Yuzuru Hanyu Cheer Thread

Jackie Wong has something nice to say about Yuzuru
Hanyu continues to cement his GOAT status
I've commented a few times about Hanyu's 2015 Grand Prix Final performances and his status as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). Saturday's free skate was the first time we've seen him skate cleanly since that Grand Prix Final, and he was unbelievable and looking like the dominant skater we had expected him to be since that competition.
This was really only the second time that he has delivered well under the pressure of an ISU Championship event with expectations on him to win (the first being 2014 Worlds in his free skate). It was a testament to his skating and the mistakes in the event in Sochi when he still won the title despite errors. And during the last two Worlds, he has taken a lead into the free skate and faltered, with training mate and friend Javier Fernandez grabbing the gold instead. It was the exact opposite in Helsinki - Hanyu went from fifth to first with his magnificent skate, and Fernandez dropped from first to fourth after a mistake-filled free.
So how do this free skate and this win change his position in the history of figure skating? Well, it definitely elevates his status and allows him to continue to make the case for himself as the greatest. In an era when the difficulty level of men's skating is at an unbelievably high level, if he can sustain this through the next season and win his second Olympic gold, we can give him the GOAT medal.
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From http://www.rockerskating.com/news/2017/4/2/opining-on-2017-worlds-part-2-hanyu-the-goat-returns
 
Yuzuru's latest interview, translated by Sophie Moroi in International Facebook Group:
----
There are literally storms of news clips about Yuzuru’s gold at the Worlds in Japanese media, and I cannot translate everything. But this 5 mins interview with Yuzuru is probably the “MUST KNOW” for Yuzuru fans. Here is my verbatim translation.

Original video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k4NCMcrPSEm2GVmpqD9

(How did you recover yourself after the SP?) Right after I finished performing my SP, I was feeling really frustrated. As I was the first to skate [in the last group], I saw my ranking went down and down [as the other skaters performed], and my feeling went beyond depression. But, being inspired by voices of my fans, and reflecting on what I had been doing and other things, I thought I had to do my best by believing in myself. I think that’s how I managed to recover.

[Towards the FP] I think I felt mental fatigue, but that mental fatigue probably matched with my physical fatigue, so perhaps they might have achieved a good balance [between the mental and physical fatigue].

(What did you think with the high FP score?) Simply, I was just honestly happy. To begin with, I was delighted that the score 223 was 3 or 4 points above the previous (world) record [that I had]. Moreover, this programme [H&L] was significantly less appreciated as compared to SEIMEI, and I also struggled with expressing sufficiently and succeeding jumps [in H&L]. [During the season] I had made several performances in which I repeatedly wondered between getting closer to the music and farther from the music. But this time I was able to make a clean programme, and my feeling was also clear inside myself. So, I now have a strong feeling that I was finally able to advance one step beyond my own record. Of course, I will always have a persistent desire to make a clean programme with no mistakes, perhaps I will again feel frustrated with myself who cannot make a clean programme, and I will continue practicing further more in the future. But if I didn’t have such persistence, I certainly would not have such a strong desire for a clean programme. Probably, in view of the NHK Cup and the GPF as well as other bitter experience in the past year, I think this [gold at the Worlds] may be a little gift awarded by God.

(About the high level competitions) As regards the increase in the scores over 300, I don’t necessarily get impressed with the high scores per se; rather I think that good performances with high quality have dramatically increased. It’s not so much as execution of each element as the execution and quality of entire programmes that each competitor has improved a lot, as far as I am concerned.

(How do you feel about going to the Olympics season as the World Champion) Well, 66 years ago, Mr. Dick Button won the second consecutive Olympic gold medal while he was the defending Olympic gold medallist and the World Champion. In this sense, I am convincing myself that a good omen is coming upon me.

(You have challenged difficult programmes this season) I think it was good. Against my coach’s advice in a sense, I insisted on including 4 quads and managed to convince him at the end of the day. That’s how this season started. So, it was not according to the plan of the coach, as it were. After trying for a year and finally managing to deliver a clean programme… Well, even if I might not have been able to execute a clean programme [of this season], I have built self-confidence that I should be able to perform a very clean programme at any time and under any circumstances if I now try the SEIMEI elements [which is less difficult than H&L]. To that extent, I did hard training. So, in the sense of elevating my limitations, this season was a very fruitful one.

At any rate, I have had a consistent desire to win another Olympic gold medal during this season. Even when this is not yet the Olympic season, I was always training with that desire, which finally resulted in the gold medal at this World Championship. Yes, this is not the Olympics, but I have got reaffirmation that this kind of competitions would probably take place at the Olympics [next year]. So, I think I will have to build my skating skills and leave no weakness so that I could win even if such [harsh] competitions take place [at the Olympics].

Thank you! I will do my best at the next one!

END
 
Looks like Hanyu has found the formula to peak at Worlds. Skate just okay for the first part of the year then rev it up by the time of 4CC and Worlds. In 2015 he had the greatest back to back performances in history at NHK and the GPF but i knew there was no way he could replicate that at Worlds and might not win which is what happened.
 
Jammers said:
Looks like Hanyu has found the formula to peak at Worlds. Skate just okay for the first part of the year then rev it up by the time of 4CC and Worlds. In 2015 he had the greatest back to back performances in history at NHK and the GPF but i knew there was no way he could replicate that at Worlds and might not win which is what happened.
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Japanese media and JSF put too much pressure on Yuzuru and expect him to skate well always which is impossible with he layouts he is doing. I think at this point Yuzuru and his team are realistic and know that GPs and even National are not important to him.
 
xibsuarz just says:
New episode of Ice Talk with Charlie White to comment on Worlds! Around 20:16, he said Yuzu's FS was his top moment of the event. He said he is just breathtaking, he makes everything seem easy and possible. The way about him is so inspiring he feels like he could run a marathon or land a 4S. He said the words to describe that FS were "ease and grace".
He said his ability to deal with the pressure and demand for excellence has improved as he's matured. He was very happy for him because he thinks that moment is going to stay with him for a long time, it was special.
Jackie acknowledged his ability to "figure it out", since he delivered even after he didn't have the perfect practices he had last year.

Edit: A beautiful fancam of Yuzuru's ex at WC https://youtu.be/e-2OJ1C2oJ4
 
Philip Hersh's new article on icenetwork: http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2017/04/04/222260052
1. Yuzuru Hanyu can look erratic, both painfully and delightfully so.

Even with that, the Japanese star is exceptional enough to have achieved consistently brilliant results in the past four seasons.

Olympic gold. Two world titles. Two world silvers. An unmatched four straight Grand Prix Final victories by a singles skater. Highest scores ever in the short program and free skate, and over a competition. A fan base in his own country and across the world that, thanks to social media, may be the largest in the sport's history.

And imagine what his record would be had he not lost leads after the short program at the 2015 and 2016 World Championships.

This year, he rallied from fifth in the short program to take the gold.

My icenetwork colleague, Jackie Wong, makes a case for Hanyu as the greatest ever, given the technical demands of the sport today. Certainly no one before him has blended free skates of such consummate artistry and four quadruple jumps.

Comparing the achievements of skaters from different eras is impossible because of changes in the sport's judging and scoring systems, and the advances in jumping. The best way to judge is to look at dominance in a particular era.

By that standard, there is no doubt after this season that Hanyu, at 22, already has a place in the sport's pantheon.

He could increase his stature even more by putting together two error-free programs at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games. He won the gold in Sochi with a sloppy, two-fall free skate.

The signature performance of Hanyu's career came at last season's Grand Prix Final, an event that gets little attention outside the skating world. It would be nice if he could match that next February, when even the people who watch skating but once every four years would know they have seen an athlete for the ages.
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Hanyu, who stood in fifth place following the short program, performed a superb free skating program to “Hope and Legacy” by Joe Hisaishi, nailing his best performance of the season and a record of 223.20 points. He perfectly executed four quadruple jumps, including a quad loop, plus five triple jumps including two triple Axels, spins and footwork. All his jumps come “out of the blue” with no preparation at all and they are perfectly landed on soft knees with beautiful running edges. They all look so easy, as if they were just single jumps!!! He is unique. Impressive were also his step sequences, especially, in my opinion, his choreo sequence filled with original and beautiful moves. His skating is very soft and graceful and filled with passion. Simply fantastic. One of the best programs I have ever seen. He was awarded twelve 10 marks in the Program Components.

From Sonia Bianchetti, a former ISU official and referee
http://www.soniabianchetti.com/writings_2017worlds.html
 
New blog entry from Morozombie: http://morozombie.blogspot.com/2017/04/on-ecstatic-experience.html#more

To paraphrase David Foster Wallace, watching figure skating on a screen is to live figure skating pretty much as watching pornography is to the felt reality of human love. Nowhere have I been more reminded of this fact than when I witnessed* Yuzuru Hanyu skate his Hope and Legacy long program at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki last week.

One key aspect of a live figure skating performance that cannot be translated onto the screen is that somewhat vague and underdefined criterion listed in the "Performance/Execution" component of the official Program Components Score explanations: "[t]he skater radiates energy resulting in an invisible connection with the audience." I would say that the "energy" and "invisible connection" parts imply that such a performance becomes more than the sum of its parts by presenting an invitation to participate in something that exceeds the fetters of our immediate experiences, but whatever that criterion means, Mr. Hanyu's performance of his long program at Helsinki last week undeniably embodied it, and embodied it in spades. I have been fortunate to witness a number of indelible figure skating performances in person through the years, but I don't think I've ever had an experience as an audience member quite like what transpired at Hartwall Arena during Mr. Hanyu's long program.

On screen, we can see the audience applaud and cheer, we can share in their obvious excitement despite being thousands of miles away, but that ineffable connection between skater and audience must be experienced in person. How do I even begin to describe what it felt like being in the audience during Mr. Hanyu's long program performance? It was, for the lack of a better word, entirely hypnotizing. The thing I remember most were those tingly moments when it felt like the 13,000-strong audience at the Hartwall Arena was living and breathing as a single, very large organism--for example, the silent, expectant tension that felt like the entire arena was collectively holding its breath when Mr. Hanyu was setting up for his second-half 4S-3T combination and the huge, collective roar and lapse back into regular breathing patterns when he landed it perfectly. The universally ecstatic, deafening applause breaking out when Mr. Hanyu landed his final jumping pass--the 3Lz--that continued unabated until he finally left the ice to enter the kiss-and-cry. Seeing the sheer happiness of the people all around me--Russian, Japanese, Finnish, American, whatever--wiping their eyes, hugging each other spontaneously, and letting out the occasional guttural roar or scream.

Given the attendant peculiarities of the particular context in which Mr. Hanyu skated his long program at Worlds (the fifth-place short program performance, the extremely high level of competition, the quest to regain a long-awaited world title), in retrospect, it's understandable why Mr. Hanyu's long program at Worlds was so spellbinding--simply put, it was one of those otherwordly, possibility-expanding moments in sports that allowed the audience to access certain registers of experience far removed from quotidian existence: excitement, beauty, intensity, awe, suspense, greatness, greatness, and greatness.

*witnessed must be used here, because nobody simply saw that performance
 
Brian Orser’s week at Worlds with skaters Yuzuru Hanyu and Javier Fernandez
http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/brian-orsers-week-worlds-skaters-yuzuru-hanyu-and-javier-fernandez

The part about Yuzuru:
------
Continuing on this Worlds train of thought. Is there anything you said to Hanyu before his free skate? What was he like the night before leading into that?

I knew he was disappointed after the short so we needed to just let him be disappointed for that night. Then we did our practice the next day and he was on a mission to prove something. I totally had to hold him back and say, “Just do one practice. Don’t do a run through. We’re just gonna treat this like a day of rest.” He was kind of like, “really?” And I said, “Yeah, just trust me on this. I want you fresh for tomorrow; you’re gonna be fine.” Honestly, he’s never been in this kind of condition before. So, just, “trust your training. You need to come to the rink a little more approachable, a little bit less focused.” He gets intense. There’s focused, and there’s intense. As soon as he came in and we started our off ice warm up, I looked at his team leader and I said, he’s got a better face today. I could tell by his face. He was a little bit more engaging and it just felt right.

Your communication has improved then? I read when you first started working with him you kept a translator on your speed dial!

Yeah! Well, you know what, he’s been studying English. He’s learning English. Sometimes he would just throw a yes or no answer without understanding the question. And now he takes his time and thinks about it and he explains what he’s feeling, or what the answer is supposed to be. He’s communicating that way. I said, “We can’t take anything for granted here.” Whenever he answered a question with “yea, yea, yea,” I knew that he didn’t understand the question. So I had to rephrase it.
 
Thanks @Meoima for that latest interview with Yuzuru. I love reading the more in-depth interviews with him. They show how thoughtful and engaged and absorbed he is in his skating. He has a very realistic view of skating generally, and his own skating--yet he also has this absolute desire for, and insistence upon, his own perfection or maximization that I find fascinating and is what makes him so unique. Love him. :)
 
Below are some transcribed (and some translated) remarks about Yuzuru’s jumps and general jump quality from commentators all around the world.

Kurt Browning: “[quads] each as good as the one before” “every single landing looked like it was on butter” “Relatively simple triple flip, but basically camouflaged within the choreography”

Robin Cousins: “Effortless triple flip, coming in the middle of the step sequence, just out of nowhere.” “Shivers. That was sublime. Goodness me, that was sensational. Because you can’t, no one will, even Javi, will have the delicacy of this jumping, this technique. It is delicate even if he’s flying through the air and he’s forcing his body to do these quads. They are light and elegant. Not one of them on the minus side, absolutely… yeah, on the money. There is no tension in his upper body when he rotates, you see it especially in slow motion… just look at his upper body, there’s never any tension in his upper body when he skates anyway. What command. …it was just beautiful.”

Alban Preaubert, Florent Amodio, ESP France commentators, translated by Altie:
(Alban) “I think that when we’ll see the protocols there will be +3 GOEs e-ve-ry-where, I cannot imagine another outcome! The quality of execution is extraordinary, you just can’t do better!” “There are transitions everywhere, even before the triple axel ! And they are all extremely complex”
(Florent) “He’s done such an elegant program, with such ease. Yes, ease is the word, because he flies on the ice, everything is ethereal, the jumps are majestic…” “Look at how high the quadruple salchow/triple toeloop is ! And here, the quadruple toeloop ! What a mastery !”

Annick Dumont (Fr2 commentator, coach), translated by plumededragon: Five triple jumps, including 2 3A, 4 quads… all brought with much elegance, so he has bonus on everything… It’s indeed the most beautiful program ever seen! Of the whole men skating history! … This program will have to be shown in all skating schools..

Max Ambesi & Angelo Dolfini (ESP ITA commentators), translated by Lys and Caro: “Quadruple Rittberger. Magnificent. +3. Quadruple salchow. Textbook perfect. Triple flip after difficult steps, perfectly executed. Quadruple salchow, triple toe loop. Perfection…” “The best free program skated by Yuzuru Hanyu, and that means that this is the best free ever skated in history… I’ve never seen anything like that…”

ESP Germany commentators, live, translated by Eclair: “Everything he showed today was done with an unbelievable ease.”

ESP Germany commentators, recap, translated by Nicole Silbermann: “The quad sal. PERFECT. Both of [quad salchow and quad loop]. There is no way to perform (this jump) any better.”
 
Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski were interviewed by Maggie Hendricks for USA Today
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/04/joh...ed-carpet-for-a-dog-show-because-we-love-dogs

Maggie Hendricks: THERE ARE SOME SKATERS I WILL DROP EVERYTHING TO WATCH, LIKE THE MEN'S WORLD CHAMPION, YUZURU HANYU FROM JAPAN. WHO ARE YOURS?

Johnny Weir: "As a commentator, I'm looking from the outside in some ways. Yuzuru Hanyu is definitely somebody I've respected his entire career, someone I am impressed with his level of growth. Despite being the reigning Olympic champion, he still will progress and try new elements and really fight for every program he's in, which makes him exciting to watch in addition to being a beautiful skater."
 
Meoima said:
Fancam of Yuzuru's Swan performance at WC 2017 gala https://youtu.be/6UOKvegtl10
Finale https://youtu.be/OGiLPqbuRfA
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It had potential, but being an exhibition and with a couple errors, I'll still see Alexi Urmanov as one of best being The Swan; check out '95 Europeans:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_o5Wv8-004&t=5s - (Alexei Urmanov - 1995 Euro Chps LP)

He should have won, but a major mistake in the "SP" placed him in 6th place and even winning the LP wasn't enough! Funny, a couple years later in '97 he was in 7th after the "short," but was able to take the title!
 
Jammers said:
Looks like Hanyu has found the formula to peak at Worlds. Skate just okay for the first part of the year then rev it up by the time of 4CC and Worlds. In 2015 he had the greatest back to back performances in history at NHK and the GPF but i knew there was no way he could replicate that at Worlds and might not win which is what happened.
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I was afraid the same would happen to our own Nathan Chen after brilliant performances with multiple Quads at the 2 preceding events; US Nat'ls & The 4 CC! Expectations had to be huge and having problems with the skates is predictable! I'm surprised there aren't more occasions of skaters being hindered since those boots and blades take so much punishment in comparison to past generations where it was a big deal to complete even 1 Quad! The torque involved in getting up there into the air then the subsequent landings take a toll on equipment and body I'm sure! :rolleyes: :duh:
 
skateboy said:
So proud of Yuzu for putting it together at Worlds. Even though he did not win the last two worlds, I've always considered him the frontrunner.
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Hard to believe that Yuzu may have been considered an underdog at Worlds this season, only to remind that he is still the captain of the ship. :summer:
 
Weve3 said:
Hard to believe that Yuzu may have been considered an underdog at Worlds this season, only to remind that he is still the captain of the ship. :summer:
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Well he does it to himself by dropping a couple World titles to Fernandez; a total joke! He's not on the same planet! Winning all those Europeans proves my points! Surya Bonaly got little respect from the FS masses, but still won 5 of them! :rolleyes: :respec:
 
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