CupidsBow

But that was pretty much what was said/expected. The news we had was that he intended to gradually increase his load to ensure his ankle was okay. dec 23rd was just over three weeks ago so... around two weeks full rest, four weeks rehab, 2-ish weeks on-ice rehab/gradually increasing his load and now back to his regular training - from last week which gives him over three weeks of training before Feb 1st when the athletes will already be in Korea. This is good. his injury should be fully healed and not cause him any problems. He would have been able to keep his fitness up through his rehab and if he's been working on his steps for 2 weeks i imagine his stamina isnt hugely wrecked either.

what a weird choice lmao its a christmas song.....

i think his team will have really worked on it but i do wonder if worlds really helped? last season he was chasing the ghost of nhk and gpf '15 and struggling to reach it. at least he could feel satisfied after worlds that it wasn't a fluke and even when increasing his difficulty that kind of high was still well within his capabilities. pre-COR he talked about wanting to raise his average and he achieved it at COR; it wasn't perfect and he got silver but it was the best first gp of the season hes had in a while. i trust his team and he has really really matured a lot recently so hopefully he's mindset will remain goal-orientated without panicking or hyper-focusing.

Here are my thoughts: Pros: - He already has Olympic experience so will have a better idea of what to expect going in the competition than younger skaters at the first Olympics, but without the pressure of feeling/knowing it is definitely his last. He's still young enough that a third Olympics is a possibility if he chooses to try for it. So I guess in this respect a 2nd Olympics is a pretty nice middle ground. - Hype and the pressure of outside expectations uh can't really get higher for Yuzu. It won't change. Even a week before Olympics the pressure of outside expectations is going to be the same he's been dealing with since at least 2015. His internally-generated pressure is also not likely to really change much imo. In comparison to Nathan who is suddenly getting a lot of fed hype Yuzu deals with that amount of pressure all the time. He's the most equipped to deal with Olympic pressure because he pm expects himself to be perfect and carries the expectation to win in every competition.His motivation and pressures don't really ever change. - that said a lot of the hype has lifted off Yuzu and has drifted elsewhere. With Nathan and Shoma getting all the attention Yuzu might just get pissed off enough to land clean programs out of spite. He's not exactly fond of people forgetting that he's there and he's the no.1. remember his petulant 3a for attention when the Barcelona crowd was paying more attention to javi? yeah like that. but entire programs. - He has the ability. Looking at competitions he's missed I don't even necessarily think he has the be clean to win, although i know he wants that and that would see him willing in a clear-cut way with a fair margin. Nathan's constant messing with his layout means his programs are unsettled and his performance quality/transitions have been going downhill since the start of the season which should be reflected in his pc but isnt...no one has been without issues some of them repetitive issues...If those issues come out at Pyeongchang then really Yuzuru should be able to fight for his place. Cons: - There's no way of knowing where he's at competitively rn. Practices are one thing, competitions are another. If he is doing consistent clean full run-throughs of his programs in practice, its a good sign but practice environments are not competition environments. And its unlikely that regular clean run-throughs are happening after weeks off ice from injury. I'm sure he can be back in condition for the Olympics but it's impossible to try to guess what that means. Are we back to his typical early-season skating where he's still a bit meh? Has he been storing up energy from NHK and is going to unleash it at Pyeongchang? Who knows. That said pretty much everyone's conditions going in to Olys is a mystery and predicting how they will perform is pointless because anyone can bomb at any time. - preferential scoring might not exactly be on yuzu's side. GOE and PCS will be positively thrown at Nathan because he's 'undefeated' so far this season, Shoma will get some treats and Javi will likely get some fluffing if he skates near enough clean. But 4 months out of competition might see judges hesitant to shoot their load at Yuzu scores wise. I predict another Helsinki fs in terms of judges getting shy about dishing out +3 goe and 10s in pcs to Yuzuru even if he's clean and gives the performance of his life. VS Nathan who can get one or two judges giving his 10s and 9.75s in IN PE and CO (lol) even with a fall and Shoma will get points for his good upper-body movement and >: ( face but not have the emptiness of his program free taken into account. - Yuzu might want it too much. like how he wanted a clean LGC at WTT too much. Yuzu can overthink himself into a car crash. Being disheartened and anxious because of his injury could lead him there. That said....he'd maybe bomb one program and kill the other. I think it's laughable that anyone thinks he coukd fall off the podium.

petition for yuzu/team japan to learn at least part of cheer up so I can see yuzu(& shoma) doing shashasha

I have faith. Whatever the results are (but uhh statistically and logically speaking it's hecking unlikely that Yuzu will finish off podium he hasn't finished lower than silver in a major even for years. 45.65% of his senior results have been gold and only 17.39% have been off podium. If we only look at his results post-sochi olympics to now it's 54.55% gold and 4.55% off podium. 1 off-podium finish since Sochi. And that was the NHK he couldn't practice after the COC collision. I'm just sayin'.) i know he will peform something special because he is special. If he got back on the ice like 2-3 weeks ago? I'm not worried. There's still like 3 more weeks until everyone is going to Pyeongchang. He has time still to build up his strength, stamina, and comfort level with jumps to a good level. He just needs to stay healthy.

omg saaaaaame seeing Junhwan bounce back at nationals made me breathe like 10 sighs of relief, for baby Junnie and for Yuzu. Junhwan might not have the level of pressure that Yuzu has but he does have pm his whole fed leaning on him. Knowing TCC is helping him deal with that and managing his injuries and getting him back on track right on time to get the Olympic spot gives me serious good vibes

I'm one of those people that only really travels if I have a purpose to go there. I would happily travel around europe or to canada or something for figure skating over just a random aimless holiday XD

My contribution to 'cats that look like yuzu'

he's so cute ;A; the glasses! the nosey! The smile! Gold medal cuteness!

Probably hold onto your hair cuz Yuzu is coming for your wigs....

dunno about pros but i can take a couple of hundred to a thousand pictures at any given event and edit down to 30 or so I like and 10 or less that are worth sharing. so.... I'd guess they have a lot.

I'm still in work until the 13th or smth which is sooo saaadddd cuz my birthday is on the 10th so it would be really nice to see him practice if he is doing the fs for the team event...

I'm sobbing he is so cute

Team Japan does seem to be a black hole swollowing up affection. How to not love them all? Is it possible? Even though Yuzu isn't going I want to keep up with as much as I can to see who gets the ladies spot, who gets the other mens spot and if the original Yuzu fanboy does well after his long issues with injury ;;

I think he always has some hyperpigmentation around the eyes? but the lighting looks super unfriendly in this pic. (ugh I'm babbling about colour balance ignore this) He still cute though, he just looks so tired. does make me wonder if he wears some kind of makeup just to even out his complexion during competitions though? I would've thought it would be a weird sweaty streaky mess by the end of the performance though... ETA: A bit OT also TW. But yeah right now I'm just feeling very...sensitive. on edge. very cautious and very concerned about the wellbeing of these strangers I admire from afar. All I want is for Yuzuru to be happy and healthy and okay.

If anyone can crash through the door at Pyeongchang and complete two clean programs after 4 months out of competitions fueled by pure will, frustration and maybe the tiniest amount of spite (interrupted gpf streak and another nationals missed...) its Yuzuru. I still have faith in his ability to do that even if I'm a little less certain than before. Above all I want him to finish happy. I want to see a smile on his face. At Pyeongchang. At worlds. And next season.

Due to recent events I really hope we can get the message to Yuzu at some point, in some way, loud and clear, that we support him as fans whether he wins or not. We have faith in his ability, want the best for him, but are proud of him, love him and support him even when he has a hard time. I don't want him to be weighed down by the expectations of fans, or see himself as coming short from the standards fans set for him.

This must be a very difficult time for Yuzuru. The most important thing is that he is physically and mentally healthy. I'm hopeful he is taking care of not just his fitness but his all-round well-being too. The next two months-ish will be stressful and difficult for him. I hope he doesn't feel lonely when facing his struggles, comes out stronger and is able to be happy. I'm not okay right now ignore me.

It's Oozuru 'Anyu sneaking into Europeans!

I think we discussed this before? Didn't team Japan move elsewhere because of issues with air quality? I really doubt Pyeongchang will have the problems Sochi did. I honestly would put it past them to have air filters in the rooms if they think it's needed (my school recently put air purifiers in every classroom while some building work was going on because one student had asthma concerns. I'm pretty confident that if Yuzu's team raised any concerns, the organisers would respond pretty swiftly to ensure his needs are met.)

I still think they won't announce he's withdrawn until the 20th XD but they might slip in info if it is true he's on the ice and just explain that he's not fit for competition but is on the ice and rehabilitation is going well or smth which will then help with him being named on the olympic team as it supports the idea that he'll be fit for Pyeongchang

I was wondering because I thought TCC had, uh, rules about spreading info like that. Maybe if they were just visiting they kinda aren't under those rules? Or they just thought it was harmless info? *shrug* Anyways, if it is true it's a good sign. He did say he would go on ice soon and was clear he would be doing steps to test the ankle and gradually build it up, so it's not exactly a wild development but a very reassuring one.

I added a little extra I can't really be sure of reliability either but Kyodo's previous reports on the situation has had me a bit eh about them. If there's multiple news sites saying the same thing and the source is Yuzuru's team, believe it, but remember a lot of these articles are looking for clicks.

ehhh Kyodo's English news articles haven't exactly been reliable (see: is the injury in his ankle? in his knee? kyodo has no idea) Unless it comes directly from Yuzuru's camp I'm being wary. I had seen the thing about inflammation but in the bone suggests infection? Idk it seems off so I wondered if it was maybe a mistranslation or miscommunication and it's unclear* if the inflammation was something he had earlier that maybe laster longer than expected and so delayed him getting back on the ice for the on-ice portion of his rehab, or a current thing that was a recent development which would be a lot more troubling. *due to not knowing when exactly the message from Yuzu about inflammation was sent and if media received it word-for-word or not ETA: also some media has been downright scare-mongering and clickbaity. You may have also seen the one that speculated Yuzuru would not be 100% for Pyeongchang and could potentially need surgery. with things like that it's really important to note with such articles that none of the information was coming from Yuzuru's team or Yuzuru's doctors but that the writer or whoever had consulted a doctor that had never treated Yuzu and is not involved in his treatment in anyway and is giving a worst-case-scenario from the limited information that is available and thus not really worth getting worked up over unless any shred of it is then formally corroborated by one of Yuzuru's representatives, his team, or Yuzuru himself. Seeing as how his team has only said that there has been improvement, albeit not quite as much as they had hoped by this point, and that they are looking at moving to on-ice rehab soon where he will gradually and carefully increase the load on his right ankle to build it back up and be sure it can handle use.......I'm not exactly rushing to believe the more hysteric reports coming out.