General Skating Chat

[Forcefield]

22 hours ago, Eclair said:

what does the video show? it's not available for me ... 

 

They took it down. It was essentially a Japanese news program reiterating about the Chinese judge overscoring controversy and then displaying Boyang's scores to check it. I wish scrutiny would be applied evenly across the board.

[WinForPooh]

If I could go back in time and choose one and only one Chopin, and one and only one Seimei to watch live, I would watch ACI Chopin because I think it was just a shade better. But I would watch Olympics Seimei despite the other absolutely incredible and objectively better ones, because that Seimei meant the world. And he's never done that choreo sequence better, I think, he threw himself into it triumphantly, it was as much his proclamation of victory as any bow or jump onto the podium. 

[yuzuangel]

Just now, WinForPooh said:

If I could go back in time and choose one and only one Chopin, and one and only one Seimei to watch live, I would watch ACI Chopin because I think it was just a shade better. But I would watch Olympics Seimei despite the other absolutely incredible and objectively better ones, because that Seimei meant the world. And he's never done that choreo sequence better, I think, he threw himself into it triumphantly, it was as much his proclamation of victory as any bow or jump onto the podium. 

I agree that ACI Chopin is better but it's just funny to see how everyone else's PBs never match how much "better" they got (and sometimes they skate noticeably worse), except Yuzuru's. This "consistency = higher scores" aka if you don't skate too much worse you'll get a PB applies to everyone except him. Worlds 2016 SP included 

[WinForPooh]

1 minute ago, yuzuangel said:

I agree that ACI Chopin is better but it's just funny to see how everyone else's PBs never match how much "better" they got (and sometimes they skate noticeably worse), except Yuzuru's. This "consistency = higher scores" aka if you don't skate too much worse you'll get a PB applies to everyone except him. Worlds 2016 SP included 

In a way, I'm glad all this scoring politics nonsense doesn't apply to him that much. It means that every single thing he's achieved, he has earned. For him, those numbers don't lie. They stuck to the letter of the rule, every rule, for him and not for many others. And still he is the best ever. History will remember him that way.

[SSS]

The only sad thing about ACI Chopin is the lighting/blurring video...

[getsurenka]

https://www.miaopai.com/show/tVpqLizpru6UKn0QYj0gwnVecqPzW7GuDqswgw__.htm

 

Zhao Hong Bo, along with his wife Shen Xue, is the 2010 Olympic champion and 2002&2006 Olympic bronze medalist for Pairs figure skating. Currently he is the head coach for Sui/Han and Yu/Zhang at Harbin skating club.

This interview where he talked a little about Hanyu had sparked some mixed reactions.

I am not a professional translator, so I am sure I had misunderstood some of his words or made some mistakes when translating. You're welcome to point out any mistakes you spot.

-----------------------------

Interviewer: Do you think Hanyu can be considered the greatest of all time men’s skater at this time? Does he surpassed Plushenko?

 

Zhao: Every time after a competition, there will be a judges’ meeting. There will be a lot of discussion, and they will broadcast replay of the skater who performed best at the competition. Then there will be discussion. This is what we call a “trend” (趋势). Every year, every season, or every quad, unless there is a sudden style from an athlete that ends up leading an era, or a season... judges… a lot of people… there will be changes immediately (裁判…很多人…马上就有变化).* Then these skaters… exceptional ones like Hanyu… (they will remark) Hanyu’s era has come. Which means he is able to, in this season... His techniques, consistency, performances in each skate are acknowledged by the judges, including last year’s WC, where he received very high score in Finland. Therefore as long as (he) doesn’t make any major mistakes, gold medal is his already. He had established his aura (气场) already.

 

*This part is quite difficult for me to translate, as I can't quite follow his thoughts and what he is trying to convey. So there may be some misintepretation of what his message there.

 

Interviewer: Every time I talked about Hanyu, we have to first talked about what we mentioned earlier and that is artistic expression. People can’t stop admiring his stare/gaze and his body language. Also, we also know some details, like how he is personally involved in the costume-making and music cut of his program, which seems to go beyond most skaters. Do you think it is rare in single’s figure skating, at this level?

 

Zhao: Professional athlete (职业运动员) can delegate his own time very well. Like after on-ice and off-ice training, for some skaters, (they) can focus their time on the things they like… whether it is hobbies or projects. He (Hanyu) devoted a lot of effort into his field. There are many athletes who think about playing/relaxing after training, and there are also athletes who can adjust/delegate their time well. He must really like (figure skating). If he doesn’t, he won’t get involved in those processes. For figure skating, (there) are lots of aspects, like music, techniques, performances, including the choreography, to be done. And as a professional athlete, he has lots of time, so if he wants to do them, I think he can. But that’s different from us. This is why we need to cooperate with a team. In this field, even for my best Pair skaters, my best coach, they don’t have the same expertise when it comes to knowledge of training for physical fitness (体能训练) compared to physical trainers. That’s why we need a training system (训练的体系) where different teams (come together) to support the athlete. For Hanyu, he has the ability to invite the renowned designers/choreographers. Yet he involves in the creative process personally because he likes (figure skating). But it is not like he comes up with the whole creative idea and how to express it, right? When it comes to music editing, he cannot be compared to the sound designers who sit in front of a soundboard daily to adjust the music.

 

Interviewer: So behind the single’s skating competition, it is really two teams and two countries that are competing and comparing (between each other)? But there is also aspects that come down to the skaters themselves, like for example, their own awareness of self-discipline. Like you had mentioned, because Hanyu really likes figure skating, we also noticed that Hanyu after he injured his leg, he investigated human anatomy on the bed to learn how to exert effort (in his leg) and to prevent additional injuries when he is on-ice. This extreme pursuit… like you’ve said our athletes probably go out and play after their training. Do you think there is some difference or gap?

 

Zhao: This must be a type of professional skater’s self-discipline. (Int: Yes.) Why does he learn about anatomy, is because of his desire to become better faster. Just like when we were injured, because (we) spent a large amount of time on bed, (we) would meditate (think deeply of) our moves. We would also think about the nature of our injuries. This may make (outside) people misconstrue that (we are learning) human anatomy. Nowadays, sport anatomy is a requirement athletes need to take when in university. The cause of your injury and the theories are all (taught) in the curriculum. Now, as a athlete, when they receive a good result, there will be a lot of people and ways to make what this athlete accomplished as a god-like achievement or a god-like discipline. But they can also make mistakes because they are human. When we said the enchantment of Olympic is that no one can predict anything as no competitor is a machine. The skills acquired in these four years, like music-editing, designing, learning anatomy, when an athlete did all of this for their field, they become stronger and also more confident.

 

Personal thoughts:

Spoiler

I hope I did justice to this interview. It is quite hard to understand some of his messages so there may be some mistakes in the translation. As I had mentioned, this interview had sparked mixed response. Because his words are quite vague in nature, there are some arguments over how to interpret the implications behind his words. Some had argued he is diminishing the strength of Hanyu as an athlete and a champion, while others thought he was objective on his perception and is just telling the truth. Personally, I am a little uncertain whether he is trying to implicate whether Hanyu receives the score he receives now because of his reputation, and not of his actual techniques and performances. Like even us fans had commented that if Hanyu goes clean in his SP and FS, there is no way the judges are going to hand the gold medal to someone else, but that's because we know that every element in his two programs are going to be executed with best quality and therefore deserving of the scores he gets. We already know reputation scoring is a well-established thing in figure skating, but for Zhao to hint it when answering about Hanyu seems to imply he won because of the judges' impartiality. Perhaps his comments are made from not following Hanyu's career that closely? 

 

 

[axelsandwich]

Hm. Listening to this, he does sound slightly defensive and there's no doubt he's minimising a bit of Yuzu's actions or at least pushing back against the 'hype'/laudatory statements the interviewer is making (eg. implying the interviewer may be mistaking deep thinking abt injuries while on the bed with 'studying anatomy'). But it's also because the Chinese interviewer was being quite laudatory of Yuzu and quite pointed in his questions - specifically asking 'is there a difference or gap', the underlying subtext being 'is the current Chinese system failing because Yuzu is so superior?' and the interviewer mentioning the Chinese skaters 'going off to play' instead of work hard is also a bit...hm. how to put it. Something that would put Zhao on the defensive so I'm not exactly surprised he kind of plays down Yuzu's achievements to try and boost his own team up. He doesn't seem to know too much about Yuzu and seems to misinterpret the interviewer's specific question for the second part (seems to think the interviewer was suggesting Yuzu does all his own program design or something). 

 

His comments about the 'Yuzu era' at the start is a little suspect - I think he was starting to say something like the judges will favour someone who introduces a massive 'change' in the style/trajectory of skating but reconsiders and uses a more vague word ('change'). I don't think he goes quite as far as to imply Yuzu doesn't deserve his marks but he's definitely saying the judges have a fixed idea/acknowledgment of his presence/aura which means the gold is his if he doesn't make mistakes (气场 is hard to translate). 

 

All in all, the most interesting thing that comes out of this is that the judges do meet and discuss trajectories/good performances by skaters. It suggests the 'style' that is impressed upon the judges' minds as 'top' performances is predicated on the current champions, which may explain why skaters who go against this style (I'm thinking primarily in the ladies field) tend to get punished/not recognised. Interesting... 

[EisElle]

1 hour ago, getsurenka said:

https://www.miaopai.com/show/tVpqLizpru6UKn0QYj0gwnVecqPzW7GuDqswgw__.htm

 

Zhao Hong Bo, along with his wife Shen Xue, is the 2010 Olympic champion and 2002&2006 Olympic bronze medalist for Pairs figure skating. Currently he is the head coach for Sui/Han and Yu/Zhang at Harbin skating club.

This interview where he talked a little about Hanyu had sparked some mixed reactions.

I am not a professional translator, so I am sure I had misunderstood some of his words or made some mistakes when translating. You're welcome to point out any mistakes you spot.

-----------------------------

Interviewer: Do you think Hanyu can be considered the greatest of all time men’s skater at this time? Does he surpassed Plushenko?

 

Zhao: Every time after a competition, there will be a judges’ meeting. There will be a lot of discussion, and they will broadcast replay of the skater who performed best at the competition. Then there will be discussion. This is what we call a “trend” (趋势). Every year, every season, or every quad, unless there is a sudden style from an athlete that ends up leading an era, or a season... judges… a lot of people… there will be changes immediately (裁判…很多人…马上就有变化).* Then these skaters… exceptional ones like Hanyu… (they will remark) Hanyu’s era has come. Which means he is able to, in this season... His techniques, consistency, performances in each skate are acknowledged by the judges, including last year’s WC, where he received very high score in Finland. Therefore as long as (he) doesn’t make any major mistakes, gold medal is his already. He had established his aura (气场) already.

 

*This part is quite difficult for me to translate, as I can't quite follow his thoughts and what he is trying to convey. So there may be some misintepretation of what his message there.

 

Interviewer: Every time I talked about Hanyu, we have to first talked about what we mentioned earlier and that is artistic expression. People can’t stop admiring his stare/gaze and his body language. Also, we also know some details, like how he is personally involved in the costume-making and music cut of his program, which seems to go beyond most skaters. Do you think it is rare in single’s figure skating, at this level?

 

Zhao: Professional athlete (职业运动员) can delegate his own time very well. Like after on-ice and off-ice training, for some skaters, (they) can focus their time on the things they like… whether it is hobbies or projects. He (Hanyu) devoted a lot of effort into his field. There are many athletes who think about playing/relaxing after training, and there are also athletes who can adjust/delegate their time well. He must really like (figure skating). If he doesn’t, he won’t get involved in those processes. For figure skating, (there) are lots of aspects, like music, techniques, performances, including the choreography, to be done. And as a professional athlete, he has lots of time, so if he wants to do them, I think he can. But that’s different from us. This is why we need to cooperate with a team. In this field, even for my best Pair skaters, my best coach, they don’t have the same expertise when it comes to knowledge of training for physical fitness (体能训练) compared to physical trainers. That’s why we need a training system (训练的体系) where different teams (come together) to support the athlete. For Hanyu, he has the ability to invite the renowned designers/choreographers. Yet he involves in the creative process personally because he likes (figure skating). But it is not like he comes up with the whole creative idea and how to express it, right? When it comes to music editing, he cannot be compared to the sound designers who sit in front of a soundboard daily to adjust the music.

 

Interviewer: So behind the single’s skating competition, it is really two teams and two countries that are competing and comparing (between each other)? But there is also aspects that come down to the skaters themselves, like for example, their own awareness of self-discipline. Like you had mentioned, because Hanyu really likes figure skating, we also noticed that Hanyu after he injured his leg, he investigated human anatomy on the bed to learn how to exert effort (in his leg) and to prevent additional injuries when he is on-ice. This extreme pursuit… like you’ve said our athletes probably go out and play after their training. Do you think there is some difference or gap?

 

Zhao: This must be a type of professional skater’s self-discipline. (Int: Yes.) Why does he learn about anatomy, is because of his desire to become better faster. Just like when we were injured, because (we) spent a large amount of time on bed, (we) would meditate (think deeply of) our moves. We would also think about the nature of our injuries. This may make (outside) people misconstrue that (we are learning) human anatomy. Nowadays, sport anatomy is a requirement athletes need to take when in university. The cause of your injury and the theories are all (taught) in the curriculum. Now, as a athlete, when they receive a good result, there will be a lot of people and ways to make what this athlete accomplished as a god-like achievement or a god-like discipline. But they can also make mistakes because they are human. When we said the enchantment of Olympic is that no one can predict anything as no competitor is a machine. The skills acquired in these four years, like music-editing, designing, learning anatomy, when an athlete did all of this for their field, they become stronger and also more confident.

 

Personal thoughts:

  Hide contents

I hope I did justice to this interview. It is quite hard to understand some of his messages so there may be some mistakes in the translation. As I had mentioned, this interview had sparked mixed response. Because his words are quite vague in nature, there are some arguments over how to interpret the implications behind his words. Some had argued he is diminishing the strength of Hanyu as an athlete and a champion, while others thought he was objective on his perception and is just telling the truth. Personally, I am a little uncertain whether he is trying to implicate whether Hanyu receives the score he receives now because of his reputation, and not of his actual techniques and performances. Like even us fans had commented that if Hanyu goes clean in his SP and FS, there is no way the judges are going to hand the gold medal to someone else, but that's because we know that every element in his two programs are going to be executed with best quality and therefore deserving of the scores he gets. We already know reputation scoring is a well-established thing in figure skating, but for Zhao to hint it when answering about Hanyu seems to imply he won because of the judges' impartiality. Perhaps his comments are made from not following Hanyu's career that closely? 

 

 

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

[OonsieHui]

Only in Yuzuru Hanyus world would always getting either silver or gold be translated as inconsistent 

[meoima]

3 hours ago, LadyLou said:

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

If you notice, all the winners at Olympics this time got World records. Aliona/Bruno. Then both V/M and P/C. Both Zhenia and Alina. They all have World records either in the short or in the free.

Only Yuzuru didn’t get World record. And Hao is thinking the judges are ready to give Yuzuru the gold? Isn’t that too much. Had they really wanted him, they would have scored him like 113 or 114 in the short. 

Frankly, judging from NBC’s investment in IOC, I would say the word records were supposed for Nathan. 

[Xen]

Done!

Guys, Zhao is now also the head coach for the entire chinese team, essentially runs the skating system in China. There is no way he would ever publicly disown the system in place, especially if he wants to get any changes in place. Believe it or not, there's a lot of criticism of the system inside China itself, about how we pool talent, about how some skaters should go overseas because the chinese skating system for coaching is an old fashioned dinosaur. And this gets emphasized a lot by commentators during the figure skating events. Just in the gala broadcast now, the chinese commentator just said "South Korea started figure skating much later than China or Japan, but in such a short time they were able to get ladies who placed so high (higher than Chinese ladies)." The implication is, "Yo China, what's going on?"

 

Full 53 min interview is here: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/vc1ig4drkvw1ujb/u0025jg5mlg.html

 

I'm translating the entire video under spoilers. By the way,  the full title of the interview translates as "Interview with Zhao Hongbo: Figure skating is an extreme technical task. Coach explains the secret behind Yuzuru Hanyu's Olympic victory." And the solo part for Yuzu talk, is actually titled "Asking Director Zhao Hongbo, where is China's Yuzuru Hanyu?" (Lol, the envy is real)

 

Key takeaways and context of the interview:

-The interview is to introduce normal people (non-FS fans) to Figure skating as a whole. The focus is more on the chinese teams, and where Chinese team stands relative to the rest of the world.

-Zhao is head coach for China, but he also specifies that he only coaches directly pairs skating, and only takes general glances at the other disciplines.

 

The more I translate this interview, the more I wonder what Zhao and Brian will talk about if they had a coffee chat about training/preparation methods. Both are pretty systemic. 

 

Parts regarding Yuzu are bolded.

Spoiler

Start: (going forward, I is the interviewer, Z is Zhao Hongbo) TN are my translator notes and comments when translating this interview. 

 

Interviewer: Figure skating is an important event where the Chinese team tried to obtain a medal. Before Pyeongchang, the Chinese figure skating team has obtained 8 olympic medals in pairs and ladies.  In this sport that originated from Europe, what are the strengths of the Chinese athletes, and conversely, where do we fall short? So today, we have specially invited the head coach (director) of the Chinese Figure Skating Association, who is also our previous Olympic Champion in pairs, Director Zhao Hongbo, to analyze and explain to us. Hello Director Zhao. 

Zhao: Hello. 

I: Right now the figure skating competitions in Pyeongchang are nearing the end. The disciplines which China is competitive in have already ended 2 days ago. We should be fairly relaxed, and focus mainly on spectating and observing the rest of the competition correct?

Z: Yes, it is like that, as the olympic competition duration is pretty long. Usually we have to focus on one event, and then focus on the other events. So pairs have ended, then men's have ended, today ice dance ended, so the overall (battle) duration is stretched pretty long. 

I: Until now, from the perspective of athlete's abilities/level, and overall state of competition (competition fierceness),  what do you think are the characteristics of figure skating at the Pyeongchang olympics? Relative to the last Olympics?

Z: The overall technical difficulty level has increased. First, on pairs skating. At Sochi, the russians took 1-2 in pairs, the russian teams displayed very complete programs, but in terms of technical level, at Sochi, there were not a lot of quads. But this olympics, three teams did.  The russian team did a quad twist. Sui Han did a quad twist. And in throws, the Canadian pair did a quad throw. In pairs, the number of people who can complete quads is not a lot. Back in 2002, we (Shen/Zhao) tried a quad throw in competition at Salt Lake, but failed. So the overall technical abilities have increased. Now men's is even scarier. This year, men's have significantly increased the overall number and variety of quads, and even quality.  For example, you have Nathan Chen, who fought back from 17th place to be first place in the free skate, and completed 6 quads in competition, one 3A. Of the 8 jumping passes, he almost did only quads. Boyang Jin also did well in completing his 4Lz. And then there's this Zhou person from US (TN Note: ROFL, he doesn't know Vincent) who also did really well technically.  So from the technical point, these 2 disciplines (pairs and men's) are almost at the extreme boundaries of human athletic abilities. I don't know if men's will be able to do 4A, or quint jumps (TN: gods, Zhao, don't encourage it too!).  I don't think this is realistically that possible. (TN: Oh dear, Zhao, you want to speak with Yuzu about 4As?). 

I: Very hard to imagine from current reality, no?

Z: Yes, unless you have a very particular talented person. He happens to have very fast rotation speed or long air time,  body is really slender (thin),  but has extremely strong explosive ability. Then it might be possible. 

I: Yes, yes. But as you mentioned that the overall level has increased, going back to the overall competitive structure, do you think there has been any changes for chinese athletes in terms of how we stand relative to others? Using pairs and men's as examples. 

Z: There has been significant change. This year with Sui and Han, at Pyeongchang, they've tried their best. But in so far as completion goes, there are some regrets regarding that, as we lost by 0.43 points margin to the germans. Since last year when we started pushing/focusing on Sui Han, we were preparing for Pyeongchang. Last year at worlds, our team managed to grab 3 spots, and Sui Han won the WC, so from that perspective, Sui Han have the potential to be the champions this Olympics. From points, from standings etc, they had the ability this season too. Now for Boyang Jin, he is the first athlete to complete a quad Lutz in competition. What he did was to change the way many other athletes viewed BV/technical difficulty. After he finished it, many other countries started taking practicing the 4Lz seriously, and then quad jump variety started increasing. So it changed the overall outlook towards quad jumps. So after this practice period many countries were able to obtain what they needed, so the quad jumps are now a trend/theme. So now singles is about difficulty. So in these two disciplines, from a technical standpoint, we have the ability to go and fight for the champion/gold title. 

I: So the ability already exists?

Z: Correct. 

I: Many commentators and media said before this olympics, that Sui Han will make a very strong attempt to win the gold. However regretfully in the end, we lost to the german team by 0.43 points. Looking at these results, do you feel any regrets? 

Z: Of course, definitely some regrets. However, for what these 3 athletes (Sui Han and Boyang) displayed in competition, I'm also proud and happy. Why do I say so? Olympics occur once every 4 years, the duration is very long. When preparing for the olympics, the pressure, mental and emotional state,  even their desire (thirst and drive) for the gold, are different. For many athletes, when they are at the end of the rope (backed into a corner), the situation will trigger their greatest power/ability.  For example, Nathan Chen. When he dropped the goal of getting the gold, his emotional state righted itself and the pressure dropped. He was placed 17th after the short, so in the long, he can drop the pressure and just skate, after all there is already no chance for the gold. But in the entire case of Nathan Chen, even though this was his first Olympics, his entire preparation was for the Olympic Champion title. However, this was his first olympics, so his entire emotional and psychological state changed. Beforehand, the audience support was high, and the americans had very high expectations for him. In fact his preparation was pretty good, but then he had that error in the short. Well mistakes/errors are errors, if you fall that many times, then you will be number 17. And it was in that situation that his mentality changed and finally triggered his ability. 

I：The psychological state that you mentioned, possibly for athletes like Sui and Han,  or Boyang, who are very young, there will be an effect. For example, some of the younger athletes are absolutely fearless, but some athletes because it is their first olympics,  or due to age and lack of competition experience, may become a bit unbalanced psychologically? 

 

Z: To a degree, yes, because the olympics involve 4 years of long preparation, and for athletes the olympic medal is the pinnacle of their careers. Many outstanding athletes, such as Yu Shaokuan, or Kurt Browning from men's figure skating,  have taken 4, 5 world championship titles,  but have not won an olympics title. It's not just about how you prepared during the time up to the Olympics,  maybe mentally you can also handle the pressure, you can stabilize the nerves, and you can focus on realizing your own movements/skating psychologically. In the case of the germans, their psychological state for getting this olympic gold, is a bit like us (Shen/Zhao)-we used 12 years, 3 olympics to prepare. First time we failed, we used the quad throw to force it, and if we did it and finished the program fine, maybe that time we would have succeeded. Then another 4 years passed, at Turin, I prepared fully,  and just when I completed my preparations my Achilles tendon tore, so we only got a 3rd place. Then at the 2010 Olympics, at that point, your psychological state and your experience, and your drive and desire to be the olympic champion, it's already reached the point where it would not allow anything else (anything frivolous) to distract or control you. Maybe you'll think, ah what if I'm nervous, what if I do this or that type of emotional state, can I face the five rings (Olympics), can I live up to my preparations-but at that point, you don't even care about this, and so that drive, that thirst to be the Olympic champion, will aid you to overcome everything. In this case, the german team, (Aljona) is actually Ukranian, she started out with a german partner, won a couple WCs. After they separated, she found a frenchman to compete with her representing Germany. Now the pressure they face is immense, and their experience is not exactly smooth either, so why do they do this? Because they have the drive to be Olympic champions, they must get that gold, they want to prove that they are the best athletes. In this case, she (Aljona) has also taken about 12 years. Back in 2010,  she was competing with us for the gold, then Sochi and now to Pyeongchang. In this case our regret is that after the Short program, we (Sui/Han) had a lead of about 6 points,  but in terms of experience and (mental) maturity the german team has the advantage. The german team essentially  came here with a statment that they are here for nothing but the gold medal, that " I don't care about anything, but I will do this, and there is no pressure and nothing that we cannot take on or overcome, my mentality is already strong enough."  So in the free skate, the german team skated their best program (scores), if they made any mistake, then Sui/Han would have won. And this is one way to tll if athlets are mature enough. Now overall this year, the chinese figure skating team is a very young team. So there are many people who say, "Oh, you're very young, so if the results are not ideal, it's alright." But I feel, that as an athlete, as a mature, professional athlete, even if you are a Chinese athlete, this is a process that you have to go through. You might not think of anything when preparing to compete at the Olympics, but when you actually see the reality of the olympics (TN: here he says you see the five rings),  and see the actual mood of the venue,  feel the emotional atmosphere created by everyone around you, this then creates a type of pressure that these younger athletes cannot handle. Sui Han made errors on those 2 side by side jumps, then the 2 lost levels, and 2 movements levels did not get completed (full GOEs?), so in the free skate they only got 3rd. Boyang had the same issue. In his six minute warm up, Boyang got nervous, but in the end he did manage to face the pressure, and he was able to adjust his mental state on the go, and finish with only one error, relatively close to his best program. As such, I am proud of them. 

I: If an athlete is able to be as mature as you mentioned, then in an important competition with this type of atmosphere, then the athlete should be able to look at this calmly, and fully show his/her full abilities. In this case, this is an area that our younger athletes lack. Now, Sui/Han got a silver, Boyang got fourth, and Yu/Zhang got 8th, so if we were to score the team on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being perfect), what score would you give the Chinese team for their performance at this Olympics? 

Z: 7 points

I: 7?

Z: 7, 8 points. Youth is an advantage, and a disadvantage. 

I: True. 

Z: Previously, last year in May when we had the entire chinese team training together, myself and Coach Shen (Shen Xue), were continuously explaining to them about the olympics. And in our practice/training methods, we were trying to fully prepare for the Olympics. We did a lot,  still even today, there are people saying, "Director Zhao, we didn't know you could talk that much!"  So this time, we all felt a bit tired, because we tried our best to make sure the athletes do not feel like this is their first time participating in the Olympics. The athletes should feel secure, as if they know what needs to be known (everything) and so have confidence. However,  regardless, they (association and coaches) don't really understand these athletes' abilities to handle pressure, they don't really understand the youngsters after all (TN: okay Zhao, harsh). With younger athletes if we talk too much about training methods and insist that the young athlete must persevere and keep at it during a certain period, the athlete him/herself might feel that what he/she did is enough. So even these days after the events, we still have to speak with the athletes, and remind that what they did was insufficient (not fully up to their potential). Many athletes, especially for their first Olympics, approach the Olympics with a sort of apathy, where they won't think or care about the results and just go for it whichever way they want, but that's only okay if there is no competition for medals. So when they are faced with the decisions, and the real possibilities at the olympics, they might not be able to handle the actual pressure of reality. 

I: Here I'd like to ask a more technical question, that only a professional like you can answer. Because I don't know what types of psychological states an athlete can have. So for figure skating in particular, what type of mental state is best to help a skater display their full abilities? We already mentioned apathy as a type, or would a "I must win""I must have the gold medal" type of confident state be better? 

Z: I think self confidence state is more important. 

I: Confidence is more important in the end. 

Z: We still say that no matter what changes occur,  it still is due to your training/practice. 

I: Still goes back to practice?

Z: It is about the thoroughness and details of your training, the degree of completion (execution) and the overall quality. All of this determines your predominant mental and emotional state at the Olympics. Any movement you make, if you know that from practice that you are able to do fully, then what is there to worry about. 

I: but sometimes this worry is not during the competition, it is before the competition. For example 2 days ago, when interviewed, Sui Wenjing said she had insomnia before the short program. She was so nervous she had insomnia. So before she got on the ice her legs were shaking. And the next day when waking up she would cry. When you found out, were you worried for her? 

Z: This is because of some issues they had in the previous practices. She received an injury to her right leg, and previously to ease some of the pressure on her left leg she had to use her right leg a lot. So then her right foot had something that looked like periostitis (TN: not sure if correct, I had to use an online translator, but some kind of joint inflammation). As such her practices had to be reduced, and she had to ensure her best state would be at the olympics. However, because you didn't have that build up of practice, even when you try for a valiant attempt at the gold, you won't have enough confidence. So why insomnia? Is it because you're worried about the medal, or because you are still thinking of your own program? When you do not have enough confidence in your own actions, then you will have huge pressure mentally. 

I: So when we talk about the Chinese figure skating team, many people will say that our technical ability is enough, we have sufficient difficulty, but we lack a bit in artistry and presentation. Many people in the media say this, when commenting they will emphasize this presentation skill. So taking this opportunity, we would like you to teach us what is artistry/presentation in figure skating? What does it encompass? 

Z: Actually, athletes all have very different ideas of figure skating. But now as a coach, we say that figure skating has 2 key themes (TN: stands on 2 legs is what he actually says). In so far as understanding artistry, for athletes they are engaged in dance for a very long time when training. There are no boundaries to artistry, and so your performance style also has no boundaries. The key now though, is to increase awareness and understanding of artistry among the athletes. Once your technical abilities are good, your competitors and external media will try to find your weakness, and exaggerate your weakness. If you're strong enough, you might not give them the chance to find your weakness. Back then, we faced a very long period where the theme was Chinese athletes only have athletic abilities but no artistry.  However in the end we did manage to overcome that, and in a world championship still using the old 6.0 system, we got perfect scores for artistry. Thus it doesn't mean that as a Chinese athlete, your artistry is never enough. For Sui and Han, when it comes to the artistic presentation,  such as for Turandot and even with the previous season's programs,  we care about the details of the movements. We have to measure ourselves against the highest level, and so we have to care about the details, to the degree that even a single note must be done executed fully. If it is 4 beats, then all 4 beats must be done perfectly, we cannot allow you to complete a 4 beats movement with just 2 beats. So we have increased our details and quality of practice significantly, so that even if the athlete does not feel or know the music very well, the rhythm, expression, position, and even the angle shown to the judges (back, arms etc), etc are all broken down to allow the athlete to understand and express well.

I: I heard that Sui/Han when practicing Turandot, you specially invited Zhang Yimou (TN: famous film director in China) to explain to them about this opera. Is this a normal training method? 

Z: No this isn't a part of our normal training. It was hard to invite out Director Zhang Yimou. Including Director Chen Ya (for Shen and Zhao), the understanding of Turandot from Director Zhang and Chen, are much more nuanced and deeper than our understanding as athletes. We are competitive athletes, we're not the type to be involved in these arts-but they are people who research the arts. So the directors use their understanding to help guide us to better understand and read Turandot.  Now Turandot is a familiar piece to everyone, but from the culture, the story's scenes, when we choreographed the long program and edited the music cuts, the directors are very familiar, and can tell us what this specific segment is about story-wise,  and for this section what type of emotions should be shown, and how we should perform it for them, and what meaning this section is trying to express. And so from Director Zhang's explanation to them of their program sections, they can individually try to understand Turandot. 

I: So for artistry, including musicality and ability to understand rhythm in dance, and the ability to understand the background story to a music piece, ability to understand history and culture-it seems that this type of training is a huge undertaking. For these national athletes, since they're already on the national team, it seems like its a task that is trying to fix some overlooked areas. So is it instead something that should be prepared at a basic/foundation level before the athlete enters the national team? 

Z: Actually many people don't understand figure skating, and why it is so hard. Pairs has lifts and throws. Ice dance has a very technical system in place, it is international ballroom dancing on ice with 18 set pattern dances, so the styles and presentation requirement are all different for these sets. Men's and ladies singles,  from jumps to the transitions, there are different systems and each system is  different. Even though there are similarities, the overall systems are different. So athletes are practicing their own technical skills and trying to upgrade difficulty,  and this will consume a lot of time. But after a certain point they have to bring in music, yet we cannot train as someone whose main task is to study the arts, or as a dancer, because we don't have that much time. So usually it's after we confirm the layout, we invite a specialist to come in. For example, if the theme is classical ballet, then we would immediately follow up with a teacher for this. But even so, many of our athletes do have training in basic fundamentals for ballet and modern dance from a young age. In fact, they're always doing them, so even if they don't understand why its necessary, their understanding of dance and these basics do exist. 

I: Online, maybe as criticism, there are many comments that maybe chinese figure skaters focused too much on spins, too much on difficult movements when young, so when they need to actually understand the music and choreography,  they've missed the timing window. But your opinion is that the overall pacing is correct? That at a young age you need to have the fundamentals, and over time gradually add in more understanding? 

Z:  Our coach, Yao, said this to us before and I think he is correct in this. We are in a competitive sport, and so we need to have the technical framework first, you need to have difficult moves. We've had athletes who are very good dancers, they're all high level in ballet or dance, and they also went to PC. They performed very well, but the technical difficulty levels were not enough. If that's enough sufficient, likewise you can't make it to the top. Look at men's, try a quad jump, try a quad throw? No matter how good your artistry, if you don't have the difficulty levels, then...

I: True

Z: We have a lot of examples. Such as our Misha Ge, his understanding of artistry, and his understanding of dance, is very good. All his programs are very well performed. But due to his technical levels, his levels in this competitive sport, he has a weakness. A program with 5 types of triples and 3A, how can you compete against programs with 5 quads? 

I: So difficult moves are very important, artistry is also very important. You cannot miss either. 

Z: Yes, so now as part of their training, they have to attend music classes, dance classes, these are all normal part of training that must be done. 

I: Director Zhao, as such, do you ever encourage your students like suggesting to them to watch these types of movies, or read these novels etc? 

Z: We do that. For example, each year we attend the regular normal performances of a modern dance company. Sometimes we also discuss with the dancers afterwards, and sometimes the teachers will also come and do guidance work with our athletes. 

I: You mentioned before that with Shen Xue,  you guys broke the stereotype that Chinese athletes lack artistic expression, and managed to get perfect scores often in the Presentation points. At that point, did you guys have any tricks/shortcuts that were used? 

Z: There are no shortcuts for time/experience. Let's use an example, like Yuzuru Hanyu. From this olympics, we can say that his programs selections were very appropriate. Yuzuru became champion at the last olympics, but were his programs at the last olympics good? Actually, they were not that good. So during this 4 year preparation period (leading to PC), the type of aura/presence he exudes on ice, he has built it up to be sufficient (TN: for PC). And even for this olympics, due to his injury for the last 2 months, we also cannot say he was in his best physical state, but then why was he able to compete at his best at the olympics? This question is something all of us coaches have been researching on (TN: can also be read to imply this is a topic worthwhile for coaches to study). In the case of Yuzuru, his maturity, his experience, allows him to have enough confidence to perform in competition. This allows him, in important large competitions, to dig down and find a way to provoke himself to do even more/be even stronger. This is in contrast to many other athletes who feel and crumble under external pressure, so they don't even perform at the level of their normal practice, and for many it's much lower. But for Yuzuru? When he is moved to do so,  he actually shows something even better than his normal practice levels.

I: True.

Z: This is the beauty of the olympics. Then if you look at skaters from the past such as Plushenko or Yagudin, their experience/time and maturity is also enough so they became world champions multiple times. Their performance on ice is about the same, and while you can't say the artistry was comparatively better or worse, their presentation and presence can hold the attention/heart of the audience and judges. That self confidence that is seen when performed, if you see it, you know there are no problems, and believe that this program is definitely flawless. This mood when exuded gives the program an advantage.

I: Yes, when you watch you definitely can say that Yuzuru's presence is just too strong/great. These days, your weibo and wechat feeds are probably all filled with him. I don't know, but Director Zhao, do you think that up until now, is Yuzuru possibly the greatest men's singles figure skater? Do you think he's surpassed Plushenko?

Z: hmm, every single time after competitions, there are meetings among judges (TN: judges associations, however here Zhao doesn't say if it's Chinese or actual judges at the competition), and discussions about stuff,  and each time they will do replays of some of the best athletes and have discussions. We can then say from these discussions, that this is a trend/direction that skating is going. Each year, each olympic cycle there is one dominant style or view, unless there is a surprising strong new trend from an athlete that starts a new style trend or era, which then causes the judges to have some changes in thoughts. So for these outstanding athletes, we can say that their era has arrived, and during this period whether its technical skills, consistency, performance at each competition, including the previous WC (Helsinki 2017) he had really high scores, all judges know/acknowledge that unless he makes a giant error, then this gold is his. (TN: there are some implications here that judges do discuss momentum and have an idea of what is the gold standard for figure skating stylistically at any given time. And based on what Zhao is saying, the Hanyu style is the dominant trend, so people should not be surprised that he won). That momentum/presence is already sufficient (TN: probably implies in his favor)

I: True. Whenever we talk about Yuzuru Hanyu, we always mention his artistry/presentation first. His gaze, his body language, are truly so good we cannot help but compliment him. But we also found out some details such as himself being personally involved in the music editing, and even participated in the design for his own costume. It seems that this is definitely different from us normal, average people. It seems that in singles skating, we very rarely see these type of actions from skaters.

Z: A Professional athlete can manage their own time very well. Besides training on ice, and off ice training, some skaters who really have a love for these hobbies or areas, they will thoughtfully devote a lot of time to them. A lot of our athletes, when done competing will just think about how to play later, but there are athletes who are able to manage and delegate their time very well. He definitely loves doing these things, because without that love he would not participate in doing these things (TN: music editing, costume design etc). And in figure skating, due to the amount of disciplines involved such as music editing, choreography, there is just so much that he could do. As a professional athlete, if he has time and wants to do it, then I think it's perfectly fine for him to participate. But this is very different from how we (China) do things (TN: if you tie it with his previous talk about arts training for skaters, he's also implying that we currently have no skaters with the maturity to do this). As such we choose to have a team involved and cooperate together. In such specific fields, no matter how good a pairs skater or a coach, you are not able to objectively obtain or work at the same level as a specialist of that field. As such right now, we work with various teams to support an athelete-this is the system in place. Now in the case of Yuzuru, he cannot design as well as a well known designer, but it is easier for him to invite the top designer in the world to his team. Now, because he loves skating, he is involved, but when we consider the entire final complete creation process, I'm sure that this isn't just Yuzuru alone. With music editing it is the same, no matter what you are not in the same league as those people who work with music editing daily.

I: So for men's skating, what is actually going on is also a competition between the national teams behind the skaters. But there must be some things that are also determined by the individual, such as the sense of self discipline . You also mentioned that Yuzuru loves figure skating. We also noticed a rather extreme example of this, that is when he was injured and stuck to his bed, he started studying anatomy. The goal of this study, was so he can understand how to prevent deterioration of his form/abilities, whether he is on ice or stuck in his bed. This seems to be rather extreme, especially since you mentioned that after competition, it seems like our athletes just go let loose and play instead.

so is this a difference? 

Z: This actually seems to be a type of self-discipline of a professional athlete. 

I: Yes?

Z: why does he study anatomy? Because he wants to be better, he wants to recover faster. Like when I had my torn Achilles tendon. Because so much of your time in recovery is spent in bed, you will do visualization of your movements, and of course you will think more about your injury. This might in turn be interpreted by others that you are studying anatomy. (TN: I don't think Zhao is aware of Yuzu's major) Actually for athletes today, sports anatomy is a mandatory course for their major in university (TN: Yes, in China Sports studies is a major in university specifically for athletes).  You would study the source and theory behind your injuries, including your ligaments, muscles structures, joints and fat structures, already these are subjects that all coaches have studied. But then today, when an athlete gets good results, people (media) will go and take this result and sort of mythologize this person to have god like abilities or self discipline. But in reality, they are just normal people, they also have times when they make mistakes. So when we talk about the beauty of the Olympics, and for competitive sports, it is about the unpredictability, because it is not like watching a bunch of robots perform. The results are due to a culmination of efforts and experience: the athlete can do design, can do music editing, and on top of all that even goes and studies anatomy all for that goal, then he has done everything possible he can do. And when done well, then that athlete will be very strong. Then he has justified confidence, because no matter what is missing, this athlete can fill in that gap. (TN: read with the next sentence by the interviewer, because Zhao is implying the above lines and conditions apply to Yuzu). 

Interviewer: So in the end we're all humans, even Yuzuru Hanyu is human, and as such we all have weaknesses, but overall Yuzuru's skill is actually higher than everyone else. Then in your opinion, for the younger chinese athletes, when in comparison with Yuzuru or even athletes such as Nathan Chen, where are our main weaknesses?

Z: We have multiple weaknesses. It's a judgment on our overall total maturity and abilities-including experiences, technical skill, understanding of the arts and artistry. The reason why figure skating is hard is because it requires a lot of skill sets (multi-disciplinary), and it is very hard to be fully proficient in all the skillsets. So if we compare between Yuzuru and Boyang, Boyang has the better BV (technical difficulty level). 

I: True. 

Z: But then when it comes to skating skills, then this is our shortcoming. So our skating skills, our understanding of artistry, and including artistic sensibilities, this all needs to be built up by athletes over a long time in their training, in their life, and general knowledge accumulation. This is the only way to increase these skillsets. These days we still have to train for the technical parts season by season; however our thinking is also changing. We need to fix our shortcomings, in all disciplines. So our thoughts are to just list out all our shortcomings, and for each invite the best teams (TN: external, foreign teams) to do it and guide the athletes so the athletes have a better understanding. This must be done. There is no one who at the start is strong at everything, so we must find a way to fix/balance the shortcomings. 

I: So we need to consider the individual athlete and tailor specifically to fill in their individual weaknesses. 

Z: Yes, and I think that in the next 4 years, these 3 specific athletes have great potential. 

I: Yes, great potential. 

Z: Sui and Han, they are young, this is their first olympics. Same for Boyang. To be able to perform at their level in such a high stakes event, is very good and gives one hope for the future. And after this experience,  they have matured significantly overnight. "I want to practice now, and I want to compete immediately tomorrow!" This is the type of training and competitive attitude that we want to encourage and create in our giant team. An attitude of "so even if I fail, so what, I can start anew because we have worlds next, we have another new season next."

I: What you said right now, was this something they said to you after competition? 

Z: Yes. 

I: They want to do this immediately afterwards?

Z:  Yes

I: This will and desire to rise up and compete again? 

Z: Yes, this is what is so great now. Because competition pressure is something that cannot be given by me lecturing them; until they experience it first hand they don't know that feeling. So when faced with this pressure, even if they try to ignore it, they would still get nervous. No matter how well one prepares, until you face it in reality you still cannot fully act on the preparation. So only when an athlete gains this experience do they understand what that pressure means. 

I: True. So for 2022 Beijing, other than these 3 specific athletes, will there be any other new outstanding athlete? For figure skating, what is the state of our potential future athletes (TN: essentially do we have future stars)?

Z:  Not optimistic. But this applies to our entire Chinese winter sports team. We have a severe shortage of future talents, and this is a trend throughout all winter sports disciplines. For pairs, we have Yu/Zhang, but Zhang Hao is already 31. For Peng/Jin, we might have to do more adjustments for their synchronicity and their techniques and skills gap. All countries face this issue about talent cycles, even Russia. The two teams they sent this time will need to make adjustments and being preparations anew for the next quad. In the case of Chinese men's singles, other than Boyang, we also have Han Yan, but Han Yan is also a slightly older, and since he had his shoulder surgery, his has not returned fully to peak form. Here and there always a bit of injury, always a bit of adjustments here, so he has not stabilized enough to steadily train. So even though Han Yan's results here are not bad, they were not that good. Then when it comes to future skaters, at juniors level, we have a huge gap when compared to Russia. 

I: What about ladies?

Z: The problem is even more apparent in ladies. In the JGPF this year, of the 4 disciplines, Russia managed to get in 4 pairs team. In pairs there are only 6 teams, there were 4 russian teams, 1 chinese team and an Australian team. In ladies, there were 5 russian skaters and a lone japanese skater.  And here you can see the preparation of future skaters across the world. And even in ice dance and men's, maybe in the men's category Russia is weaker. So when we look at how we prepare the pool of skaters for the next four years, there is going to be a change in method, structure and format. We will try to emphasize raising the talent pool so that there is no gap in the pool of talents at the lower levels, and they can catch up. 

I: We noticed that now more and more children are willing to participate in figure skating. And it's spread out, so that in cities in northern and southern China many skating clubs have popped up. While this might not help us for 2022, but from a long term growth perspective, this is a good trend. 

Z: Yes. Right now the Chinese Skating Association is also trying to lead and guide the development of this industry. While the number of participants is high, we want to try to integrate figure skating into education, such as physical education, where figure skating can become a class or experience in physical education. Whether safety, technique, and general knowledge of figure skating, many children do like to participate. And in so far as education, especially for children in these figure skating clubs, because you need to spend a lot of time training, but at the same time still have many classes for basic education,  we need to guide and figure out how to ensure that sports and basic education can be integrated and balanced well. So that skaters can train but also go to school,  and resolve many development issues the skaters face. This is something that is already being spread out in many cities, where we link up with normal school classes, or with arts specialty schools. So I think in the next four years, the expansion of figure skating will pick up pace. 

I: Now I hear there is another concern, and that is while the clubs are increasing and the number of participants are increasing, the coaching skills/levels at the basics levels is not even. 

Z; For this, the Chinese Skating Association is also implementing some changes, such as the training frequency of coaches will increase. And we will also look into and bring in some good coaches training system and methodology from foreign countries to China. For example, Canada- if you look at Canada's results this year overall across disciplines, you can tell their overall system is very mature and advanced. US is the same. These skater development systems in North America are ones we can reference, find the best aspects of their systems, apply and adjust them to fit and work with China, and thus develop a system to expand figure skating here. 

I: Yes. So for children who are skaters now, and especially for their parents, do you have any recommendations/suggestions?

Z: I think first, is to allow the children to enjoy figure skating. That this activity is free-willingly chosen by the children. That no parent these days would force their children to do something. In the next 4 years, these children will have hopped on a rapid express lane of expansion for figure skating, and the ways to get in (to professional teams) is expanding. Many children will be able to train and go to school at the same time, and the federation will give them support for this. They will be taking a shortcut: before our system required us to go through the district sports teams, then the city sports team, then the professional sports teams, then the provincial team, and only then do you have the possibility to join the national team level. You have to compete at many levels and only then can you possibly join. So how has the system changed now? If you have potential, then the federation will consider giving you support, perhaps the support of the best team in China, maybe the best team in the world to help you develop. So then the child's abilities will grow significantly, but the determining factor is the interest level of the child, and how much the child loves skating. 

I: True. We noticed that even from your era, Chinese figure skating have followed a plan of "Go abroad, and invite in" as a training method, where we invite foreign coaches and trainers, and we also go overseas to western countries to train. For the next quad, as the Director, is this going to be continued? 

Z: Yes, of course, because we should use the best supporting team to create the best team. The domestic coaches are working hard to meet international levels, whether it is in vision, technique, teaching methods, or even management, we are working to be more international. And when your country is strong, you could guide and lead this trend. And for overseas, we have worked for a long time with Lori Nichol in Canada. Before it was just her, later she got a music teacher, a spin technician, footwork specialist, musician, for several years already. So for music,  if you don't like the first selection/cut made,  they can immediately change to a different one for you. They can do a lot of changes very quickly,  and they are very professional. So here, even she has a supporting team to complete everything, so she's not just a choreographer, or a trainer. Now, we're also the same way. For example, if we recognize a foreign fitness coach (strength training coach), and this coach is approved through our selection process, if this coach truly has done a lot of research on muscles and strength training, then we can invite this person to the team. So then this coach can increase the overall abilities of the team, which also resolves issues we face elsewhere in our strengths (office?) training. 

I: So for the foreign coaches we've invited in, the primary one is mainly responsible for strengths training. And when we go overseas, our emphasis is on music editing work and related fields. 

Z: Correct. 

I: So this methodology will be continued. 

Z: Yes, For example our pairs team had a significant technical advantage in the past years. Lifts, throws, twists, etc. And Boyang's jump technique, is recognized internationally as very high quality. But where we have shortcomings, we will borrow the strength of our country, and of the world, to help the athletes develop. 

I: Director Zhao, are you mainly responsible for the overall direction and strategy of the team, or do you also do individual coaching and guidance for some athletes? 

Z: I still have to oversee mainly some training for pairs. 

I: So now you are the head coach of the skating federation, and Shen Xue is the president of the Chinese Skating Association. I'm a bit curious, since both of you are involved, would life be a bit boring? Your life would always revolve around figure skating, are the times when you two agree that today, we will not talk about work, we cannot talk about figure skating. 

Z: Yes, we had one about 2 days ago. 

I: Really, what happened? Was it just too much talk about work?

Z: Well we partnered up for 18 years to get the Olympic gold,  and have spent so many years together, so figure skating is just a part of us. When we talk about athletes, we analyze and strip them down to the bare essentials, from technique, psychology etc etc. It's just too thorough. 

I: She can see through you and you can see through her. 

Z:  It's not even looking at each other now, but jointly looking together at the sport.  For the current structure of figure skating in China, we talk about it a lot,  a lot of our discussions revolve around work. Sometimes I ask, is it possible that we don't talk about work? 

I: When you discuss together, do you disagree at all? 

Z: yes, at times we disagree. Like us holding hands together and practicing pairs moves. It's not always in agreement and no side wins, and all couples are like that too. So we'll ask what is the priority, what do you give more importance to? 

I: This type of understanding should be already established over the course of 10+ years. It's gradually built up to this. 

Z: Yes, and it's mutually remind/advise and mutually support one another. 

I: What type of relationships do you have with the athletes? Is it teacher-pupil? As a leader-follower? Or like a sibling? 

Z: The task of a coach is just that complex. All types of relationships exist. However, definitely not like father-son relationship mode. But sometimes it is like treating children, since there are now novice and junior teams. Our relationships are complex, for example Zhang Hao, we're like friends.  However that does not mean we overlook details in practice due to this. If you don't do what is expected, if you do practice poorly, if you deserve to be punished (criticized), then you will be criticized. 

I: Many viewers are very curious about the daily life and training of athletes. Especially on the young athletes who made good results, where we have a lot of post-90's gen, and even post-00's gen coming up, in your view is the management of these young athletes harder?

Z: The values of these young athletes are different. 

I: What do you mean?

Z: As a chinese athlete, our system is different. The federation is always trying to help and support them, creating conditions and environments for them to do their best. But what about foreign athletes? Only when on the national team do they receive any support. A while ago I saw a report about Vincent Zhou, where in order to work with a coach, he has to travel back and forth between different cities. The travel duration is 3, 4 hours. So daily that amount of time is spent traveling back and forth. This is the reality of professional athletes overseas. Sometimes we say that an athlete needs a push, a force, that comes from within.  This type of motivation that comes when your family and everything around you is sacrificed so you can skate, this is something that many chinese athletes have difficulty understanding. Now chinese athletes need this type of motivation/drive, but mostly our drive is a type of responsibility,  where we repay back to our country and those around us for providing support and the conditions to allow us to do well. This gratefulness is our state, not necessarily the driven mentality where we must accomplish something. So after these competitions, me and Shen Xue also thought about these questions, what is the root cause etc. So when it comes to the strong healthy development of figure skating, there are still many roads, many areas to explore. 

I: True, based on what you said, these athletes do have a different values system, because after all, they grew up in a different environment. As a coach though, when it comes to management, do you think you have some defining management characteristic or style? 

Z: Strict, objective/scientific, efficient and effective. Also being careful is important. And also want to instill some patriotism in the athletes, willpower. Many times our views as coaches and our views back as athletes are very different. 

I: There are a lot of details that people are curious about, in regards to the daily lives of athletes. For example, do you allow them to play with their phones or games up past midnight (all-nighter)? 

Z: Absolutely not allowed. 

I: Are they allowed to date internally? 

Z: Hmm...we do not recommend it. 

I: But going back to a question that was raised earlier, as a pairs team, I feel that without some foundations to your emotions, it's hard to take it to another level? Your thoughts based on past experience do you agree? 

Z: Does this classify as gossip/rumor? No, but I don't think that's necessarily the case, there's nothing saying that a relationship is determinate. We think that the athletes must be brought up to have good morals, a strong will, and can represent the country. We also added this concept of a professional athlete. When you invest into your profession, your career, then arguments, relationships etc are all minor issues. What is a professional athlete? It's when the profession is given high priority and importance. Everything that is done is revolving around the profession. 

I: True, if you do it with this spirit of professionalism, where everything is done with a goal in mind, then regardless of the relationship, problems can be solved. 

I: last question, in your opinion in this entire team, which athlete is the easiest to manage, is most obedient? 

Z:  None are easy to manage. 

I: then who is the hardest to manage?

Z: For the Chinese figure skating team? 

I: Yes, the figure skating team. 

Z:  No one is extremely harder to manage than the rest. 

I: So all about the same?

Z; Correct. 

I: personalities are all kind of like. But regardless of whether they are easy or hard to manage, we hope that they can have good results 4 years later at the Olympics. 

<not translating the rest, because it's just ceremonial fluff> 

 

 

So while translating, based on the entire context of the interview, Zhao is actually more complimentary to Yuzu than dismissive. He has a very objective, neutral tone throughout, but there are some details that came through. Note that these are just some inferences, and conjectures I personally made. I could be totally wrong. 

  1) Zhao is very impressed by Yuzu's mentality. When discussing artistry, he goes and waxes poetic about how Yuzu's mental strength is something that coaches are looking into (hint: your loss as a coach if you don't). Because unlike other athletes, Yuzu when under pressure can find a way to draw out even stronger ability levels than what he had at practice. Normally athletes tend to perform less than practice when under pressure. This is part and parcel of what he considers the champion mentality and drive for getting that gold, which he considers the best state of mind for a figure skater when competing. And if you watch that part of the video, and notice the tone, Zhao is kind of gushing and a bit in awe. 

2)  He did discuss momentum, and based on what he said, Yuzu, or the style of skating that Yuzu represents, is the golden standard now. But this momentum was not gifted to him, since he also mentions above that Yuzu had to prepare the entire 4 years between Sochi and PC to establish his dominance. 

3) Given momentum, and that he was the golden standard, it was natural that a clean Yuzu won. There's nothing odd about it, it should be expected. I guess Zhao did not read the US media hype? 

4) Regarding Yuzu's artistry, the interviewer posed it as a bit of "why do our athletes suck next to this/ why don't our athletes do this" since he goes on about Yuzu being involved in his own music edits, costume designs etc. So Zhao said to stop mythologizing Yuzu, and recognize that for many athletes a team is necessary, that even in Yuzu's case, he still has a professional team behind him. So in the end, it's a team vs team competition.

5) He sounds pretty neutral, but on the whole he is respectful towards Yuzu. Actually what he said towards the end is that if you truly love the sport and have the technical skillset, the artistry, the passion, maturity, then you should have the confidence to win (implied: like Yuzuru). He's actually  not surprised by Yuzu's actions, since he views them as natural outgrowths of Yuzu's love for figure skating. 

6) He does de-mythologize Yuzu quite a bit. To  him, Yuzu is human, but he showed what should be expected as a result when a normal human applies himself thoroughly to his sport/his passion. Since Yuzu did his utmost to apply himself to skating, his result is natural. The implication and take away seems to be, he's not a god, he is a human who worked his max, so do not put him on a godlike status-instead if you did less than what he did as a human, maybe it should be expected you did not get equivalent results. 

7) Lastly, in some ways, his description of the professional athlete at the end, is what Yuzu embodies. So perhaps to a degree, Yuzu is what he considers a model, ideal professional athlete. Considering Zhao's high standards, that's a pretty big compliment.

 

I'm not sure why people expected gushing. Zhao is the head of chinese skating after all- he gave a lot of compliments to Yuzuru and Yuzu's entire team, but you do have to read the entire context, all the questions and subtext. It's kind of like asking the director of USFSA to gush about Yuzuru-I don't think we'd get a comment about how all coaches should study Yuzu's mentality and ability to drive himself and deal with pressure. 

 

[Moria Polonius]

ACI/Oly Chopin debate: I liked Oly better, my favorite part is the step sequence and I thought it was better at Olys. But I liked the hand detail on the last spin better at ACI. Oly Seimei is also my favorite because of that amazing energy in the step and especially choreo sequence. If I were trying to convert a new fan, I'd show them both Oly performances. Prefacing with, "he skated injured, that's why he stumbled."  

[WinForPooh]

On 2/25/2018 at 6:34 AM, Xen said:

Guys, Zhao is now also the president of the CFSA and essentially runs the skating system in China. There is no way he would ever publicly disown the system in place, especially if he wants to get any changes in place. Believe it or not, there's a lot of criticism of the system inside China itself, about how we pool talent, about how about half of China (ie Southern China) isn't engaged, about how some skaters should go overseas because the chinese skating system for coaching is an old fashioned dinosaur. And this gets emphasized a lot by commentators during the figure skating events. Just in the gala broadcast now, the chinese commentator just said "South Korea started figure skating much later than China or Japan, but in such a short time they were able to get ladies who placed so high (higher than Chinese ladies)." The implication is, "Yo China, what's going on?"

 

I'll take a look once the gala is done. Full 53 min interview is here: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/vc1ig4drkvw1ujb/u0025jg5mlg.html

 

I'm translating the entire video under spoilers. By the way,  the full title of the interview translates as "Interview with Zhao Hongbo: Figure skating is an extreme technical task. Coach explains the secret behind Yuzuru Hanyu's Olympic victory." And the solo part for Yuzu talk, is actually titled "How is Yuzuru so strong?" There's also another video clip titled "Asking Director Zhao Hongbo, where is China's Yuzuru Hanyu?" (Lol, the envy is real)

 

The more I translate this interview, the more I wonder what Zhao and Brian will talk about if they had a coffee chat about training/preparation methods. Both are pretty systemic. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Start: (going forward, I is the interviewer, Z is Zhao Hongbo) TN are my translator notes and comments when translating this interview. 

 

Interviewer: Figure skating is an important event where the Chinese team tried to obtain a medal. Before Pyeongchang, the Chinese figure skating team has obtained 8 olympic medals in pairs and ladies.  In this sport that originated from Europe, what are the strengths of the Chinese athletes, and conversely, where do we fall short? So today, we have specially invited the head coach (director) of the Chinese Figure Skating Association, who is also our previous Olympic Champion in pairs, Director Zhao Hongbo, to analyze and explain to us. Hello Director Zhao. 

Zhao: Hello. 

I: Right now the figure skating competitions in Pyeongchang are nearing the end. The disciplines which China is competitive in have already ended 2 days ago. We should be fairly relaxed, and focus mainly on spectating and observing the rest of the competition correct?

Z: Yes, it is like that, as the olympic competition duration is pretty long. Usually we have to focus on one event, and then focus on the other events. So pairs have ended, then men's have ended, today ice dance ended, so the overall (battle) duration is stretched pretty long. 

I: Until now, from the perspective of athlete's abilities/level, and overall state of competition (competition fierceness),  what do you think are the characteristics of figure skating at the Pyeongchang olympics? Relative to the last Olympics?

Z: The overall technical difficulty level has increased. First, on pairs skating. At Sochi, the russians took 1-2 in pairs, the russian teams displayed very complete programs, but in terms of technical level, at Sochi, there were not a lot of quads. But this olympics, three teams did.  The russian team did a quad twist. Sui Han did a quad twist. And in throws, the Canadian pair did a quad throw. In pairs, the number of people who can complete quads is not a lot. Back in 2002, we (Shen/Zhao) tried a quad throw in competition at Salt Lake, but failed. So the overall technical abilities have increased. Now men's is even scarier. This year, men's have significantly increased the overall number and variety of quads, and even quality.  For example, you have Nathan Chen, who fought back from 17th place to be first place in the free skate, and completed 6 quads in competition, one 3A. Of the 8 jumping passes, he almost did only quads. Boyang Jin also did well in completing his 4Lz. And then there's this Zhou person from US (TN Note: ROFL, he doesn't know Vincent) who also did really well technically.  So from the technical point, these 2 disciplines (pairs and men's) are almost at the extreme boundaries of human athletic abilities. I don't know if men's will be able to do 4A, or quint jumps (TN: gods, Zhao, don't encourage it too!).  I don't think this is realistically that possible. (TN: Oh dear, Zhao, you want to speak with Yuzu about 4As?). 

I: Very hard to imagine from current reality, no?

Z: Yes, unless you have a very particular talented person. He happens to have very fast rotation speed or long air time,  body is really slender (thin),  but has extremely strong explosive ability. Then it might be possible. 

I: Yes, yes. But as you mentioned that the overall level has increased, going back to the overall competitive structure, do you think there has been any changes for chinese athletes in terms of how we stand relative to others? Using pairs and men's as examples. 

Z: There has been significant change. This year with Sui and Han, at Pyeongchang, they've tried their best. But in so far as completion goes, there are some regrets regarding that, as we lost by 0.43 points margin to the germans. Since last year when we started pushing/focusing on Sui Han, we were preparing for Pyeongchang. Last year at worlds, our team managed to grab 3 spots, and Sui Han won the WC, so from that perspective, Sui Han have the potential to be the champions this Olympics. From points, from standings etc, they had the ability this season too. Now for Boyang Jin, he is the first athlete to complete a quad Lutz in competition. What he did was to change the way many other athletes viewed BV/technical difficulty. After he finished it, many other countries started taking practicing the 4Lz seriously, and then quad jump variety started increasing. So it changed the overall outlook towards quad jumps. So after this practice period many countries were able to obtain what they needed, so the quad jumps are now a trend/theme. So now singles is about difficulty. So in these two disciplines, from a technical standpoint, we have the ability to go and fight for the champion/gold title. 

I: So the ability already exists?

Z: Correct. 

I: Many commentators and media said before this olympics, that Sui Han will make a very strong attempt to win the gold. However regretfully in the end, we lost to the german team by 0.43 points. Looking at these results, do you feel any regrets? 

Z: Of course, definitely some regrets. However, for what these 3 athletes (Sui Han and Boyang) displayed in competition, I'm also proud and happy. Why do I say so? Olympics occur once every 4 years, the duration is very long. When preparing for the olympics, the pressure, mental and emotional state,  even their desire (thirst and drive) for the gold, are different. For many athletes, when they are at the end of the rope (backed into a corner), the situation will trigger their greatest power/ability.  For example, Nathan Chen. When he dropped the goal of getting the gold, his emotional state righted itself and the pressure dropped. He was placed 17th after the short, so in the long, he can drop the pressure and just skate, after all there is already no chance for the gold. But in the entire case of Nathan Chen, even though this was his first Olympics, his entire preparation was for the Olympic Champion title. However, this was his first olympics, so his entire emotional and psychological state changed. Beforehand, the audience support was high, and the americans had very high expectations for him. In fact his preparation was pretty good, but then he had that error in the short. Well mistakes/errors are errors, if you fall that many times, then you will be number 17. And it was in that situation that his mentality changed and finally triggered his ability. 

I：The psychological state that you mentioned, possibly for athletes like Sui and Han,  or Boyang, who are very young, there will be an effect. For example, some of the younger athletes are absolutely fearless, but some athletes because it is their first olympics,  or due to age and lack of competition experience, may become a bit unbalanced psychologically? 

 

Z: To a degree, yes, because the olympics involve 4 years of long preparation, and for athletes the olympic medal is the pinnacle of their careers. Many outstanding athletes, such as Yu Shaokuan, or Kurt Browning from men's figure skating,  have taken 4, 5 world championship titles,  but have not won an olympics title. It's not just about how you prepared during the time up to the Olympics,  maybe mentally you can also handle the pressure, you can stabilize the nerves, and you can focus on realizing your own movements/skating psychologically. In the case of the germans, their psychological state for getting this olympic gold, is a bit like us (Shen/Zhao)-we used 12 years, 3 olympics to prepare. First time we failed, we used the quad throw to force it, and if we did it and finished the program fine, maybe that time we would have succeeded. Then another 4 years passed, at Turin, I prepared fully,  and just when I completed my preparations my Achilles tendon tore, so we only got a 3rd place. Then at the 2010 Olympics, at that point, your psychological state and your experience, and your drive and desire to be the olympic champion, it's already reached the point where it would not allow anything else (anything frivolous) to distract or control you. Maybe you'll think, ah what if I'm nervous, what if I do this or that type of emotional state, can I face the five rings (Olympics), can I own up to my preparations-but at that point, you don't even care about this, and so that drive, that thirst to be the Olympic champion, will add you to overcome everything. In this case, the german team, (Aljona) is actually Ukranian, she started out with a german partner, won a couple WCs. After they separated, she found a frenchman to compete with her representing Germany. Now the pressure they face is immense, and their experience is not exactly smooth either, so why do they do this? Because they have the drive to be Olympic champions, they must get that gold, they want to prove that they are the best athletes. In this case, she (Aljona) has also taken about 12 years. Back in 2010,  she was competing with us for the gold, then Sochi and now to Pyeongchang. In this case our regret is that after the Short program, we (Sui/Han) had a lead of about 6 points,  but in terms of experience and (mental) maturity the german team has the advantage,  the german team essentially stated that they are here for nothing but the gold medal, that " I don't care about anything, but I will execute this,  and there is no pressure and nothing that we cannot take on or overcome, my mentality is already strong enough."  So in the free skate, the german team skated their best program (scores), if they made any mistakes, then Sui/Han would have won. And this is one way that athletes show whether or not they are mature enough. Now overall this year, the chinese figure skating team is a very young team. So there are many people who say, "Oh, you're very young, so if the results are not ideal, it's alright." But I feel, that as an athlete, as a mature, professional athlete, even if you are a Chinese athlete, this is a process that you have to go through. You might not think of anything when preparing to compete at the Olympics, but when you actually see the reality of the olympics (TN: here he says you see the five rings),  and see the actual mood of the venue,  feel the emotional atmosphere created by everyone around you, this then creates a type of pressure that these younger athletes cannot handle. Sui Han made errors on those 2 side by side jumps, then the 2 lost levels, and 2 movements levels did not get completed (full GOEs?), so in the free skate they only got 3rd. Boyang had the same issue. In his six minute warm up, Boyang got nervous, but in the end he did manage to face the pressure, and he was able to adjust his mental state on the go, and finish with only one error, relatively close to his best program. As such, I am proud of them. 

I: If an athlete is able to be as mature as you mentioned, then in an important competition with this type of atmosphere, then the athlete should be able to look at this calmly, and fully show his/her full abilities. In this case, this is an area that our younger athletes lack. Now, Sui/Han got a silver, Boyang got fourth, and Yu/Zhang got 8th, so if we were to score the team on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being perfect), what score would you give the Chinese team for their performance at this Olympics? 

Z: 7 points

I: 7?

Z: 7, 8 points. Youth is an advantage, and a disadvantage. 

I: True. 

Z: Previously, last year in May when we had the entire chinese team training together, myself and Coach Shen (Shen Xue), were continuously explaining to them about the olympics. And in our practice/training methods, we were trying to fully prepare for the Olympics. We did a lot,  still even today, there are people saying, "Director Zhao, we didn't know you could talk that much!"  So this time, we all felt a bit tired, because we tried our best to make sure the athletes do not feel like this is their first time participating in the Olympics. The athletes should feel secure, as if they know what needs to be known (everything) and so have confidence. However,  regardless, they (association and coaches) don't really understand these athletes' abilities to handle pressure, they don't really understand the youngsters after all (TN: okay Zhao, harsh). With younger athletes if we talk too much about training methods and insist that the young athlete must persevere and keep at it during a certain period, the athlete him/herself might feel that what he/she did is enough. So even these days after the events, we still have to speak with the athletes, and remind that what they did was insufficient (not fully complete). Many athletes, especially for their first Olympics, approach the Olympics with neutrality (apathy?), where they won't think or care about the results and just go for it whichever way they want, but that's only okay if there is no competition for medals. So when they are faced with the decisions, and the real possibilities at the olympics, they might not be able to handle the actual pressure of reality. 

I: Here I'd like to ask a more technical question, that only a professional like you can answer. Because I don't know what types of psychological states an athlete can have. So for figure skating in particular, what type of mental state is best to help a skater display their full abilities? We already mentioned apathy as a type, or would a "I must win""I must have the gold medal" type of confident state be better? 

Z: I think self confidence state is more important. 

I: Confidence is more important in the end. 

Z: We still say that no matter what changes occur,  it still is due to your training/practice. 

I: Still goes back to practice?

Z: It is about the thoroughness and details of your training, the degree of completion (execution) and the overall quality. All of this determines your predominant mental and emotional state at the Olympics. Any movement you make, if you know that from practice that you are able to do fully, then what is there to worry about. 

I: but sometimes this worry is not during the competition, it is before the competition. For example 2 days ago, when interviewed, Sui Wenjing said she had insomnia before the short program. She was so nervous she had insomnia. So before she got on the ice her legs were shaking. And the next day when waking up she would cry. When you found out, were you worried for her? 

Z: This is because of some issues they had in the previous practices. She received an injury to her right leg, and previously to ease some of the pressure on her left leg she had to use her right leg a lot. So then her right foot had something that looked like periostitis (TN: not sure if correct, I had to use an online translator, but some kind of joint inflammation). As such her practices had to be reduced, and she had to ensure her best state would be at the olympics. However, because you didn't have that build up of practice, even when you try for a valiant attempt at the gold, you won't have enough confidence. So why insomnia? Is it because you're worried about the medal, or because you are still thinking of your own program? When you do not have enough confidence in your own actions, then you will have huge pressure mentally. 

I: So when we talk about the Chinese figure skating team, many people will say that our technical ability is enough, we have sufficient difficulty, but we lack a bit in artistry and presentation. Many people in the media say this, when commenting they will emphasize this presentation skill. So taking this opportunity, we would like you to teach us what is artistry/presentation in figure skating? What does it encompass? 

Z: Actually, athletes all have very different ideas of figure skating. But now as a coach, we say that figure skating has 2 key themes (TN: stands on 2 legs is what he actually says). In so far as understanding artistry, for athletes they are engaged in dance for a very long time when training. There are no boundaries to artistry, and so your performance style also has no boundaries. The key now though, is to increase awareness and understanding of artistry among the athletes. Once your technical abilities are good, your competitors and external media will try to find your weakness, and exaggerate your weakness. If you're strong enough, you might not give them the chance to find your weakness. Back then, we faced a very long period where the theme was Chinese athletes only have athletic abilities but no artistry.  However in the end we did manage to overcome that, and in a world championship still using the old 6.0 system, we got perfect scores for artistry. Thus it doesn't mean that as a Chinese athlete, your artistry is never enough. For Sui and Han, when it comes to the artistic presentation,  such as for Turandot and even with the previous season's programs,  we care about the details of the movements. We have to measure ourselves against the highest level, and so we have to care about the details, to the degree that even a single note must be done executed fully. If it is 4 beats, then all 4 beats must be done perfectly, we cannot allow you to complete a 4 beats movement with just 2 beats. So we have increased our details and quality of practice significantly, so that even if the athlete does not feel or know the music very well, the rhythm, expression, position, and even the angle shown to the judges (back, arms etc), etc are all broken down to allow the athlete to understand and express well.

I: I heard that Sui/Han when practicing Turandot, you specially invited Zhang Yimou (TN: famous film director in China) to explain to them about this opera. Is this a normal training method? 

Z: No this isn't a part of our normal training. It was hard to invite out Director Zhang Yimou. Including Director Chen Ya (for Shen and Zhao), the understanding of Turandot from Director Zhang and Chen, are much more nuanced and deeper than our understanding as athletes. We are competitive athletes, we're not the type to be involved in these arts-but they are people who research the arts. So the directors use their understanding to help guide us to better understand and read Turandot.  Now Turandot is a familiar piece to everyone, but from the culture, the story's scenes, when we choreographed the long program and edited the music cuts, the directors are very familiar, and can tell us what this specific segment is about story-wise,  and for this section what type of emotions should be shown, and how we should perform it for them, and what meaning this section is trying to express. And so from Director Zhang's explanation to them of their program sections, they can individually try to understand Turandot. 

I: So for artistry, including musicality and ability to understand rhythm in dance, and the ability to understand the background story to a music piece, ability to understand history and culture-it seems that this type of training is a huge undertaking. For these national athletes, since they're already on the national team, it seems like its a task that is trying to fix some overlooked areas. So is it instead something that should be prepared at a basic/foundation level before the athlete enters the national team? 

Z: Actually many people don't understand figure skating, and why it is so hard. Pairs has lifts and throws. Ice dance has a very technical system in place, it is international ballroom dancing on ice with 18 set pattern dances, so the styles and presentation requirement are all different for these sets. Men's and ladies singles,  from jumps to the transitions, there are different systems and each system is  different. Even though there are similarities, the overall systems are different. So athletes are practicing their own technical skills and trying to upgrade difficulty,  and this will consume a lot of time. But after a certain point they have to bring in music, yet we cannot train as someone whose main task is to study the arts, or as a dancer, because we don't have that much time. So usually it's after we confirm the layout, we invite a specialist to come in. For example, if the theme is classical ballet, then we would immediately follow up with a teach for this. But even so, many of our athletes do have training in basic fundamentals for ballet and modern dance from a young age. In fact, they're always doing them, so even if they don't understand why its necessary, their understanding of dance and these basics do exist. 

I: Online, maybe as criticism, there are many comments that maybe chinese figure skaters focused too much on spins, too much on difficult movements when young, so when they need to actually understand the music and choreography,  they've missed the timing window. But your opinion is that the overall pacing is correct? That at a young age you need to have the fundamentals, and over time gradually add in more understanding? 

Z:  Our coach, Yao, said this to us before and I think he is correct in this. We are in a competitive sport, and so we need to have the technical framework first, you need to have difficult moves. We've had athletes who are very good dancers, they're all high level in ballet or dance, and they also went to PC. They performed very well, but the technical difficulty levels were not enough. If that's enough sufficient, likewise you can't make it to the top. Look at men's, try a quad jump, try a quad throw? No matter how good your artistry, if you don't have the difficulty levels, then...

I: True

Z: We have a lot of examples. Such as our Misha Ge, his understanding of artistry, and his understanding of dance, is very good. All his programs are very well performed. But due to his technical levels, his levels in this competitive sport, he has a weakness. A program with 5 types of triples and 3A, how can you compete against programs with 5 quads? 

I: So difficult moves are very important, artistry is also very important. You cannot miss either. 

Z: Yes, so now as part of their training, they have to attend music classes, dance classes, these are all normal part of training that must be done. 

I: Director Zhao, as such, do you ever encourage your students like suggesting to them to watch these types of movies, or read these novels etc? 

Z: We do that. For example, each year we attend the regular normal performances of a modern dance company. Sometimes we also discuss with the dancers afterwards, and sometimes the teachers will also come and do guidance work with our athletes. 

I: You mentioned before that with Shen Xue,  you guys broke the stereotype that Chinese athletes lack artistic expression, and managed to get perfect scores often in the Presentation points. At that point, did you guys have any tricks/tips that were used? 

Z: <placeholder at 25:10>  It's 1 am, I need sleep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I sped up and checked out the section about Yuzu. It's actually pretty neutral, and it seems Zhao was not surprised that Yuzu won. 

-Based on what Zhao said about Yuzu, he would consider this the Hanyu era, so unless there's a very strong countervailing trend, judges will general follow the dominant force. Which for Zhao, is Yuzu, because he has what would be considered the textbook for technique and artistry. 

-Regarding Yuzu's artistry, the interviewer posed it as a bit of "why do our athletes suck next to this/ why don't our athletes do this" since he goes on about Yuzu being involved in his own music edits, costume designs etc. So Zhao said to stop mythologizing Yuzu, and recognize that for many athletes a team is necessary, that even in Yuzu's case, he still has a professional team behind him. So in the end, it's a team vs team competition. 

-He sounds pretty neutral, but on the whole he is respectful towards Yuzu. Actually what he said towards the end is that if you truly love the sport and have the technical skillset, the artistry, the passion, maturity, then you should have the confidence to win (implied: like Yuzuru). He's actually  not surprised by Yuzu's actions, since he views them as natural outgrowths of Yuzu's love for figure skating. 

 

Thank you! That sounds more nuanced. 

[Xen]

9 minutes ago, WinForPooh said:

Thank you! That sounds more nuanced. 

No problem. I also need another day or 2 since I can only work on this during off work hours. And each 8 minutes of the clip is about 20 -30 mins for me. Zhao is a talker. Also, this interview was for Zhao to introduce figure skating as a sport to the general audience, not necessarily skating fans. So he also went on to de-mythologize Yuzuru.

[singcarcom]

 

On 2/24/2018 at 6:54 PM, meoima said:

If you notice, all the winners at Olympics this time got World records. Aliona/Bruno. Then both V/M and P/C. Both Zhenia and Alina. They all have World records either in the short or in the free.

Only Yuzuru didn’t get World record. And Zhao is thinking the judges are ready to give Yuzuru the gold? Isn’t that too much. Had they really wanted him, they would have scored him like 113 or 114 in the short. 

Frankly, judging from NBC’s investment in IOC, I would say the word records were supposed for Nathan. 

 

I watched the interview video, and I didn't feel like Zhao was saying that the judges were ready to give him gold. How I understood it was that he's saying if Yuzu goes clean or cleanish (no major mistakes), it's a consensus (or common expectation) that he'll win gold. Which I think is what most people agree, that clean Yuzu is unbeatable.

 

And I felt that Zhao was giving an objective interpretation of Yuzu. Perhaps it feels like he's damping down on Yuzu cos the interviewer is very enthusiastic. Probably a Yuzu fanboy.

 

About the part where he mentions Yuzu's involvement in the music cuts and costumes, he said that Yuzu can hire the best designers or editors he wants, but he's involved because he's interested. Cos of the intense training, many athletes kinda "switch off" the athlete side when they're done with training. But for Yuzu, these other aspects of figure skating is what he does during his off time.

 

The title of the video was "Why is Yuzuru Hanyu so strong, as explained by Zhao?" Zhao summed it up pretty nicely at the end. That Yuzu has crazy confidence in himself, so whatever he's lacking, he'll work on it cos he knows he can do it. That he lives and breathes figure skating is what makes him a great athlete. 

 

I think some of what he said didn't sound very nice because he kinda implied Yuzu wasn't the only one who's been learning the sports from all aspects, including anatomy. That there are others as well. But, he's involved in everything (e.g. as compared to skaters who are invested in their costumes but not in other parts)

 

That's my personal interpretation after watching the video. Thanks those who translated the interview. That's a lot of work!