Wang / Liu's interview post NHK:
https://weibo.com/5665302995/MfLHX7rFB
A quick translation by me:
Q: How do you feel after the FD?
A: We finally finished the first competition of the season, overall we actually feel quite relaxed. You can also see that our programs are still rough and we've shown various big or small problems in the competition. We've also seen many things to improve. After the competition, both we and the coaches will get a lot of feedback and come up with a lot of new ideas. There are things that are not fitting and things that need to be improved. We don't have time for program modification before Espoo next week, but we'll have changes after the Grand Prix.
Q: About the music selection
A: Marie-France picked the music. At first, we thought of a lot of themes that suit us. Shiyue discussed with the coaches and selected some films. In the end, Marie-France thought
Batman might be a better choice since she already had the story and movements in her mind at the thought of this theme. This music is powerful and fits our style well.
Q: About the ChAJ at the start
A: At the beginning we had a ChAJ that was choreographed a long while ago and we'd practiced that move for a long time. However, we were not too happy about that. Then, less than ten days before leaving for NHK, Marie-France suddenly said that the jump you used to have to enter the straightline lift was very pretty and it was a good idea to use it again. And we agreed. That move used to be our entry to the lift and it fits our program this time too so we made the change.
Q: Were there a lot of revisions during the choreographing process?
A: There were many, but we really didn't have enough time. We arrived in Montreal late and other teams had already started competing. We wanted to start the preparation quickly as well, however, Shiyue was concussed due to an accident in training. We only had few weeks to train and she had to rest for two weeks. It's like there's a big meal that others take 3 hours to finish, yet we have to stuff the whole thing in us in just 30 minutes, which hurt us a lot. Since we resumed high intensity training without time to prepare or adapt, there were a lot of injuries during the process. For example, Xinyu suffered from periostitis in his foot. And during one training, we both so wanted to do well that we crashed into each other accidentally, Shiyue fell and was left concussed. She carried on training for another two days before going to the doctor because she felt really unwell. She was diagnosed with concussion and the doctor didn't allow her to keep training, she had to rest for more than a week. And during the recovery, the doctor only permitted her to increase the training time bit by bit, 30 minutes for the first day, 1 hour for the second day etc. This happened at the end of September. While Shiyue was resting, Xinyu trained alone, improving the technique and sustaining the stamina. Since we pushed ourselves too fast, we had injuries like Xinyu's foot and Shiyue's knee, plus the concussion. It really wasn't easy.
Q: About the psychological impact and adjustment
A: We just thought we couldn't give up, as we also saw various reports, including that our Chinese teammates withdrew due to injuries. We thought that if we withdrew too, there wouldn't be any Chinese skaters on the GP. Actually this is a nice chance for us since the country (note: I assume they meant the Chinese Federation here) had managed to put us in the last two GPs, which is also what we wanted. The coaches, on the other hand, thought it'd be better if we took it easy - if we could do it, try to do our best, if we couldn't, let's think about the next step, but we still needed to do our job. We thought we were very fortunate to have the opportunity to train abroad thanks to the Winter Sports Administrative Center of General Administration of Sport of China. Since the country (note: I assume they meant the officials here) trusted us so much, we couldn't disappoint them. We had to overcome the difficulties and work hard.
Q: About the goals and expectations of this season
A: Honestly, we don't have many goals or expectations now. We are happy with our performance this time but competitive sports are about the scores. We are satisfied and proud of ourselves, yet we were really not so happy and even shocked to see our score. We hadn't had such a low score for, probably about three or four years after Pyeongchang. However, at least we know how much effort we've made, both on and off ice. Actually we were very unhappy yesterday, but this is only the first competition of the season and our score is understandable too. So eventually we feel proud of ourselves for returning to compete. After returning to Montreal this time, we added a lot of off-ice training, sometimes on weekends, and also Pilates and ballet training and we are more muscular than before. We're doing all of these to get the feel on ice back soon since skating alone is not enough. We've arranged a lot of other kinds of training to make up. Overall, we are quite happy this time and we've shown the level in training. We still need to pay attention to many details.
Fingers crossed for Nini.
