6 minutes ago, Katt said:

Now I can understand why Yuzuru and his team keep everything in secret. Even without any info, speculations pop up left and right and then fans stress out with anything. 

 

Team event or not we do not know how he's gonna do in individual event. What he did in the past comps won't speak much IMO, because this is Olympic.  

Well as long as we're not invading other platforms, I guess this is where we go to panic - though I'd like to call it speculation, with stress  I'm not too panicked tbh, this season re: yuzu has worn me down to the point where I'm like 'okay, of course we'll have to wait to the last minute to see him' and just try and live my life best as I can while waiting lol 

 

8 minutes ago, Xen said:

He might still do the team event long program should Team Japan make it. My guess is that after the SP portion, the standings would be Russia--> Canada--> USA--> Japan--> Italy/France-> China--> Korea--> Israel--> Germany.  And considering some of the recent moves by the IOC on the russian pairs and dance teams, Japan has a bigger shot of making it to the FS portion. On average they're only slightly weaker than US, Canada and Russia, probably tied with France and Italy (singles vs couples balance out), and more well-rounded than China, Korea, Israel and Germany.

 

What if he does the team short, flies to Sendai to train and then flies back to PC?

I can't see him flying around tbh - I think he'll fly to PC and stay there. The media reception everywhere would be insane especially if he went back to Japan - he'd likely need extra security and take his team with him. I think it'd be a better idea to just acclimate to the environment and early practices in PC, but I think it's a fair possibility he might arrive later than everyone else if not doing the team event

I wouldn't be surprised if he skips the team event. Up until this season, I would have thought no way would he skip it, but now... I can see it happening. It could go both ways... it could be great to have a warm up competition, then really get fired up for the individual. Or it might be good not to waste energy on the team, and focus 100% on the individual. I don't think either choice automatically implies a certain result, though. So I'm with @Katt on this. Even beyond this being the Olympics, he doesn't have that much of a clear pattern. That said, I'm not sure the coach accreditation has much to do with anything. Even while it might be so each top skater gets a coach along full time, it doesn't mean Yuzu will travel later. (I also wonder if Brian really will go with Jun Hwan to the team event... is Jun Hwan's main coach Brian? I know other skaters - Gabby, specifically - have other main coaches, with Brian more of an overall supervisor. Actually, I think even Javi had a Spanish coach as well. Which would maybe explain why Yuzu grew to depend on Brian the most, because Brian is his main coach.)

 

28 minutes ago, Xen said:

What if he does the team short, flies to Sendai to train and then flies back to PC?

Sendai isn't a proper training rink at this level, though, since it's open to the public... that would probably only work if they closed up the place for him and I'm not sure he'd even want that. (When he previously used it for training when away from Canada, I tend to think it was mostly at night, and I really don't want him spending his nights skating at this point in time.) Plus, even if it's a short distance, flying back and forth is far from ideal and I'm not sure, but I think PC is supposed to me very cold, possibly more so than Sendai, which, combined with the very pressure of flying, isn't ideal for his asthma either, I think. Or well, not dramatically so, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk.

 

ETA: Even though it would drive me crazy as a fan, I would be kind of happy if we didn't see any trace of him until the individual official practices... (or the actual competition, but that's too crazy even for him :P)

Well, I hope he's doing RT in costume in training. With a judges' table, and the sound system playing audience cheering sounds. Why couldn't some video game company have sponsored him properly so he could do full realistic top of the line VR of competitions as part of training? Acclimatise him to the sights and sounds so he can pretend it's another day at the office on the real deal.

37 minutes ago, kaerb said:

Well as long as we're not invading other platforms, I guess this is where we go to panic - though I'd like to call it speculation, with stress  I'm not too panicked tbh, this season re: yuzu has worn me down to the point where I'm like 'okay, of course we'll have to wait to the last minute to see him' and just try and live my life best as I can while waiting lol 

 

Haha I think I'm just not a fan of speculation in general ( and also prediction because I'm terrible at it). There's only 1 or 2 week (if he skip the team event) left, I'm trying to save the energy for the actual hunger game  The thing that stress me out alot will be the practice reports, I hope I have enough nerves to watch the comp  

 

Looking back at Sochi, skipping team event was great for Adelina, while doing it was good for Carolina but not for Yulia. Its also a good thing for Yuzu and Patrick back then, they both skated the SP better in individual, just the nerves got to them in LP. There are pros and cons in each scenario and each skater will react differently. I just want to trust his team and the fed to come up with the best solution. Fortunately, JSF seems very supportive with any decision of him this time. 

20 minutes ago, KatjaThera said:

I wouldn't be surprised if he skips the team event. Up until this season, I would have thought no way would he skip it, but now... I can see it happening. It could go both ways... it could be great to have a warm up competition, then really get fired up for the individual. Or it might be good not to waste energy on the team, and focus 100% on the individual. I don't think either choice automatically implies a certain result, though. So I'm with @Katt on this. Even beyond this being the Olympics, he doesn't have that much of a clear pattern. That said, I'm not sure the coach accreditation has much to do with anything. Even while it might be so each top skater gets a coach along full time, it doesn't mean Yuzu will travel later. (I also wonder if Brian really will go with Jun Hwan to the team event... is Jun Hwan's main coach Brian? I know other skaters - Gabby, specifically - have other main coaches, with Brian more of an overall supervisor. Actually, I think even Javi had a Spanish coach as well. Which would maybe explain why Yuzu grew to depend on Brian the most, because Brian is his main coach.)

 

Sendai isn't a proper training rink at this level, though, since it's open to the public... that would probably only work if they closed up the place for him and I'm not sure he'd even want that. (When he previously used it for training when away from Canada, I tend to think it was mostly at night, and I really don't want him spending his nights skating at this point in time.) Plus, even if it's a short distance, flying back and forth is far from ideal and I'm not sure, but I think PC is supposed to me very cold, possibly more so than Sendai, which, combined with the very pressure of flying, isn't ideal for his asthma either, I think. Or well, not dramatically so, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk.

 

ETA: Even though it would drive me crazy as a fan, I would be kind of happy if we didn't see any trace of him until the individual official practices... (or the actual competition, but that's too crazy even for him :P)

Nah, I agree with you on this-thinking a bit further, I don't think flying back to Japan is realistic. Personally, I think it's just that coach accredation is based on who has room for which coaches. And realistically, TCC coaches tend to be a team, so they'll likely shuffle back and forth between all the athletes.  Brian is more like the head coach of the coaches, if multi accredation was allowed, he'd probably end up on every TCC skater's list (similar with Tracy).

 

Realistically, I think Japan does have a shot at making it to the free portion of the team event-their men's and ladies have a shot at top 3 after Short, and their dance team is okay, pairs might not be the best but probably not the worst either.

 

Edit: I think Brian coaches the most number of skaters too. He's listed for Javi, Cha and Yuzu. Javi has 3 coaches listed in ISU bio,  so I guess he took Tracy and his other coach. Yuzu listed Kikuchi, so he could only take one more coach from TCC. Ironically, Briand isn't listed as a main coach for any of the 3 guys, but he's a technical specialist coach right? So someone must bring him along. Maybe they're also thinking of taking David Wilson in tow at some point?  Brian is also listed as the main coach for Javi, Cha and Yuzu, but ironically, Cha is the only one where he's listed as the solo coach, so he probably has to go with Cha.

 

Can't wait to see the team jacket transformation sequence that Brian, Tracy and Briand need to perform. Do coaches go with skaters to KnC in team event? In which case, it's Barkell--> Gaby, Brian/Briand --> Cha or Yuzu? I recall Briand also showing up in KnC with Cha?

Good points of analysis from everyone. Here's my take.... I kinda want him to YOLO

 

6 hours ago, Katt said:

 

Haha I think I'm just not a fan of speculation in general ( and also prediction because I'm terrible at it). There's only 1 or 2 week (if he skip the team event) left, I'm trying to save the energy for the actual hunger game  The thing that stress me out alot will be the practice reports, I hope I have enough nerves to watch the comp  

 

Looking back at Sochi, skipping team event was great for Adelina, while doing it was good for Carolina but not for Yulia. Its also a good thing for Yuzu and Patrick back then, they both skated the SP better in individual, just the nerves got to them in LP. There are pros and cons in each scenario and each skater will react differently. I just want to trust his team and the fed to come up with the best solution. Fortunately, JSF seems very supportive with any decision of him this time. 

Ah right. I don't mind speculation as a way to pass the time, I treat it more as an intellectual exercise than anything but I think it's important not to get too emotionally attached to the process and wind yourself up into a panic or speculate excessively to the point of going around in circles repeating yourself. So sometimes I feel apologetic when I'm just throwing ideas very dispassionately out, for the sake of curiosity and end up making some people panic ;; Anyway, I'm going to try and stop speculating further on the team event/individual issue because I sense I'm hitting the wall of repeating myself and because there's too much unknown data  just need to emotionally prepare for the possibility of having to wait another week before we catch a glimpse of him but oh well

47 minutes ago, kaerb said:

Ah right. I don't mind speculation as a way to pass the time, I treat it more as an intellectual exercise than anything but I think it's important not to get too emotionally attached to the process and wind yourself up into a panic or speculate excessively to the point of going around in circles repeating yourself. So sometimes I feel apologetic when I'm just throwing ideas very dispassionately out, for the sake of curiosity and end up making some people panic ;; Anyway, I'm going to try and stop speculating further on the team event/individual issue because I sense I'm hitting the wall of repeating myself and because there's too much unknown data  just need to emotionally prepare for the possibility of having to wait another week before we catch a glimpse of him but oh well

Totally agree with this.Sometimes I stress out by random speculations so I hardly ever do it, because people are easily misunderstand things on internet. I have a vacation next week so I'm fine with anything  

I am still to see a convincing argument (for me) that it is good to skip the team so I'll keep hoping that he doesn't.

I also don't see this coach issue as anything but their way of satisfying bureaucracy while having all of TCC team there. I'm especially puzzled by the idea that Tracy gets to go with Javier for the OC because ... well, why? He doesn't need her for any of that. So yes, I'm still firmly holding to my hopes for a team in a situation where he desperately needs comp experience, the one thing nothing can replace. Not RTs, not simulations, nothing. 

 

And he's still human, no matter how talented, so I definitely don't want all the already insane pressure focused on a do or die situation in the individual. I don't see anything particularly good there. In any case, this is just an outsider perspective and I'm sure the team with all the info they have know what's best. Fingers crossed!

TJ will be easy to spot

 

1 hour ago, kaeryth said:

TJ will be easy to spot

 

 

Ugh. Why the ugly grey. The jackets are nice. Gonna be cute things happening in those.

I find having a set of judges who aren't having a pre Olympic 'get one mark  get one free' giveaway really refreshing after all the Nationals and Europeans.

Evan Bates has been chosen as team captain for team USA.

 

Well we'll be getting more and more news now but let's open up with Johnny 

 

 

And Deniss and Lambiel