@NattyTashiI genuinely wish Good luck to Nathan and his ambitions to attend Medical School. I hope he makes a success of this excellent and rewarding career. It will be quite a challenge and will require a great deal of commitment in terms of time and hard work. If he is serious about following this profession it will be years of Med School and then many years of work before becoming a senior Doctor.
Although Nathan has stated in interviews that he is having a hiatus from Figure Skating to concentrate on his studies, finishing his primary degree, realistically it would be difficult to return to the world stage of competitive skating after a protracted break. With regards to the intensity of studying at Medical School, it would be difficult to incorporate competition level practice with Med School. He may wish to move on to this new chapter and not delay finishing his degree and then onto Grad school
Not sure about the US curriculum, here in UK it is 6 years at University followed by 2 years foundation training, 2-3 years Core training, 5-6 years Speciality training( 4 years for General Practice ) plus very demanding Royal College post graduate exams, which only small percentage pass per attempt, so repeating attempts may be needed
@EisEllehas stated that USFSA will be uber promoting their next top skater, most likely Ilia M and has correctly deduced that this athlete backed by a strong Federation will only serve to stamp out all other competitors
Quite honestly, I don't know how some of the skaters can face this injustice day after day, at pretty much every competition they attend, even if they skate the performance of their careers.
Yuzuru has my utmost admiration to be able to turn up and give his best, he is too good a person to have to endure this barely disguised discrimination. He will be rewarded eventually when all of his fans follow him to ice shows and stop buying ISU event tickets and consequently divert funds away from all skating disciplines. There will be karmic consequences for failing to take care of the jewel of figure skating. His fans will spend their money on Yuzu enterprises and if ISU goes extinct so be it
The final irony IMHO, after having thrown candies to favourite competitors, the latest OGM winner has grabbed the Gold and headed off to follow their own path, having given little back to the ISU coffers
Yuzuru is one of the few Olympic Gold medallists who continued to raise the profile of competitive figure skating, the fans bring in bushels of cash to ISU, which in turn encourages athletes into the sport, a true legacy. Every time he attends a competition he is giving the gift of himself, the fans adore him and throw money at ISU. Believe me compared to other sports, skating disciplines are not well funded, in return he receives no gratitude whatsoever and will back fire on them in the long term.