#nhk trophy 2018

[figureskatingcostumes]

Alena Leonova’s short program costume at the 2018 NHK Trophy, 2019 Cup of Russia Final and 2019 Russian Championships.

(Sources: 1, 2 and 3)

[yuzu-all-the-way]

Yuzuru Hanyu's K&C reactions to breaking World Records (Through the Years)

Historical world records (during the +/-3 GOE ISU scoring system)

1) October 19th, 2012 (Skate America) - Parisienne Walkways 95.07

2) November 23rd, 2012 (NHK Trophy) - Parisienne Walkways 95.32

3) December 5th, 2013 (GPF) - Parisienne Walkways 99.84

4) February 13th, 2014 (Sochi Olympics) - Parisienne Walkways 101.45 (Yuzu was the first men's single skater in history to score above 100 points)

5) November 27th, 2015 (NHK Trophy) - Ballade No. 1 106.33

6) November 28th, 2015 (NHK Trophy) - SEIMEI 216.07 (Yuzu became the first men's single skater in history to score above 200 points)

7) November 28th, 2015 (NHK Trophy) - Total 322.40 (Yuzu became the first men's single skater in history to score above 300 points)

8) December 10th, 2015 (GPF) - Ballade No. 1 110.95 (Yuzu was the first and remains the only skater to score above 110 points before the 2018-19 season*)

9) December 12th, 2015 (GPF) - SEIMEI 219.48

10) December 12th, 2015 (GPF) - Total 330.43 (Yuzu remains the only skater in history to score above 330 points prior to the 2018-19 season)

11) April 1st, 2017 (World Championships) - Hope & Legacy 223.20 (Yuzu became the first and remained the only skater in history to score above 220 points in the free skate prior to the 2018-19 season)

12) September 22nd, 2017 (Autumn Classic) - Ballade No. 1 112.72

Modern World Records (*during the +/-5 GOE ISU scoring system introduced in the 2018-19 season)

13) November 3rd, 2018 (GP Helsinki) - Otoñal 106.60

14) November 4th, 2018 (GP Helsinki) - Origin 190.43

15) November 4th, 2018 (GP Helsinki) - Total 297.12

16) November 16th, 2018 (Rostelecom Cup) - Otonal 110.53 (Yuzu became the first skater in the new system to score above 110 points)

17) March 23rd, 2019 (World Championships) - Origin 206.10 (Yuzu became the first skater to score above 200 points in the new system)

18) March 23rd, 2019 (World Championships) - Total 300.97 (Yuzu became the first skater to score above 300 points in the new system)

19) February 7th, 2020 (Four Continents) - Ballade No. 1 111.82

[sunskate]

going season by season in H/B's story, there were signs that things were off in their training camp situation in 2017-18 - turned the page to find that H/B left for Gadbois in April 2018. so, ok 😅 as soon as 2018 Worlds was over, they looked for the exit. i'm so glad 😭

unfortunately, though, Jean-Luc sustained a concussion during training in August 2018, so the start to their season was delayed til NHK Trophy which they still won after training only 3 weeks. it was tango RD season:

this is the season where they really start to look like the mature team we know now - the move was good for them - there's an assurance to their performances and a totally new look, especially in the FD, to In This Shirt. it's the more contemporary style that's familiar from subsequent seasons. they have such beautiful glide, it suits them. the energy in the kiss & cry is more positive immediately. their 4CC FD below scored their season's high and is their peak for emotion and flow that year - i find them so moving

they were 5th at 4CC behind C/B, Weapo, G/P, and H/D. considering how good H/B were, i was surprised they were only 5th in the FD but that was C/B's snake FD and Vincent for G/P. i'd totally forgotten about Hubbell/Donohue's Romeo & Juliet FD (they went through some strange choices, didn't they?)

Kaitlin and Jean-Luc were 9th at Worlds, and Kaitlin shows her disappointment in the FD score on her face, but this performance wasn't quite as cohesive as 4CC. but they were 4th at their 2nd GP and made the Grand Prix Final for the first time. and won bronze, their first medal, at US Nationals. most of all, though, they look happier with their team and look so beautiful on the ice

[dreamsburntdown]

After very silent months in the summer of 2016, we got news that Yuzuru was back in training, and a bit later, that he would skate to two new programs in the upcoming 2016/17 season. Yuzu chose 'Let's Go Crazy' by Prince for his new short program, which was again choreographed by Jeff Buttle. For his new free program he chose Japanese contemporary classical music, View of Silence and Asian Dream Song by Joe Hisaishi and he named his program 'Hope and Legacy'. It was chorographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne.

Yuzu started the season at the Autumn Classic International in Canada where he became the first man who landed the quadruple Loop at a competition when he landed it in his short program. We could see his quad Loops at galas before, but it was finally time to introduce it at competitions, too. It was Yuzu's own decision (as opposed to Brian Orser's), and later it turned out that it was a very smart decision from him.

His new SP was fun, intricate, with extremely difficult step sequence, or spins. Even if the 4Lo was a new jump for Yuzu, he put it in both the SP and FS. He also changed to 4T-3T combination to 4S-3T in the SP. His new free program was beautiful, elegant, and very complex from start to finish with great choreography, transitions in and out of the elements and great spins as well. Yuzu increased the difficulty of his jumps, he not just added 4Lo, but he had 4 quads and 2 triple Axels overall, from which there were two quad Salchows, the second one in a combination in the second half of the program. The triple Axels were also in the second half.

In the Grand Prix Series, Yuzu won the NHK Trophy. It was this competition where he changed his white costume in the SP to a purple one, which was even more form fitting than the white costume. The NHK Trophy short programs were in the morning on Friday in Europe so it meant that I had to watch it at my workplace - in secrectly, of course! I still remember vividly when I saw in the warm-up that he had purple pants on, and seconds later he took off the jacket and the top of his costume was also purple. I smiled so much but I had to contain myself there. The program was very rock starish but in a different way than Parisienne Walkways, when Yuzu was still a teenager. The SP was great choice and the costume looked great on him. Not many could wear a costume like that, but Yuzu could do it!

So, at the Grand Prix Final Yuzu became the first (and so far only) male skater who won four consecutive gold medals. His SP was the best there in the season even if the landing from the 4Lo wasn't completely perfect.

Yuzu decided to compete at the Four Continents too, which was held in PyeongChang, in the arena which would host the Olympics in 2018. The last time Yuzu was at 4CC was in 2013. He again collected a silver medal, albeit he would have deserved to win this time. The sudden rise of points, especially the components of the young American Chen raised eyebrows.

I was a bit sad that I couldn't watch Yuzu in person in 2015/16 especially because GPF was held in Barcelona then. So I decided not to miss the opportunity and I traveled to Helsinki for the World Championships to watch Yuzu and cheer for him. It was a really important competition, firstly because it was the qualifying Worlds for the 2018 Olympics and also because Yuzu didn't win in 2015 or 2016 either. The pressure on him was so much.

Helsinki Worlds was the most exciting competition of my life and I won't forget what I saw there. The rollercoster of emotions was overwhelming.

In the SP, Yuzuru kneeled down from the landing after his 4S, so he couldn't add a Triple Toe-loop on it (the 2T he added got invalidated as well), and he was only 5th after the SP. Oh no.

I felt sorry, really sorry for him. I even cried a bit later, because I didn't find it fair after what Yuzu went through in the past months, years. Javier skated a good short program and he got 109 points for it, so the difference was 11 points. Then I remembered that the situation was a bit similar a year before and anything could happen.

On the day of the free skate, snow was falling in the cold streets of Helsinki. I headed to the arena with a newly found optimism, while I was walking I was listening to the epic music of Yuzu's Romeo and Juliet 1 program and I remembered his roaring he made during the program at Worlds 2012. I thought: 'Fight, Yuzu, fight, you can do it!'.

Yuzu skated first in the last group. And what he did on that day will never be forgotten. He was completely in the zone and he laid down the most gorgeous performance ever. Everything was perfection from start to finish, the 4Lo, the spins, the the quad Salchows, the step sequences (the StSq as well as his spins all got level 4), everything he did was in the highest possible quality. The complexity of his program, the elegance of his performance can be barely described with words. It was magnificient and magical. The spectators were in tears, there was standing ovation for Yuzu. He got a new world record for his performance (223.20) which was - despite being the highest score - still a bit underscored compared to what he showed on the ice there. With this fantastic performance, Yuzu finished from 5th to 1st, and he became a two-time World Champion. It was so well deserved for Yuzu! He could bring out his best at such an important competition.

I was so happy and grateful that I could witness this and that I could cheer for Yuzu at this competition.

On the last day, Sunday, I met some photographers from my country who had media accreditation for the competition. One of them was an elderly man, who proudly showed to me that he got a signature from Yuzuru before the gala rehearsal. We had the same flight back home so he gave me Yuzu's signature for the duration of the flight. I was really cautious not to make it dirty etc. (the batter of my camera was empty but I could take some pictures of the signature with my not so good phone). What an end was it for my trip! I was really happy.

After Worlds, Yuzu also competed at World Team Trophy where he won the gold medal for Japan.

This was a very successful season for him. Firstly I was happy that Yuzu came back after his very bad injury and he did so well. The first man who landed the 4Lo, the 4th GPF title, the second Worlds title, two fantastic programs, etc.

I was very looking forward to the Olympic season and I hoped everything would be okay for Yuzu.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] - to be continued soon.

[shomagravity]

Uno Shoma returns to his origin with a “chanson” as he faces new season as the World Champion.

  TEAMING UP WITH FORMER COACH HIGUCHI MIHOKO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THREE YEARS 24 years old Uno Shoma (Toyota Corp.) who won his first World Championship last season in Men’s Figure Skating, took a step towards the next stage without losing his “natural” charm. On August 25, at Kose Shin Yokohama Skate Center in Yokohama, he performed his exhibition number ‘Padam, padam’ for the first time at the public rehearsal of Friends on Ice which marks the end of summer ice show season.  Riding on the relaxing masterpiece of "Chanson" which has a vague melancholy and a gorgeous melody, the performance by the figure skater who became the world champion after growing from the bottom through ups and downs, highlighted Uno Shoma’s personality. These past few years had also been a turbulent period with big changes as an athlete. He regarded even ice shows as a place where he wants to improve himself at, and seemed to re-challenge his return to origins by teaming up for the first time in 3 years. DETERMINED TO ENHANCE HIS POWER OF EXPRESSION, “A PATH I’VE CHOSEN MYSELF” Shoma Uno, who won the silver medal at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, made the big decision in June 2019 to leave the coaches of Machiko Yamada and Mihoko Higuchi, who had been coaching him since he was five years old. The scene of him teaming up with his former coach Higuchi Mihoko after a long time was also uploaded on Uno Shoma’s official YouTube.  Having known each other since his childhood, the smile as she gives advice about his stance right before the song begins or on the detailed choreography of his finish, reveals their trusting relationship, slightly different to the one he has with ex-World Champion Stephane Lambiel.  Uno Shoma commented, “I want to move forward on the path I’ve chosen myself without rushing anything. Things like choreography as well, since I chose this sport called Figure Skating, even though jumps get the most points, I think expression is one of the charms of figure skating, so I think it will continue to demonstrate it’s true value at ice shows.” And he pledged a new challenge to improve his expressive power on ice.  “I hope to skate to various programs so I can show everyone even a little different side of me, so that they can be surprised and have fun.”   THIS SEASON’S GP SERIES ARE SKATE CANADA AND NHK TROPHY. This season Shoma Uno, set goals to his “progress” of acquiring the highly difficult quadruple lutz, and shows interest in the blues-guitar song “Gravity”, his new SP. Officially announcing Bach’s Air as his new Free Program, he’s scheduled for this season’s Grand Prix Series’ second round in Skate Canada (October 28-30, Missisauga)  and fifth round in NHK Trophy (November 18-20, Sapporo). There’s no comparing the relationship of trust he has with Coach Lambiel, who had been a savior from the period he was without a coach, with the time he spent returning to his origins with Coach Higuchi Mihoko.   On his own YouTube he spoke of a unique relationship of trust, “With Stephane, Stephane does it (new programs) by himself. I feel like I have to imitate that, but I’ve known (Higuchi) Mihoko Sensei since a long time ago, so I think I have a relationship I can only have with Mihoko Sensei where I can say things like ‘Is it like this? Is it like that?’”  When asked about his vision of an ideal athlete, Shoma Uno mentioned Nathan Chen (USA) who recently won Beijing Winter Olympics 2022. Towards a new stage as a skater. Shoma Uno doesn’t intend to stop his “growth” even after becoming the world champion.  30 August 2022, Source || spaia.jp

[yuriplisetsky-rp]

Nekola Wins NHK Trophy Over Minami

Both Book Tickets to First GP Final

November 20, 2022

SAPPORO, JAPAN – Emil Nekola of the Czech Republic won his second career GP gold, winning the NHK Trophy over Kenjirou Minami of Japan. The 23-year-old scored 100.52 for his short program, 201.72 for his free, and 302.54 overall. “I’m happy to bring home a second Grand Prix win,” said the reigning European Champion. “I’m excited to compete at my first Final. It’ll be a busy couple of weeks, with Four Nationals right after that, but I’m looking forward to it.”

Nekola will be the first Czech skater to compete at a Final. He was called up after with the withdrawal of Yuri Plisetsky last year, but the Final was cancelled soon after. Four Nationals is the combined Nationals of Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic, which takes place the very next weekend. It will be a very busy couple of weeks for Nekola.

Four-time Japanese National Champion Kenjirou Minami scored a second straight silver medal. He scored 98.27 for his short, 195.40 for his free, and 293.67 overall. “It was very close between second and third, but I’m happy to win a second silver medal,” said the 23-year-old. “I’m excited to be going to my first Final.” Minami will be the first Japanese Man to qualify for the Final since 2018 Olympic Champion Yuuri Katsuki in 2017, who won the event.

Five-time US National medalist Alexander Carpenter won the bronze, coming very close to winning silver. He scored 97.93 in the short, 194.24 for the free, and 292.17 overall. It is his first GP medal since winning bronze at the NHK Trophy during his debut senior season in 2011. “I cannot tell you what it means to win another GP medal,” said the 2011 Junior World Champion. “It has been a long journey, and I’m happy to still be around and skating well.” Carpenter’s next competition will be US Nationals in December.

[gogogogolev]

Photos of Stephen performing at 2022 NHK Trophy.

Some of the other shots I have excluded were not flattering. More photos may come later.

I forgot to mention that Mitsuki Sumoto congratulated Stephen on his performance and shared a photo of them after the medal ceremony at 2018 JGP Bratislava. His tweet reads:

Gogolev ��👏👏 He's grown too big from when we were on the podium together. 😂

Someone on Twitter mentioned that Ilia Malinin apparently also congratulated him on his result in an Instagram live stream when Stephen joined. It’s nice to see his friends’ support.

Up next is Nationals. Stephen will skate 13th, the first skater in the final group of the SP, as he did not compete at last year’s Nationals and there are five other men with byes. There is a schedule, though more info will be coming out after Challenge. Hoping to see Stephen skate at his first Nationals in four years.

Credits: Taichi Kaizuka/Mainichi Photography  (SP, FS); Keiko Kasai/Absolute Skating (SP, FS); Yuchi Yamazaki/AFP via Getty Images, Toru Hanai/ISU via Getty Images (1, 2)

[freifraufischer]

2018 NHK Trophy All Around

[persimmontea]

何でも良いよ笑顔なら ♡

[figureskatingcostumes]

Nicole Rajicova skating to Rain, In Your Black Eyes for her free program at the 2017 NHK Trophy and 2018 European Championships.

(Sources: 1 and 2)

[yuzu-all-the-way]

Do you think we'll ever know why Yuzu was consistently underscored in the last few years of competing? Like, I can't fathom why they would do that - he's so well loved, so surely scoring him accurately would just draw more people toward the sport to see him? Honestly I believe that if he hadn't attempted the 4A at the Olympics that he could have won if he was scored fairly. Having a 3x Olympic Gold medalist would have made such a buzz in the news which would be good publicity, no? So... idk. I'm confused by the whole thing and my heart goes out to Yuzu for putting up with so much for so long.

Hi, anon! Oh, this is such a long story. I'll try to keep it as short as possible and make it comprehensible.

Officially, there most likely will never be an explanation given, it's just not how the sports' world works. There is no accountability since the "behind the scenes" is mostly a power play between several figure skating federations (USA, Russia, JSF - but that's a whole other story), lots of politicking going on.

However, the fans and those who know figure skating have become aware of Yuzu being underscored over the years. There were a hell lot of discussions about that too, but they literally led nowhere - there were a lot of fights and Fanyus accused of being irrational and delusional.

The narrative goes something like this:

Yuzu came into the senior competitions as a very successful junior and he actively improved his technical as well as his presentation components - he was constantly on the rise winning a world medal in his 2nd year as senior, winning everything there was to win in the 2013-2014 season - GPF, Worlds, OLYMPIC GOLD, except 4CC (I don't think he participated in 2014), achieving incredible scores at 2015 NHK Trophy and 2015 Barcelona, winning a second world title in 2017, winning a second OLYMPIC GOLD in 2018... and finally winning 4CC in 2020.

There is a huge discrepancy in scores that occurred after 2015 GPF. Yuzu was constantly improving, yet his scores don't reflect that at all - they look like he remained through his entire amateur career at the same level as he was in 2015 or that he became worse - which is a blatant lie.

Frankly, when he broke consecutive records in 2015, ISU and the feds became aware that he was untouchable. There were skaters younger than Yuzu who were bringing quads to the game, skaters like Jin Boyang, Shoma Uno and Nathan Chen. But their skating skills could NEVER get close to Yuzu's, and Yuzu was also bringing new jumps into his arsenal - 4Lo, 4Lz. USA having lots of power, started pushing Chen as the quad king and Chen was supposed to be Yuzu's rival, narrative woven like this until Yuzu turned pro.

Anyway, Chen's scores were rising although there was barely any visible improving seen in his skating, while Yuzu, obviously constantly improving, if he had the smallest mistake he was penalized. The penalizations became greater when the scoring system changed from +/-3 GOE to +/-5 GOE because there could be greater manipulation of scores.

If Yuzu was getting +3 GOE for a 3A prior to 2018/2019, he was supposed to get +5 GOE for the same jump starting with 2018/2019, but that barely happened. The average GOE for Yuzu's 3A on the international stage stayed around +3. So, on paper, Yuzu seemed to be getting worse. Not to mention the PCS... which Yuzu openly talked about after turning pro, he was no longer awarded almost perfect PCS although he kept improving.

About Beijing 2022, Yuzu was never meant to win the gold as set by the ISU. Had he went clean, his Rondo probably would've been around the same as his last WR (lower than 112 points) because of literal judging corruption, and Chen would've still had impossible inflation and set a WR.

I won't go deeper into Beijing, it was Yuzu's choice to continue skating while remaining true to himself, it was his choice to challenge the 4A, it was his choice to do everything as it went. And I respect that because there's nothing more worthy of admiration than a person who remains true to himself while undergoing abuse (because, in the end, that's what it was). He came out on the other side stronger and better than any other skater and his pro career already shows it.

ISU seems to not care that figure skating is dying, they are not doing anything to improve the circumstances in which this sport is "developing". They lowered the PC components from 5 to 3, they want to let Russia back in the game, they push quads in juniors, they continue white-washing the whole sport (look at the countries of the skaters who were given the ISU awards).

In a nutshell, Yuzu's competitive career was hell, he had numerous injuries that threated his skating life, he continued, he was getting underscored, he continued. He did try to play ISU's "jumping competition" game for a while - Aoi Honoo III reveals that - with Origin. He didn't like that and his scores didn't improve even while playing by ISU's rules. He went back to the programs that won him 2015 NHK, 2015 GPF and 2018 Olympics gold... he was awarded just a tiny bit more than his previous SP world record. So, he continued skating in the hopes of landing that 4A. He challenged it until the end of his amateur career. He showed the best he could at Beijing... but it's over and done with now. Now he continues challenging that jump, but for himself, because it's his DREAM.

Now, we focus on Yuzu's pro career - he continues changing what figure skating means. If Prologue wasn't enough to show that he is so much BETTER than when he competed, GIFT and NS will definitely cement that in. Yuzu continues pursuing his ideal figure skating, hard tech content, beautiful skating skills, all possible because of hard work and training.

FORGOT TO SAY:

ISU did use Yuzu, they used him until July 19th 2022. While we were anxiously waiting for the 2022-2023 GP assignments, ISU put the tickets on sale for all the GP stages minus GPF. There were people who went in blindly to buy tickets because Yuzu's photo was on several ticket sites (for example, the Finland GP had Yuzu on their site). People were going to buy GPF tickets, too without any concrete assignments.

Yuzu announced him turning pro in July, the Yuzu fans who had bought tickets to see Yuzu found a way to sell them or ended up not going to the GPs. ISU knew Yuzu brought in the crowds, they knew he was the favourite. They did not promote his skating, they promoted him PARTICIPATING in competitions.

[sunskate]

RD in Espoo starts 12:40 pm ET Nov 25

Season high scores for these teams:

Gilles/Poirier: 215.7 Skate Canada Hawayek/Baker: 202.07 Skate America Carreira/Ponomarenko: 187.42 GP Sheffield Turkkila/Versluis: 186.3 Finlandia (172.48 GP France) Taschlerova/Taschler: 183.55 Lombardia (177.89 GP Sheffield) Soucisse/Firus: 176.35 Nebelhorn (163.65 Skate America) Wang/Liu: 174.11 NHK Trophy Brown/Brown: 173.74 GP Sheffield Lagouge/Caffa: 171.52 Cup of Nice (155.29 Lombardia) Orihara/Pirinen: 170.17 Finlandia (168.45 NHK Trophy)

especially looking forward to seeing HB and CPom again - CPom have a strong shot at 3rd here. they last won a GP medal in 2018 (not counting the entirely domestic Skate America in 2020)

[flapper-dai]

  NHK Bilingual News : 2018 Legend on Ice & NHK Trophy EX

[dreamsburntdown]

It's been a while - apologies for the delay. Here comes part 4!

For the 2015/16 season, Yuzuru decided to keep his short program from the previous season, Ballade No. 1. by Chopin. The 2014/15 season was a bit unlucky for Yuzuru and because all of the injuries and illnesses, he wasn't able to skate his SP clean the season, so his decision to keep the SP was understandable. For the long program he decided to work with Shae-Lynn Bourne again, who choreographed a new free skate for the music of the Japanese movie, Onmyoji. This movie tells a story about Abe No Seimei, an onmyoji, who lived in the Heian period of the Japanese history, around 1100 years ago. He was a mysterious man and is considered a legendary figure in Japanese folklore. So, Yuzuru portrayed this character in his new program and he named his new free program, 'SEIMEI' (by the way, if you haven't watched the movie yet, go and watch it, it's available in the internet with English subtitles and it is a fun movie, in which Mansai Nomura plays the character of Seimei really well).

Yuzuru was finally physically well in 2015 and everybody was looking forward to his performances in the new season. He won Autumn Classic International, where he participated for the first time, and he finished 2nd behind Patrick Chan at Skate Canada. In the beginning of the season, Yuzuru skated his SP with one quad, a 4T, and a 3Lz-3T combination, though at Skate Canada he not just doubled the planned quad but he also doubled the planned 3T in his combination, making both of these jumping elements invalid (at that time, the requirements were so harsh in the short program). So he made a big decision after this competition: for his second Grand Prix competition, at the NHK Trophy, Yuzu changed his layout and put two quads in his short program: a quad Salchow first, then a quad Toe-loop-triple Toe-loop combination. It was technically a huge step forward.

Yuzuru's free program was also much more difficult technically than his previous free program, the Phantom of the Opera. It now included three quads, a 4S, a 4T in the first half, and a 4T-3T combination in the second half of the program. Plus, two triple Axels, both in combination and both in the second half of the program. And with this new program he showed something completely different than what we've seen from him before, ha showed us a new side of him.

By the time the end of November - the NHK Trophy - came, Yuzu was in absolute top form. He not just skated his upgraded SP perfectly for the first time - which earned him a new world record (106.33)- but he also skated a completely perfect free program as well, shattering the new world by becoming the first man to go over 200 points in the free program (216.07), and 300 points overall (322.40). He won the competition by 56 points! These programs weren't just perfect jump-wise, but had gorgeous spins, transitions, step sequences, had intricate choreographies and Yuzu performed to them so well. A lot was already said about these performance in the past years, but let me just say one thing: Yuzu set the bar in men's figure skating to a completely different level with these performances. He showed that it was possible to skate to extremely difficult programs with the highest quality, and this combined with incredible performance qualities as well, all in one program. The balance between the technique and artistry is there. Before him, some skaters were great artistically, but not so strong technically; or the contrary, they were strong for example jump-wise but less so in other aspects, in skating skills, spins or in performance quality.

Yuzuru has repeated his incredible performances at the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona, which earned him three world records again (the combined score, 330.43 remained the historical world record pre-2018). This was his third consecutive Grand Prix Final gold medal.

These performances at the NHK Trophy and the Grand Prix Final were historical and in many ways probably the most important performances in the men's in this decade.

The bar was so high, and Yuzu looked so unreachable that from now on, judges decided to overscore other skaters so much - in order to make the competition more exciting and making sure Yuzu wouldn't win everything in sight after these competition. Alexander Lakernik, vice president of ISU explicitly talked about this as well. What a mistake it was. I could write a lot about how judging started to go downhill because of this and although there were always judging problems in skating before this, things got worse a lot quicker after Yuzuru reached the stars in 2015/16. Simply because Yuzuru was that good and the leading people in the sport didn't want to accept this.

A few weeks before the GPF my and my friend were considering going to Barcelona, but then we decided not to go because of conflicts in work schedules. Of course, after NHK Trophy and GPF, I regretted it deeply not to go to Barcelona, and I thought to myself, that next time I will do everything to go and watch Yuzu in person. I showed his performances to many people, including my co-workers which I don't usually do at my workplace, haha.

In December, after the glorious GP season, Yuzu won his 4th Japanese Nationals title, and after that he stayed in Japan for a while. Sadly, little did we know at that time that a ligament injury in his left foot was getting worse.

After the incredible successes at the GP Series, everyone was expecting Yuzu to win his second World Championships gold medal. I remember how excited I was before the competition in Boston.

The tension was really high at Worlds, but Yuzu skated a beautiful short program, his lead was 12-point after the SP. So everything looked really well. Then came the free program which was something else. Yuzu's left foot (the take-off foot of the Toe-loop) was in such a bad condition that he even changed the 4T in the second half for the 4S. He made mistakes in the free program and he had to settle with silver medal - the same as last year (and he again lost to Fernandez). I was extremely sad for Yuzu, and I also felt frustration, because he was the best skater and after last season's problems he would have deserved the Worlds gold medal so much with these two great programs. The atmosphere was bad after the competition, I didn't really understand Brian Orser's attitude either.

We didn't even know about the severity of Yuzu's injury, or that he had thoughts in his mind, at the gala, that this might be his last competition. Watching 'Requiem of Heaven and Earth' was heart wretching, and of course it was more so after we learned about how injured he was at that time.

I was a fan of Yuzuru until 2016, but I became a die hard fan after what happened to him in Boston. I decided to cheer for him even more after this event.

He had to rest for months and decided not to skate in any shows in the off season. It all scared us a lot. When the news came that he was back training and preparing for the new season, it calmed me down.

I really hoped that he wouldn't have a big injury again leading up to the Olympics in 2018. I was waiting for the new season, 2016/2017 with new hope in the fall of 2016.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] - to be continued soon.

[redfar]

2018 NHK Trophy Deniss VASILJEVS - SP

[yuriplisetsky-rp]

Leroy Dominates to Win Skate Canada

In line for eighth GP gold

October 29, 2022

MISSASSAUGA, ON – Jean-Jacques Leroy of Canada laid a dominating performance to win Skate Canada with the highest scores of the season so far. The 25-year-old scored 101.12 in his short program, 207.05 for his free for a total score of 308.17, placing first in all three segments and winning the competition by over eighteen points. “It’s a good next step,” said the reigning Olympic Champion. “Obviously, I want to win the Grand Prix Final and Worlds, so winning both of my Grand Prix events are the next step. I have things I can improve on, of course, but I’m happy with what I did today.”

Four-time Japanese National Champion Kenjirou Minami held off to win silver, his first in a non-COVID year since winning bronze at the Internationaux de France in 2018. The 23-year-old scored 97.07 in his short, 192.31 for his free, and 289.38 overall, second in all three segments. “I’m so happy to win another medal on the Grand Prix circuit,” he said to reporters. “I want to prove that I am up there with the top skaters in the world, and I feel like I am on the right track.” He said his goals this season are to qualify for the Final, win a fifth National title, and place in the top six at Worlds.

Winning the bronze was Adam Loughton of Great Britain. The five-time British National Champion was fourth after the free with a score of 94.85, third in the free with a score of 191.43, and third overall with a score of 286.28. it is his first medal on the Grand Prix circuit since winning bronze at the GP Finland in 2018. “I’m thrilled to win bronze here,” said the 26-year-old. “I thought about retiring, but since my wife and best friend are both continuing, I will continue, too. I feel like I am still skating well, still healthy, so I have no reason not to keep going.”

Both Leroy and Loughton will compete at the MK John Wilson Trophy in Great Britain, the first GP event to be held there. Minami will next compete at his home NHK Trophy.