Team USA

[Anni]

New post from Jason 

 

....... how the time flies

 

[jumpooh]

4 hours ago, Crow said:

 

omg I been wanting to join one of you guys streams over on twitch and I always miss them. I hope I can make it this sat!!
 

also those quotes from fanyus from China are SHARP 

Actually most of the comments are not made by fanyu... since the olympic is held in china and Yuzu 's 4A attemp and performance attracted almost all ppl to watch the men's FS. Previoulsy ppl considered figure skating as an art on ice sport, and it turned out nc's performance offended them. Most fanyu already know this and was not shocked as them. Fanyu talked about technique and scoring issue much more.

 

After my coming back to office, I found all my working peers were calling nc's FS programme as "ape hummering on the ice", they just don't understand why this got a high score. they don't care about "traitor" or something like, but laughed at his "lgbtq" comments and though it is funny that he thought his performence was masculine while all women are crasy for yuzu.  I once tried to explain the scoring issue to my friends and to compare yuzu's 3A an NC's, while they refused to watch nc's and saying "no, we don't want to watch typf of performance again...", and finally I made them watch, at once, one of my friends found out, "why nc crossed his legs like that in air, isn't that a reduction point?", I think even ppl without deep knowledge can understand the problem, just judges can't.

[Guest Mary_kyo]

Penn Station is the new Time Square for team USA and Nathan~ Walmart vs Chanel etc etc

[Pasta]

Have any of you guys have the courage to watch NC on jimmy fallon yet? Bet my as*, he is only invited there as a courtesy of being an olympic gold medalist(and his big agency pulled some strings to get the iv), not because he is super popular /influential or anything and i personally think Fallon has no idea who tf he is before this iv/beijing2022.😅

[Fay]

32 minutes ago, Pasta said:

Have any of you guys have the courage to watch NC on jimmy fallon yet? Bet my as*, he is only invited there as a courtesy of being an olympic gold medalist(and his big agency pulled some strings to get the iv), not because he is super popular /influential or anything and i personally think Fallon has no idea who tf he is before this iv/beijing2022.😅

I did watch it since I was very curious to see whether Nathan’s public behaviour would change. First, it has, he looks way more confident now, second, his speaking habits haven’t - he mumbles, rushes through words and is generally incoherent. Third, the whole thing looked incredibly short and shallow - a few words of how Nate’s program was the best thing since the sliced bread, then Yale, then teaching Fallong to jump a single Axel. 
Well, if Nate’s fans are happy with that, I don’t mind that very much. Let the boy have his moment. 

[Guest turquoiseblue]

 

[Guest Mary_kyo]

I thought maybe I can share the pain.

 

[Guest Mary_kyo]

Team USA..... Scott Hamilton worked really hard for this behind the closed doors. 

 

[Figure_Frenzy]

Scott Hamilton is absolute [redacted], not only he was someone with a shoddy view on FS, he was a [redacted*] too 

 

*PS:

Spoiler

I don't want to bring up politics to the Planet™ (as stated in the guidelines) but I'll just say this — I hope you never find out Scott Hamilton's recent political activities...

 

[Jaz]

On 2/26/2022 at 9:00 AM, turquoiseblue said:

 

He is very promising. Love his jumps and spins

[Anni]

Jason is back at the TCC

 

 

 

[Anni]

New post from Jason 

 

[Guest turquoiseblue]

Vincent Zhou's Instagram post about mental health:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CaulETrr8th/

 

Quote

I'm really grateful that mental health is now a prevalent discussion because as I ride out the comedown after my experience at the Olympics, I find that some of these days are even more difficult than when I was actually there living in those moments. As I battle to find myself and to take one step at a time towards the light at the end of the tunnel, I am constantly reminded of the incredible people around me and how much I have to be grateful for. To everyone experiencing struggles that may be similar but I'm sure are completely unique, I'd like to reach out and say that I feel your pain and/or grief. Although I may not understand your situation and know what you know, I do know what it's like to experience these emotions and it's one of the hardest things in the world anyone can deal with. You're not alone - that may sound cliché at this point, but if nobody else, I'm someone who is proud to stand with you and stand up for you.

 

[Anni]

Jason is in Peru

 

[Guest turquoiseblue]

Two new articles on Vincent Zhou:

 

Vincent Zhou is still working to put his heartbreaking Beijing Olympics behind him
The Washington Post
16 March 2022

 

Quote

Speaking Tuesday on a teleconference set up by U.S. Figure Skating ahead of next week’s world championships in France, Zhou described the depression he has felt after the positive test kept him from skating in the men’s competition — and even from walking in the Closing Ceremonies.

 

“I’m having a hard time keeping myself together right now talking about it,” the 21-year-old said. “I’m still currently in the middle of things. I’m definitely not out of it yet, so talking about it — take it for what it is. I don’t have the third-person perspective of somebody who has already gone through it.”

 

Before the end of the Games, Zhou talked about the shock of getting a positive test despite trying to stay away from others at the Athletes’ Village — and he was excited that he was permitted to skate in the traditional gala exhibition on the Olympics’ final day. But later that day, on the way to the Closing Ceremonies, he was stopped while walking through a checkpoint with the rest of the U.S. Olympic team. His badge, officials told him, had triggered a warning — presumably related to his positive test earlier in the month.

 

“So I just watched the rest of Team USA walk off without me,” he said. “It was really sad.”

 

He said two U.S. Olympic officials stayed with him for what “felt like an hour” to plead his case, but Beijing organizers wouldn’t allow him to go to the stadium. “There was nothing they could do, and we trudged back in defeat, I guess,” he said.

Quote

“I didn’t feel like myself,” he said of the days after he returned to Colorado Springs, where he trains. “Some days I wake up and still don’t feel like myself. Some days I wake up and I have a hard time going through mistakes. Sometimes I think to myself: ‘You know what? I should maybe just try to forget about everything, get back on the ice, go for it. Take the shot — who knows? Maybe it will go well.’ Then I step on the ice and I’m instantly reminded of everything that happened. So it’s not easy at all.”

 

He said a team event medal ceremony would help bring closure and suggested officials tie it to a stop at this spring’s Stars on Ice tour, which will feature many of the Olympians. And he said he was glad to be going to the world championships — even though doing so “might not be in the best interests of my health.”

 

“In a circumstance where, I don’t know, 90 to 95 percent of people would have already given up and said it’s probably easier and better for me to just not go, it would make me really proud to go,” he said. “And even if I don’t do well, at least I had the courage to train every day leading up to worlds, get on that plane, go there ... and give it a shot.”

 

COVID, scandal, heartbreak: Vincent Zhou tries to move past Olympic nightmare
San Francisco Chronicle
16 March 2022
 

Quote

“Not having a medal ceremony was definitely disappointing,” said Zhou, who likely would not have been allowed to attend a ceremony. “But I understand why they did it. Even if they just gave the United States and Japan the silver and bronze, it leaves the impression that the Russians won gold.”

 

From his room, Zhou followed the Valieva drama. She tested positive for a banned substance in December, but the results were not processed until the Olympics began. Zhou found it absurd that some excused Valieva because she had passed drug tests before and after the dirty result.

 

“Let me preface this by saying that I have so much sympathy for Kamila and all the girls,” Zhou said. “I understand that the adults in the system are the root of the problem.

 

“But that’s like me saying, ‘Well, I didn’t rob a store before or after I was caught robbing a store.’ The amount of reaching and lengths people will go to twist the situation is so unfair to all the other girls who work all their lives to be free of performance-enhancing substances.

 

“It taints figure skating; it hurts perceptions and reputations, and people will have a hard time taking our sport seriously.”

 

In France, Zhou and his teammates won’t have to worry about the Russian scandal. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian athletes have been banned from many sporting events, including the world championships.

 

Of course, following the state-sponsored doping scandal in Sochi in 2014, Russia should have been banned from the past four Olympic Games. But the International Olympic Committee provided a loophole, renaming it the Russian Olympic Committee.

 

“I think it’s crazy that it takes a non-sport related thing to ban them,” Zhou said. “But in something that’s actually sports related, like a doping case, they said, ‘Oh, you can compete.’”

 

At the same time, Zhou has deep sympathy for the athletes who have worked hard for years only to have the opportunity to compete taken from them. He knows how that feels.