Mirai Nagasu to skater Vincent Zhou: Can’t we be friends?

I thought there would be more to the story than that. This seems more like something you'd Tweet. Either way, it's cute. Vincent tweeted last week about how he came back to the dorm and found Mirai eating his food. This sounds like a sitcom about step-siblings or something.
 
Wyliefan said:
Someone wrote a whole article about this? :confused:
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Click-bait - the Olympics must be so lucrative for media organizations that those without official coverage will do anything to attract attention.

bardtoob said:
:confused: Poor 17 year old Vincent.

:shuffle: Mirai, a pretty 24 year old, has absolutely no clue what kind of angst she might be causing him.
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He's 17 - I would be surprised if he saw it. Based on his quotes in the media I think he's on a higher plan intellectually. :)
 
VIETgrlTerifa said:
Vincent tweeted last week about how he came back to the dorm and found Mirai eating his food. This sounds like a sitcom about step-siblings or something.
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:rofl: Hadn't heard that :rofl:

ETA: Here is a link to the Tweet: https://twitter.com/govincentzhou/status/961859083618852864

skatingguy said:
Based on his quotes in the media I think he's on a higher plan intellectually. :)
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Vincent reminds me of what I expect from an intellectually precocious Palo Alto teen.

Mirai, on the other hand, is pretty goofy and relaxed, even if she has started taking business school very seriously.

. . . It almost sound like a SoCal vs NorCal thing :lol:
 
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Mirai did a little Instagram story before the events began about Vincent forgetting his Team USA gear before the opening ceremonies. She teases hard. Sometimes I feel sorry for Darian. But I like it that she is a competitor through and through. :D ETA: Pretty sure Vincent is too. :)
 
VIETgrlTerifa said:
Does Mirai have any siblings? If she doesn't, I can see her using Vincent as a substitute. There's something about Vincent that I probably couldn't help but want to bother in the most affectionate platonic way either.
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No, she's an only child.

I agree about Vincent. He is so serious --I would be trying to get him to laugh too.
 
Awwww . . . I am starting to like Vincent:

But to answer the original question, I would go back to 1984 to fully experience the release of Take On Me by a-ha. Also, isn't it great that these are the things I choose to think about prior to skating? Good way to stay grounded and in the present. Ha...ha... #gotem
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https://twitter.com/govincentzhou/status/963927943104868353

We both would have liked to have been teens in the 80s :biggrinbo
 
For better context, here's a longer quote by Mirai about Vincent from the U.S. ladies' press conference on Sunday (this excerpt below is at the end of Scott Reid's comprehensive Mirai Nagasu article in the Orange County Register): https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/...g-back-in-search-of-olympic-individual-medal/
Bradie Tennell, Nagasu’s teammate, said her favorite off-the-ice moments of the Olympics have been “listening to Mirai talk to really anybody. It’s very fun.”
“I just love talking. I think that I first came out onto the scene,” Nagasu said suddenly changing her voice into the high pitched, scared sound of a panicked youth, “ ‘Oh, my god people want to talk to me!’ and I like to think of myself as an introverted extrovert so I have times where I like to be by myself.
“At the same time l love meeting new people. I love the Olympics. I love pin trading. I like going up to people and going like, ‘Hey, got a pin? Let’s trade! I just love this slogan of passion connected because I really feel like the Olympics do that for people.”
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Her latest project is the reserved Vincent Zhou, her training partner, the sixth-place finisher in last week’s Olympic men’s competition and at 17, the youngest member of Team USA.
“I really relate to him and how he’s so young,” she said. “And so I think I annoy him a lot because I just ask him questions and he tries to not talk to me and he’s like, ‘Don’t bother me’ and I’m like ‘Vincent, I just want to be your friend, how many siblings do you have, how come your dad’s not here?’ And I just rapid-fire them because I wanted him to feel included and as a 17 year-old I bet it’s hard to talk to people. So I hope he sees a friend in me, I don’t know. I bet he finds me annoying.”
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Yahoo! Sports column by Eric Adelson: Ready Player Zhou: American skater is a force to be reckoned with and a voice to be listened to
Excerpt:
To speak with Vincent Zhou is to be inspired, intrigued and frightened. He has already made history in his sport this week, by being the first to land a quadruple lutz in Olympic competition. But conversations with this 17-year-old move away from skating as quickly as he takes off from the ice surface. He has complex thoughts about automation, evolution, world war, and the millennial generation.
“I’m not a typical American kid,” he says, “because I’m a Chinese-American kid.”
...
“All I’ve been through all of my life has contributed to my perspective on the world,” Zhou says, “which includes the realization that this new generation of millennials, they all expect things to be handed to them on a golden platter. They take their possessions and shelter and clothes for granted and they spend their time doing drugs and partying and not putting effort into things that matter.”
He does not say this with spite or even much emotion. Zhou is incredibly analytical for someone his age, or any age. He almost views himself from an outsider’s perspective. “In the grand scope of the universe,” he says, “I don’t really matter at all.”
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Guys, did you see the quote from Vincent that Phil Hersh tweeted?
https://twitter.com/olyphil/status/964328423681286145

"I’m not a typical 17- year old. I don’t go to Starbucks and order the newest cappuccino. I don’t spend my time vaping with friends. I prefer to stay home and do calm things. It helps me be more mature."

Still trying to figure out what "calm things" consist of... :)

Really quirky kid -- kinda glad he's out there for those who are the more quiet and serious type. Not everyone has to be Adam Rippon.
 
Agreed. I follow some skaters on Instagram who are about Vincent's age or a just a bit older and he seems to have a pretty fun sense of humor that he shares with them on his replies to their IG posts.
 
VIETgrlTerifa said:
Does Mirai have any siblings? If she doesn't, I can see her using Vincent as a substitute. There's something about Vincent that I probably couldn't help but want to bother in the most affectionate platonic way either.
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I totally can see this, also I noticed after she came off the ice in the team event she hugged everyone, but when she approached Nathan Chen she patted him on the head, like a big sister, and then hugged him.
 
Thanks for posting the link about Vincent, who has really seems to be treated as "Vincent Who?" by the NBC primetime broadcasts. I love his mature attitude, and he deserves to have people respect his serious nature. I hope he does get a little more individual attention from NBC. (I only have the free NBC, not cable. If there has been any off-ice coverage on NBCSN or Olympic Channel of Vincent during the games, what did they feature?)
 
Mrs. P said:
Guys, did you see the quote from Vincent that Phil Hersh tweeted?
https://twitter.com/olyphil/status/964328423681286145

"I’m not a typical 17- year old. I don’t go to Starbucks and order the newest cappuccino. I don’t spend my time vaping with friends. I prefer to stay home and do calm things. It helps me be more mature."

Still trying to figure out what "calm things" consist of... :)

Really quirky kid -- kinda glad he's out there for those who are the more quiet and serious type. Not everyone has to be Adam Rippon.
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That sounds exactly like Alf after he went off to college and did an aerospace engineering major. (In HS he was still a punk and got into some trouble! :rofl: )

If Vincent is anything like the quiet nerds I'm related to and know, those "calm things" might have to do with computers, reading, maybe musical instruments. And since he's from Palo Alto, cryptocurrency. ;) :rofl:
 
I do hope Vincent gets over that teenage nerd "I'm not a typical teen, I'm more mature" superiority complex though. I come from a family of nerds and despite our academic excellence, my mom always told me that everyone is smart in their own way. It helped my sister and I be grounded, and we have friends and colleagues from all walks of life. They have taught us a lot.

Whereas my uber-nerd all-these-degrees-make-me-awesome cousin just failed the part of his medical school residency test that was about interacting nicely with patients. :rofl:
 
Anita18 said:
I do hope Vincent gets over that teenage nerd "I'm not a typical teen, I'm more mature" superiority complex though. I come from a family of nerds and despite our academic excellence, my mom always told me that everyone is smart in their own way. It helped my sister and I be grounded, and we have friends and colleagues from all walks of life. They have taught us a lot.

Whereas my uber-nerd all-these-degrees-make-me-awesome cousin just failed the part of his medical school residency test that was about interacting nicely with patients. :rofl:
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This, totally. While I am book smart, it's just as important to be street smart and it took me some time to work on that aspect of things.

And yes social skills are a good thing. :)
 
Vincent uncannily reminds me of some of the boys I grew up with in a Shanghai "gifted school." Things did not end too well for many of us....
 
analia said:
Vincent uncannily reminds me of some of the boys I grew up with in a Shanghai "gifted school." Things did not end too well for many of us....
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What do you mean? Were they all book smart but couldn't succeed in life? Vincent seems like a thoughtful introvert-- nothing wrong with that. In his next career, he could fit right in with the students at MIT and work in Silicon Valley like his parents.
 
livetoskate said:
What do you mean? Were they all book smart but couldn't succeed in life? Vincent seems like a thoughtful introvert-- nothing wrong with that. In his next career, he could fit right in with the students at MIT and work in Silicon Valley like his parents.
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However: https://twitter.com/govincentzhou/status/965783491630780418
Vincent Zhou, 17, just said his parents are both software engineers in the bay area and his sister is studying brain something at MIT, and that he was the family dissapointment.. while sitting down on an interview.. at the Olympic Games, representing USA..
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I seriously want a book of all of Vincent's self-depreciating quotes.
 
Mrs. P said:
However: https://twitter.com/govincentzhou/status/965783491630780418

I seriously want a book of all of Vincent's self-depreciating quotes.
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:rofl: I feel you Vincent! :rofl: :rofl:

I joke I'm the failure of my family, and I was a cancer research scientist for 7 years. :rofl: I went to the "worst" college - still top 5 liberal arts college in the US, but my sister and cousins did "better." And I didn't get a graduate degree. (Only one other cousin hasn't, but he went to Princeton.) My family's standards are ridic.

As for @analia's post, my observations of the kids directly from the Chinese mainland (at least those attending US universities), is that a lot of them are super smart but also super entitled. :shuffle: The parents DO have to be disgustingly rich to afford to send their kid to tutoring and do the tests to get into a private American university, and then attend at the international student rates...
 
skateboy said:
I think Vincent will come out of his shell as he remains in the public eye and his popularity increases. Shoma Uno used to look like a deer in headlights when asked a question, but now he's pretty comfortable with the attention.
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Oh yeah, I agree. I think just being at the Olympics has helped in that regard.
 
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