General Yuzuru Chat

[Pianistliz]

12 hours ago, ZuCritter said:

Today, reflecting on the struggles of Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, I've been struck afresh by the insane pressure these elite athletes labor under. It makes me appreciate the magnitude of Yuzu's achievement in Pyeongchang even more -- if that's possible. 

 

I'm not making a comparison here, saying that Yuzu is somehow stronger because he won. Both Osaka and Biles are tougher -- mentally as well as physically -- than most mortals can even dream of. And I suspect that, in the arena of competitive sports, it may take more courage to acknowledge the mental toll than to deny or sugar-coat it. In a way, I think Yuzu's refusal to be drawn into the building hype about the potential for a 3rd OGM is a canny bid to safeguard his own sanity. Almost a subtle act of resistance. And if it is, I salute him for it!

 

Anyway, I have nothing but respect for any athlete who makes it to the Olympics and profound love for Yuzu for being the incredible competitor and human being that he is.

 

 

 

 

Couldn't have said any of this better myself. I'm in even more of awe of Yuzu now (while fully supporting Simone's and Naomi's decisions this year).

[IceWings]

12 hours ago, Mary_kyo said:

Evgeni Semenenko was asked "the best singles skater of all time?" and he answered Hanyu.

Evgeni is 2021 Russian junior national champion and was placed 8th in Worlds.

Here's the Eng sub video!

[NEWS]

[wildstrawberry]

3 hours ago, IceWings said:

For Trumpsters, it's all about America First. I know someone who is a Trumper and she was outraged that N* didn't win gold at Pyeongchang since he won the FP. When I pointed out that he bombed his SP, she grudgingly conceded, but then insisted that he should have at least medaled and that no way Javi deserved his bronze.

Also, the Trumpers are mainly in bible-belt middle America, so most are conservative and narrow-minded and they're not going to want to see graceful, sparkly men.

I don't think they're really trying to draw in the hockey crowd because seriously, even if the guys jump 10 quints, the hockey crowd is not going to watch FS. I think the audience they're aiming for is the conservative women.

 

lol,yeah,no way Javi deserved his bronze because he actually deserved silver and was robbed. And i'm saying this as someone who's never even been Javi's fan. Somehow i bet this person you're talking about knows shit about fs scoring,just like so many others among N*than's fans. You should've told them how,if not for his passport,he would've not even been in the FP at all and how by being there he robbed the place of a deserving athlete from a country with no political power in figure skating.

 

He and his team are definitely aiming for the super patriotic crowd and conservative women,the T*L-watching,NA-centric (fs) forums-posting type of fans,you can see them in the replies of his "apology" tweet saying that he's such a great person and how they fully accept his "apology" as if it is their place to accept it,or worse,patting him on the back and saying he didn't have to apologize bc he didn't do anything wrong to begin with (way to expose themselves as obtuse ignorant bigots and not helping his case at all <3). And bc that is his crowd and who he really cares about,the "apology" is half-assed and sounds insincere to many ppl - it's just lip-service to prevent the cRazY fANyUs from keep bringing up this issue to a point it may snowball and,if it reaches more general activist places,transform into a potential pr shit-storm which will clash with his carefully crafted ivy-league educated (lol) good-boy image,especially during Oly Season.

I'm so grateful that i have the taste to stan the most graceful and sparkly man bc if i had stanned for this over-privileged ~oppressed~ straight-bro,right now it would have been painfully embarrassing to be associated with him or with his fan-crowd who's trying to gaslight a group of ppl who are already facing so much struggles and discrimination in their life day by day and have every right to feel hurt,upset and not willing to forgive him that easily.

[Fay]

Hey, guys, please, could you continue Nathan Chen conversation in Team US thread? 
And this video is just under 10k views away from 2mil. Let’s make some effort to cover that distance now! 

 

[Anni]

5 hours ago, Melodie said:

There seems to be new crumbs, AKA 7 minutes of unseen footage of Yuzu at DOI

- "I want to reach higher after landing the 4A succesfully"

- Possible tidbits for the new SP!

Credit: @orangesrgd on Twitter

 

Link: https://www.paravi.jp/watch/74961

 

Does anyone here have access to paravi? 👀

 

 

Here is the translation 

(unfortunately I have not found footage yet)

Credit: @ orangesrgd on twitter

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him, that he soon achieve his goal  The most important thing is of course, that he stay healthy and injury free.

 

 

Quote

"I want to achieve this goal and then I want to reach higher."

 

[NEWS]
 

 

[Henni147]

1 hour ago, Fay said:

Hey, guys, please, could you continue Nathan Chen conversation in Team US thread? 
And this video is just under 10k views away from 2mil. Let’s make some effort to cover that distance now! 

 

 

Yes, that would be so incredible to have a Yuzu video on the German Sportschau with +2M views. I would cry rivers of happiness if that happend.   

 

 

 

Talking about view numbers... look at THIS!!!

 

 

19,247 retweets and it's still going up!! 

 

This WR compilation is so awesome. Got goosebumps 

[Anni]

New Ajinomoto campaign 

 

[NEWS]

[micaelis]

We're well into the summer games right now and the final countdown is beginning for the winter games.  Beijing beckons.  Now for the great debate going on here right now about scoring and NC and Yuzu's androgyny.  The Americans are doing all they can to put forward figure-skating on the men's side being the rivalry between Nathan and Yuzu.  Everybody else will be looking to see if Yuzu gets his third straight gold.  How can those in his camp make sure that that is the focus in Beijing.  A very simple maneuver and one that Yuzu will accept.  Make him flag-bearer in the opening ceremony.  Then, when Japan enters the stadium EVERY commentator from nations not the USA will talk about how Yuzu is pursuing his third straight Olympic gold, something not done in almost a century.  For the audience worldwide looking at that extremely attractive flag-bearer, their interest will be piqued.  They'll want to see if this young(?) athlete actually does the trick. 

 

The BIG story of the games will be front and center and the NC/Yuzu rivalry will become a side-issue.  After that Nathan will be portrayed, everywhere but in the American coverage, as an usurper trying to deny the king his crown.  The folks at NBC will realize that Yuzu has just delivered to them massive ratings for the men's competition.  The folks at ISU and IOC will also realize that and also will realize that the conduct of the judges will be scrutinized carefully by the very knowledgeable pro-Yuzu broadcasting commentators (Yuzu has more fans than just Max amongst the commentariat and certainly more fans there than Nathan has) and any bias shown by the judges will be noted and relayed to the public at large.  The IOC and ISU will know that they are being judged just as much as Yuzu is by their hand-picked judges.  They cannot risk the scandal if there is widespread public belief that Yuzu's gold has been stolen.  And if Yuzu wows the world by introducing Nessie in all her four-and-a-half rotations to the world it will be totally impossible for the judges to underscore Yuzu. 

 

I know so many of you are thinking that NBC's money might be enough to secure Nathan the gold, but there's more than money on trial as far as the ISU and IOC are concerned.  There's also their respective statures.  They can't be perceived as biasing the judging, certainly not when figure-skating is involved, since it is one of the two 'glamor' sports in the winter games (Alpine skiing the other one).  I've commented before on the fact that the judges are under far more scrutiny in the Olympics than in the rest of the season.  That will be doubly the situation in Beijing, so relax.  The judges will be told to do their judging legitimately.  For the ISU and IOC there is potentially more at stake than the loss of NBC's support if Nathan loses.  Their legitimacy is on the line.  The public at large may not be knowledgeable as far as what makes for great skating but the commentators do know their stuff.  So, as Brian said at the World Championships when awaiting the scores for his history-making free program in Helsinki, trust your training, I say to all of you 'trust the commentators'.  By doing their job they'll insure the judges will do their job when Yuzu and Nathan skate.  Quality will win out and the judges who know quality when they see it will tell the public that they are seeing quality when Yuzu skates.  So trust the commentators.  They know their stuff.

[yuzuangel]

5 hours ago, Pianistliz said:

Couldn't have said any of this better myself. I'm in even more of awe of Yuzu now (while fully supporting Simone's and Naomi's decisions this year).

Agreed!! Let's just appreciate how hard it must be to defend your gold medal at the Olympics especially when you are the greatest athlete of your sport of all time. Especially in a sport as focused on mental and physical precision (and on being young and injury-free) as gymnastics and figure skating. 😌

[rockstaryuzu]

7 hours ago, IceWings said:

I think the audience they're aiming for is the conservative women.

??? Still doesn't make sense. Look at the turn out (or lack thereof) for the US version of Stars on Ice, and they tour the entire country. I think conservative bible-belt types, both men and women, watch football.

[yuzuangel]

1 minute ago, rockstaryuzu said:

??? Still doesn't make sense. Look at the turn out (or lack thereof) for the US version of Stars on Ice, and they tour the entire country. I think conservative bible-belt types, both men and women, watch football.

I've been to skate america once and tbh most of the skating fans in the US are older men and women who watched it in the Katarina Witt/Tonya Harding days. idk if they're necessarily more conservative though, but they do lean older.

[rockstaryuzu]

1 hour ago, micaelis said:

Make him flag-bearer in the opening ceremony. 

I don't know if this holds true for Japan, but amongst Canadian Olympians, being the opening-cereminy flag bearer is considered bad luck - a lot of the opening flag-bearers for Team Canada have gone on to have a crappy Olympics.  

[rockstaryuzu]

5 hours ago, yuzuangel said:

I've been to skate america once and tbh most of the skating fans in the US are older men and women who watched it in the Katarina Witt/Tonya Harding days. idk if they're necessarily more conservative though, but they do lean older.

Same here,  ACI has it's white-haired contingent too. But they are already fans, so not a new audience.  ISU might want keep them but isn't going to attract new fans among that group no matter what they do.

[lajoitko]

1 hour ago, micaelis said:

 The Americans are doing all they can to put forward figure-skating on the men's side being the rivalry between Nathan and Yuzu.  Everybody else will be looking to see if Yuzu gets his third straight gold.  How can those in his camp make sure that that is the focus in Beijing.  A very simple maneuver and one that Yuzu will accept.  Make him flag-bearer in the opening ceremony.  Then, when Japan enters the stadium EVERY commentator from nations not the USA will talk about how Yuzu is pursuing his third straight Olympic gold, something not done in almost a century.  For the audience worldwide looking at that extremely attractive flag-bearer, their interest will be piqued.  They'll want to see if this young(?) athlete actually does the trick.

Beautiful idea, but the current Olympic schedule makes this difficult. If Yuzu takes part to the team event, Men´s SP is on the same day as the opening ceremony. And the men´s schedule is already very bad as they are the first discipline to compete after the team event. So the fewer obligations he has, the better.

[KendallKlaire]

1 hour ago, micaelis said:

The Americans are doing all they can to put forward figure-skating on the men's side being the rivalry between Nathan and Yuzu.  Everybody else will be looking to see if Yuzu gets his third straight gold.  How can those in his camp make sure that that is the focus in Beijing.  A very simple maneuver and one that Yuzu will accept.  Make him flag-bearer in the opening ceremony.  Then, when Japan enters the stadium EVERY commentator from nations not the USA will talk about how Yuzu is pursuing his third straight Olympic gold, something not done in almost a century.  For the audience worldwide looking at that extremely attractive flag-bearer, their interest will be piqued.  They'll want to see if this young(?) athlete actually does the trick. 

 

The BIG story of the games will be front and center and the NC/Yuzu rivalry will become a side-issue.  After that Nathan will be portrayed, everywhere but in the American coverage, as an usurper trying to deny the king his crown.  The folks at NBC will realize that Yuzu has just delivered to them massive ratings for the men's competition.  The folks at ISU and IOC will also realize that and also will realize that the conduct of the judges will be scrutinized carefully by the very knowledgeable pro-Yuzu broadcasting commentators (Yuzu has more fans than just Max amongst the commentariat and certainly more fans there than Nathan has) and any bias shown by the judges will be noted and relayed to the public at large.  The IOC and ISU will know that they are being judged just as much as Yuzu is by their hand-picked judges.  They cannot risk the scandal if there is widespread public belief that Yuzu's gold has been stolen.  And if Yuzu wows the world by introducing Nessie in all her four-and-a-half rotations to the world it will be totally impossible for the judges to underscore Yuzu. 

I agree that the 2022 Olympics have a great storyline with the Yuzu vs. Nathan plot, it's what the media craves (turning athletes into characters of overdramatized plot). Although we do not know if Yuzu will be going to Olympics, I think it would be very surprising if he is not chosen as the flagbearer (though certainly they may choose an older veteran). Yuzu doesn't seem as determined to be going to the 2022 Olympics as he did for 2018. His goal is the 4A, if he goes to the Olympics he doesn't seem that interested in defending his gold. 

 

Which is why it is going to be so annoying to watch how NBC will narrate the mens event. They will make it the Nathan show. I don't think they will be making any sort of case for Yuzu this time because he's lost to Nathan in every matchup since the last Olympics. In addition, Yuzu has lost to his successor (Yuma) already so they're probably going to treat Yuzu more like a has-been (unless he lands the 4A prior to the Olympics). NBC will not care if Yuzu was injured or if the judging was suspect. 

 

I really don't think the IOC or ISU will care about how judging is perceived. If the media hypes up the Nathan against Yuzu, the non-skating fans will believe it. When I was in graduate school and talking about figure skating, they were absolutely shocked when I said that I did not think Nathan was the best. I do not even think they had heard of Yuzu (and I was in school during the 2018 Olympics). Watching NBC's coverage of the Olympics in 2018 and even now, it's honestly gross how they hype up the frontrunners so much. I do not blame Simone whatsoever at her decision to step back during these Olympics - I felt like it was quite dehumanizing how they simply referred to her as the GOAT all the time.  In any case, the IOC and ISU will not care about how figure skating judging is perceived. They will just think the audience will believe the narrative that is fed to them and in 2022's case the most prominent narrative will be that Nathan is better than Yuzu and will stop him from a third gold.