eteri's tough approach wouldn't work, but still, only the skaters who will devote themselves wholly will have a chance. Are all those young ladies really aware of what going for their dream really means? I hope they are. But I think that it's on the parents to explain their children that they could potentially ruin their bodies or waste years of their lives for nothing, and that maybe that gold medal isn't worth so many sacrifices. Japanese Ladies field is a bit similar, tho maybe it's a little bit less cluttered in comparison and imo that's why you can find lots of different coaching approaches thrive. Still, so many good skaters and not enoug spots. I don't expect Satoko to be still at the top by 2022. Mai, Kaori, Wakaba, Marin, they will all have to fight if they really want Bejing, because Rika K. will be there to fight with her 3As and more Jr girls will rise, all hungry for those spots at the top, and a their coaches would be fools if they said: dear, you can get it without shedding tears and blood. The coaches won't demand that, but the skaters will need to decide how much of theor lives they want to put on the line for that dream, and how much that dream means for them. little side note, I hope this won't come across as Shoma hate because I don't mean it like that, read at your own risk If used wisely, imo the change of GOE range might actually result in more longevity of skaters, ladies in particular, but in truth many of the upcoming junior ladies have not only harder jumps (so higher BV) but also better technique (Nana Araki's toe jumps, Tarakanova's big jumps, even Sasha T jumps are big enough), many of them have no flutzes or lips, they do not UR or PR that much and so on (which makes me think they have some chance to survive puberty... the one I worry the most rn is actually Alena Kostornaia, she is so small and sometimes her jumps look a bit tight...but still, she has way way way better jumps than, for example, Satoko) and some of those girls are already able to pack the entries and exits of their jumps with transitions, so they wouldn't be that far behind in goe either, if judges score according to the rulebook. So I think a BV upgrade will still be necessary for the current senior ladies. Which is crazy, considering how much the bar was raised in the last quad, when so many ladies got total score over 210 and FS over 140. I would watch out for Shun Sato, he's from Sendai too, he yolo-ed a 3A at the end of his program and he's very young, like Stephen Gogolev. Some people reportedly said "he'd the purest talent from Japan since Yuzuru Hanyu" (I thought it was Ambesi because it was on Neveitalia, but I can't find a direct quote tho imo it sounds quite Ambesi-like). Of course both Shun and Stephen are really young and they have a long way to go, but right now they seem to me those closer to the potential of a great skater. Certainly I see more potential in them than in most of the guys who are going to turn senior the next couple of seasons. Then of course there are a couple of amazing russian boys (like the one who was in COR and Euro gala), but I think they'll still be too young for Beijing, so we will have to wait a bit longer. I have a soft spot for Jun Hwan Cha and he's still younger than a few of those who were in Junior GP (like Krashnozon who falls very flat to me, despite his roaring. His programs and style look quite a bit "old school", jumps jumps jumps and everything else as an afterthought. The skaters who have better ss and musicality are worse on jumps, so I don't think next season's new crop will really shake the current men standings than much). Hopefully Jun Hwan can get back consistent quads, his jumps often do look effortless tho his 3A, while improving, is still not on par with Yuzuru's 3A at his age (and he his spins are not as pretty) Yes, I judges guys based on how they do the Axel. Give me an Axel guy and I'll love him

Everyone providing translations, thank you Zhao's interview in general is pretty interesting, it's nice to have insights on different coaching methods and it looks like he has a view of figure skating that equally values athletics, artistry and psychology. Also, I do agree with him that what you have to focus more when you start is getting the technical foundations. opinion on Yuzuru aside, I think he has the right approach right now and I can see why Boyang is improving his skating. For how much I'd like for Boyangman to become Yuzuru's new training buddy at TCC (a girl can dream), I think he is in good hands Raf, on the other hand, confused me. He is the one who went along with the liquid layout strategy and loads of quads for two seasons now, but then he goes there and complains Nathan changed strategy all of a sudden on the morning of the SP... maybe he should have taken a different approach months before the olympics, so Nathan would have not felt overconfident in being able to improvise his sp layout (which wasn't even that new). But given how well the free skate went, I don't see Nathan or Raf change their approach any time soon, tbh opinion on Yuzuru's scoring under spoiler

Same everything is right in the world because zuzu got his shiny gold tbh I couldn't even imagine anyone else getting that gold, I just couldn't think of anyone else in his place All those I've predicted for gold got silver tho, team event included that's #consistency I've managed to get some bronze right tho

I've read some comments about that interview on Twitter and they were reading his words in the negative way, but I don't know Chinese so I can't give a first-hand interpretation myself. Thank you for posting this tho, at least I can have an idea of what Zhao was saying. I thought he had singled out Yuzuru and talked about reputation scoring but apparently the whole interview was about what Yuzuru represents and what he does, so to me it feels better than I thought. That gold is Yuzuru's to lose has honestly been a constant the whole quad and when there were doubts gold could be his was merely because of him being injured or "mentally weak" and not because there really was a better all-round skater. When healthy, he is always regarded as the one to beat. So in that sense Zhao is right. But imo it isn't true that judges are always ready to give him gold, otherwise things like 4cc and COR silver would not have happened, and he would have got a higher WR in Helsinki and he would have got a SP WR in PyeongChang, too, just like Med got her WRs at WTT last year despite technically more flawed skates that her previous WR, and P/C got a WR at Euros despite sloppier twizzles. Or some of Javi's scores at Euros in the past few seasons too. That's what I'd call "judges like you and they want to give you gold". Imo judges like the skates Yuzuru produces, more than Yuzuru himself, so when he produces great skates, that's what they reward. It is usually enough to make him win, but that's kind of a collateral result Also, I 'm still kind of surprised when people puts consistency and Yuzuru Hanyu in the same sentence. The narrative has been the opposite for such a long time, it's astonishing how a single competition can change people's perspective ( though the inconsistency talk was in western media, Idk if it was the same in China) The interviewer sounds quite hyped about Yuzuru, so I understand why Zhao want to defend their system downplaying him a bit. It's likely he doesn't know that Yuzuru studies human ergonomics so his interest and knowledge about e.g. body and its movements isn't only that of an amateur, tho he isn't a professional either. And Zhao is right about choreo, music and costumes, Yuzuru is involved in those but he doesn't do everything alone, and he wants to be involved because skating isn't just something he does to win medals. He loves figure skating and wants his programs to reflect his own vision. Tbh that Zhao repeats many times that yuzuru does more than other skaters because he loves skating is quite a thing tbh it could almost sounds as if he's implying some of his skaters lack the same committment... but this is just my impression from the translation

Lovely new theme and so many shiny gold medals around scrolling the posts (Both oly medals are beautiful but new medal has more shine than the sochi one, me likes )

I know that Vincent has jumped 4Lz3T rippon "cleanly" (no UR call, positive goe) aa few times in competition, but I haven't reviewed all of them so I can't be sure they were actually fully rotated. Vincent's lutz is often prerotated quite a bit tho, so I would say it's likely those combo had not as much actual rotations in the air as Yuzuru's (the one in Vincent's Olympic FS was prerotated quite a bit on both lutz and 3T and the landings were a bit crooked too, the 3T one in particular). I know Vincent did 4Lz rippon too, but I don't remember if he did the whole rippon combo... (I think what Vincent lacks is rotational speed because his jumps are really high, but he is quite prone to both UR and PR) I don't think I have ever seen Boyang rippon a jump tho Nor Nathan, for what it's worth (or Javi, or Shoma, or Patrick, or Mikahil...) I can't wait to see all the comments on swan 2-times olympic champion who will be sparkly af and proud of that I bet lots of heads will implode Tho he has somehow prepared the world to that by being a total child in the practices...maybe people won't expect the champion to act male and dignified

Oh, so the guy for whom 4Lz was deemed "too much" was actually jumping rippon combos just like Vincent (with the difference that Yuzuru actually made all the rotations in the air...). It really makes you wonder what would have happened if Yuzuru had been healthy. Tbh all Yuzuru's career makes you wonder what could have happened, if only he had been spared a few injuries, starting from the COC ones that were really only bad luck. I have faith that Yuzuru will do his best to heal and get what he wants (his 4Lo and 4Lz back, and of course Nessie). So happy to hear him looking forward to his competititive future so much! Please heal well and habe fun, zuzu That footage also makes much more believable Ambesi's words about Yuzuru training 4Lz for the SP, it had to be reliable enough if he could tackle a 3T rippon even on a not ideal landing (I confess when I heard that Yuzuru was training 4Lz for SP I had this kind of thought, that 4Lz would have felt wrong in the first half of Ballade but it would fit well in place of 4T3T, being a toe jump...and he used to do 3Lz3T there in Ballade 1.0... sorry I expect anything from Yuzu now ) I love how he always praises everyone but he really gushes about Boyang's Lutz Yuzu single-handedly defying Boyang media erasure And his comments about ladies are both on point and very sweet (I'm sure once he r***** there will be a bloodbath among broadcasters to have him as a commentator...If he isn't too busy touring around the word, restoring world peace and watering our crops with his awesomeness while raising next generation of legends of course)

I had the feeling his 3A was better here... but it's true that camera angle and HQ can do a lot. For example, in OG SP they ruined the camel spin hand movements with that aerial shot I am so mad with them, I live and breath for those hand movements For COR Seimei, my favourite video is a lovely HQ fancam that really gives the sense of Yuzuru's speed and ice coverege and the size of his jumps, somehow the official footage didn't convey that so well. And when I could finally put my hands on OG Seimei HQ video (instead of the freezing lq video I had to endure live) I was by how much ten thousands times better than I thought it was . I will mourn forever ACI WR without decent quality, or with decent quality but less gorgeous camera angles...jpn tv failed me a big LOL at us trying to discern between degrees of perfection We are so spoiled ETA: nevermind, I had somehow missed the NBC footage, all is good now, world peace restored, all because I got my fingers detail on a spin when you have to rely on NBC footage to get arm movements on spins or footage of this gorgous gorgeous gorgeous moment: http://78.media.tumblr.com/69ba616d8d9e2f0f5ec06c1fea1c7154/tumblr_inline_p4jh7v4kem1slyotu_540.gif from http://the-real-xmonster.tumblr.com/post/171155356159/alice-can-i-request-you-a-gif-i-am-in-love-with (ah ah, I guess it's not a surprise I love that moment, I could spam it everywhere, and if Alice is reading this thank you so much for making this gif I can't stop looking at it...yes I was the one who requested it, sorry, let me boast a bit about asking for this wonder to be made, thanks) ETA 2: why hasn't it embedded?

Waking up to a sunshine dork being a sunshine dorky child and spending the morning to catch up with tons of squishy things I hope Zuzu can enjoy many more light-hearted moments in the future (and that people will be there to film and share all of them) Also, wow, so that was what he meant when talking about "throwing away all his happiness" the more he tells us about those months, the more I'm glad and happy that everything turned out well for him and he could see all of that rewarded I'm feeling a bit sad Javi and Nathan aren't there, and even more sad that while the others are relaxing and having fun, the ladies still have competition and can't relax I can't wait for them to join the fun!

Thank you @PapiandPooh422, yes that was the article I was talking about. Yes, I thought about the whole crossovers vs. turns and step too But I have no idea if the newspaper made some comment along those lines or it merely showed the data (I don't even know if the numbers are about what I think they are, tbh ). I thought Yuzuru was definitely flying in the choreo sequence, to me it looked he was even faster than he usually is, or maybe I should say "more forceful". Imo that's his best seimei chsq, and seimei choreo sequence is always amazing ETA: what I meant is that we have data of him being still the faster guy among top 6 despite using way less crossovers, but in this particular instance I can believe he was a tad slower than he usually is because he wasn't in top physical condition

I'd say 3Lo is Zhenya's specialty, but I don't see 3Lo there and I'm honestly surprised if she hasn't got any +3 on that, than it's a pity, she has a very fine 3Lo tbh I'm still LOL about all those stsq lv3 Yuzuru got kuyashii kuyashii, Seimei stsq4 was just not meant to be... oh wait, I made a nice rhyme Anyway, a few days ago I think I've seen floating somewhere on twitter the pic of a jpn newspaper comparing Yuzuru's and Shoma's FS. I'm not sure what I was reading, since I can't read Japanesebut I watched the pictures and the numbers and it looked like they measured the speed, the average speed and ice coverage and there were also drawings of the skating patterns. From what I could understand it looked like Shoma was slighly faster and covered something like 100m more, which tbh I might believe, since Yuzuru was still nursing an injured ankle and also he has more transitions, so of course they can account for a bit of slowing down (I know that in other events Yuzuru was much faster, but he wasn't skating on painkillers on still injured ankle) I haven't seen any debate about that, so I was wondering if I misunderstood the article or if maybe the newspaper wasn't reliable... (as I can't read japanese, I have no idea what newspaper it was)

Yes, it's true the scoring of the Chinese judge was outrageous but it's just as outrageous that Boyang, just because he doesn't belongs to the holy trinity of skating feds, gets less for what he does than, say, Nathan or Vincent. It breaks my heart that some people might think he doesn't deserve to be in 4th, because he freaking DOES, certainly more than Nathan with that sp he skated in PC and that empty fs that got both generous goe and generous pcs. The bad thing of isu review system of the judging is that they only search for people NOT scoring like the others, but sometimes outliers are the ones scoring right (obviously in this case Chinese judge wasn't really doing that, but there have been instances where it's happened). This very system also leads to reputation scoring and judges trying to guess what the others will score so they won't stand out, instead of going for scores they can in good faith defend, pointing at the handbook to prove their point. The US judges was as outrageous as the Chinese, completely messing the placements to obviously favour the US skaters and push down the one that was the biggest threat to them. I'm honestly grateful that US judge wasn't in the sp panel or she would have robbed Yuzuru even more That she isn't being questioned how on heart she could give the scores she gave is a disgrace and shows that it's true that big feds still have the upper hand. This is exactly like all those selective (nationality-selective) calls from tech panels Anyway, thank you @Xen for your insights for Nathan's fs. I have this feeling when Nathan talks about what he does, that he doesn't really love figure skating. He loves the jumps,sure, but I feel he is into fs mainly because he is good at it. There isn't anything wrong with that, nor it does him less deserving of a medal when he skates well, but imo it will weight on his future career. For example, I see much more committment in Vincent, despite him having flawed technique and being way more weaker in basic skating too. But he seems to be an enthusiast about what he does and that makes him likable (tho I'd love to have a word with his team ) I wonder if a change of coach would do any good to Nathan if his heart isn't there. In the end, he merely has a different concept of what figure skating is that said, the freedom he has in his ex and sometimes in his sp (or even in the fs when he has less quads) shows that he has all the potential he needs. But that is the problem, he has the potential but he must be willing to work with it too. (And it's ok that he threw away the choreo and the meaning of his program for the sake of the tech, as he was climbing from the bottom and jumps were what could give him the points, but then judges should have scored accordingly) On the contrary, Boyang, Shoma seem to genuinely love skating. Boyang might have started more slowly on the components side, be it for cultural reasons or coaching approach, but he is willing to fix that and works hard and his genuinity, imo, is what makes audience feel a connection with him when he skates, because you can really tell he is doing his best out there (of course trying doesn't always mean succeeding but when subjectivity is involved it can play a part, too)