General Yuzuru Chat

[MrPudding]

[Hydroblade]

5 minutes ago, MrPudding said:

[Geo1]

English language Japan Times Sports article: "Injured Olympic Champ Hanyu Still Unable to Practice"

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2017/12/10/figure-skating/injured-olympic-champ-hanyu-still-unable-practice/#.Wi11l0qnHaQ 

 

Yuzu will be able to compete or unable to compete in the Japanese Nationals regardless of how I or anyone else feels. My personal feeling is that he should avoid Japanese nationals and concentrate on preparing for PyeongChang. He only has two months to the Olympics and he should use all of that time to rehabilitate and prepare for it. He should not be distracted by any other competitions.

[getsurenka]

Now, in hindsight, I am so glad there were so many fan projects organized for Yuzu these past months. At first, I thought we were getting a little out of hands with showing our support, with so many projects and whatnot, but now I am so grateful to all the fans who took the time to initiate and organize them. Arguably, this may be the hardest period of time for Yuzu (and his fans) in his senior career with what is at stake this season (I am sure this season is up there along with the 2014-15 season and the Tohoku earthquake), so I am so happy we took the opportunity to show our support to him. Hopefully he will gain strength from all the fan messages he received. I am sure he knows he has quite a large fan following in Japan, but all the projects this season would make it extra clear to him the support he has from all over the world, not just in Japan. If nothing else, I hope they at least lifted his spirit up for a while.

Spoiler

 

P.S.: To be honest, I am more worried of his mental state than his physical state at this moment. He can heal his injury in two months, but we don't know to what extent his injury and the four months rest period will affect his mental state. I think that will be the greatest variable in his plan to grab gold in Olympics, and I am sure he knows it too.

 

Personally, I am just sad that now he will be forced between keeping his plan of incorporating 4Lo and 4Lz without testing it out or downgrade his layout, both with drawbacks. He will get so much flak from his critics for downgrading his layout (since he is already repeating both his programs), and as the biggest critic of himself, he will most likely be disappointed at himself for not able to show the Olympic audience the full extent of the progress he made since Sochi, win or not. To think he worked so hard to stabilize 4Lo last season and to not show it to the audience this season, I can't imagine how kuyashi he will feel. However, I also hate for him to not able to test out his 4Lz and 4Lo layout before Olympics.  As we all had known, Olympics is a whole different beast who can swallowed the toughest alive, and I think it may be mentally unsettling for him to perform the layout he planned for this season at the big Olympic stage for the first time since his injury and expect it to be the perfect skates he envisioned. (I know he did it at NHK 2015, but the stake then was significantly lower)  I know nothing can really prepare the skaters mentally for the Olympics, but at least he can be more confident in his layout if he has an event where he can first tested it out and also get him back into the competitive mindset. That way at least he doesn't go into the competition he dreamed for the past four years blindly. But if he skate at Nationals or 4CC when he isn't ready physically for the sake of testing his layout, and get re-injured, then... I can't even imagine...

 

But what do I know, I am just a new skating fan who is probably thinking too much of this whole thing. But in the short time I've know him, I learned nothing is predictable when it comes to Yuzu, be it his skating or his mind. We can worry and predict all we want up to Olympics, and he will just end up proving us all wrong (hopefully in a good way though). I was reading the GS thread for 2015-16 season the other day, and there was this collective panic attack when Yuzu first announced his plan to upgrade his SP layout before NHK, and so many fans were expecting a disaster. But what they ended up getting is a spectacular showing of his skates. And of course, there is also a time when all of his fans, and non-fans, were expecting him to have World 2016 gold medal in the bag, and he ended up didn't.

 

I guess what I am trying to say is, as a fan, I am ready to accept whatever may come our way for the next few months. Be it the meltdown we will have if he doesn't do well at Olympics, or the meltdown when he does well at Olympics. In the end, I just want him to finish this season with the skates he is proud of. Whether he becomes two times Olympic gold medalist or not, he will always have my respect and admiration. 

 

I really should study for my finals tomorrow, but here I am, crafting a rambling post for over an hour... the things I do for Yuzu

 

 

[Danibellerika]

2 hours ago, Forcefield said:

 

Also fellow American here. While I agree with the first half, and I don't have much patience for the USFS, I will have to disagree with the latter. I think Nathan is already very humble and just a very confident skater who is also smart and honest. I've seen people label Yuzu as cocky, arrogant & conceited, and I can't understand how people can twist his passion, confidence & love of competition into something like that. I just hope people can give these men some props for being great sportsmen who recognizes their competitors but are also true to themselves and their version of ideal skates, which for Nathan and Yuzu happens to be different.

 

Also while uber American skating fans are on the Nathan train, he's also gaining Chinese and Japanese fans too as well as from other nationalities and he is earning it through his performances especially his SP this season. Unfortunately for Shoma, I do think if no one new steps up once the uncle retires Nathan will be the big star in the men's field and has his time to really shine. (I'm personally rooting for Boyang though.)

 

I don't think that's fair to Shoma. If he manages to win big titles he will certainly not be short on fans. I don't think he is now actually.  I think Yuzu's Olympic win helped immensely toward his meteoric rise because we got to see what makes him special. And Yuzu being Yuzu helped him rise even more.  But in general people like winners and if you do enough of it you'll be good to go. 

[MrPudding]

[Fay]

16 minutes ago, MrPudding said:

Come on, it's not the news site, it's really just loads of blogs anyone can write. So someone saw the news and re-interpreted it for sports.ru. I totally expected them to - Yuzu is a click bait here too. 

[Anony]

29 minutes ago, Danibellerika said:

 

I don't think that's fair to Shoma. If he manages to win big titles he will certainly not be short on fans. I don't think he is now actually.  I think Yuzu's Olympic win helped immensely toward his meteoric rise because we got to see what makes him special. And Yuzu being Yuzu helped him rise even more.  But in general people like winners and if you do enough of it you'll be good to go. 

I think as far as popularity goes, one of the most underrated factors that contributes is image and marketability. Generally if you have a strong image and seems marketable, regardless of your accomplishments thus far and what media hype you get, someone will eventually find you.

 

With Yuzuru his first surge of international popularity was probably post 2011-2012 season. He was accomplished by all definitions of the word at the time, but was nothing compared to a lot of his other competitors and wasn't getting any amazing amount of media coverage. Except at the time, especially post GPF'11 and WC'12, he had a rly marketable image as "young Romeo" which a lot of bloggers and long time fans bought and eventually, the general audience fell in love with too.

[marlet]

Yuzu antenna make my mood better after the news

[Aotoshiro]

5 hours ago, paperatoms said:

Aaahh, take it awaaaayy! 

Quick, someone post something cute so I can go to bed without nightmares!

Heeeere goes cute! 

3 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

 

Absolutely. Nathan didn't win the Free. Nathan could have easily lost had his PCS not being inflated in Short and Free (and let's not talk about GOE). Didn't he win by a margin of 5 points? That's hardly decisive, but maybe I'm just Hanyu biased... for me, decisively is at least 10 points. 

Less than 5, but again, I think @Katt has posted that this interviewer has tendency to twist words? He definitely aimed for a s*storm with that, and Nate just suffered by not being managed by the team that checks the interviewers before allowing the interview to happen.

Still, ten points isn't decisive for Overlord...remember, the first tie he uttered this Zettai Oujia, he was 1st with almost 50(!) points gap from the second place, and Boyangs scores at the time were more or less accurate...

 

1 hour ago, MrPudding said:

I love the coincidences like those, especially when people find them for me xD *lazy mode on*

Also, another good thing? We have so many lurker satelites de-lurking!

 

Also, excuse my posts from the last few days-if they're funny, that's okay, but I'm feeling like I let my fever take over my keyboard at least few times, and produced stupid/unproductive posts...

[Hydroblade]

2 minutes ago, marlet said:

Yuzu antenna make my mood better after the news

It seems the antenna was just in a receiving mood for short range communications that day...

 

Sorry, trying not to think of what's happening....

[Danibellerika]

34 minutes ago, Anony said:

I think as far as popularity goes, one of the most underrated factors that contributes is image and marketability. Generally if you have a strong image and seems marketable, regardless of your accomplishments thus far and what media hype you get, someone will eventually find you.

 

With Yuzuru his first surge of international popularity was probably post 2011-2012 season. He was accomplished by all definitions of the word at the time, but was nothing compared to a lot of his other competitors and wasn't getting any amazing amount of media coverage. Except at the time, especially post GPF'11 and WC'12, he had a rly marketable image as "young Romeo" which a lot of bloggers and long time fans bought and eventually, the general audience fell in love with too.

I actually don't think image and marketability are underrated at all.  If you're being sought out for endorsement deals those are qualities that are evaluated.  I was thinking these were more so as a given for all these main guys who have charisma in their own way (and their own endorsements). And Shoma is planning on a long career.  

 

As you mention with Yuzu, he was still accomplishing things which put him on the radar before. But I think the Olympics took him to a completely different level, national treasure level.  

[Fay]

Nathan's interviewer is a woman, not a man. And she's notorious in the FS circles. Just a little correction. 

[Lunna]

4 часа назад, singcarcom сказал:

Hmm, I'm not sure how accurate the translation is since it's a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation (Nathan's English response -> Russian article -> Japanese article -> Iron Klaus translation).  I find it strange that it sounds like it's Nathan's first time feeling this way. Did he not feel it when he won 4CC last season? 

 

And I'll just that "won decisively" as an inaccurate translation somewhere along the lines. 

I've read this part of the article in Russian and to be more accurate he said "won confidently" ("won decisively" sounds a little too strong but I don't know the original words he used). And this is only second question. The first one was about how he felt winning over Olympic champion. Nathan: "Yuzuru skates very difficult programmes that's why to win over him is a big achievement from the technical point of view. Speaking about my feelings there wasn't conceit but more the confidence that I'm moving in right direction. We all are working to be the best. And when you understand that in this moment you're number one it boosts your confidence. Before I became winning I often asked myself: "Can I do that?", now I know that I can. In particular I can compete with Hanyu in PC. Honestly, we all owe a lot to this athlete. When I see how he works, how he skates, to what extent he gives himself to figure skating and how our sport must look like, I find a new motivation in me: to be like Hanyu, be better, go ahead. Yuzuru is a great (meaning closer to greatest/legendary) athlete in this respect."

[GreatLakesGal]

Winning a gold medal is not enough to make you highly marketable anymore, especially for American skaters. You need a certain level of charisma to become an athletic superstar in a field like figure skating. 

 

Remember Evan Lysachek? I doubt most non-skating fans do. If you asked Americans which US skater won the men's OGM in 2010, I doubt very few could tell you. And if they guessed, they would probably say Johnny Weir because he's occasionally seen on TV doing non-skating related commentary. 

 

One exception to this might have been Gracie Gold, who could have been her generation's Dorothy Hamill. Beautiful and highly likable. Too bad it didn't work out for her.