"I will work on triple triples and other triples after Worlds" - Mao Asada

[miki88]

If a coach and/or skater can't fix either a flutz or ur problems on 3x3 in two years it would seem almost certain they will never be fixed.
That said I don't consider Mao just any ordinary skater. I think she is special and very talented.

I can also say I think her coaching situation - or to be more accurtae - her lack of coaching - is what separated Yuna from Mao these past few years.

Polish, and polish more every element and maximize point potential under CoP is what we saw Orser/Wilson do for Yuna.
I saw no such thing from Mao and think she was a better skater a few years ago.

To compete at the elite levels good coaching and strategy is necessary for a skater who wants to be a champion.

Mao will be 20 in a few months and I have to wonder if she has either the will or the understanding of the CoP to know how to maximize her scoring potential. She clearly needs someone running the show for her and telling her what to do.

I can guarantee that Mirai will be coached in a way very similar to Yuna. Every detail will be polished and tech deficiencies will be worked on relentlessly even as the tech difficulty/point potential will be raised.

Reading Orser's comments it is clear that if Yuna continues he recognizes Mirai as a threat to her - maybe more so than Mao.

I am not a fan of CoP but I am getting more used to it. Whether I like it or not doesn't matter. What matters is scoring points. What is meaningless is crying like Plushy or Japanese media about the scores. "Quad jump"....."triple axle".......blah, blah blah......a sign of sheer stupidity and poor sportsmanship IMO.

I thought Yuna won and I thought she won by a fairly large margin.
I thought Evan won too - probably by a bigger margin - since Plushy was still getting too many reputation points for elements that just were not being done.

So Mao has four year now. So does Yuna if she continues. And so does 16 year old Mirai.
I have a feeling we have seen the best from Mao as she just won't let a top coach train her to her potential. I also believe a young, full of himself Patrick Chan will atempt to train himself in a manner similar to Mao. Disappointment and/or disaster will surely follow such egotistical skaters.

Yuna can still get better if she chooses to continue with Orser. Mirai is getting better by the month at an almost scary rate.

I doubt if a sequestered skater living comfortably at home and practicing in solitude on the rink a university built for her will be part of the equation in 2014. JMHO.

Aren't we a little pessimistic? Well, if you read her interview, Mao does acknowledge her faults and seems willing to make changes. She's not like Patrick Chan who thinks he is the future and stuff. I just don't think the term "egotistical" fits her.

[Basics]

I actually don't believe her until I see her doing them at a competition. So she's going to do 3A-3T, 4Lo, 3Lz-3T, and what else? I mean, it's good for her if she can really achieve her goal or rather promises, but some of her comments sound just ridiculous to me. Is JSF actually pressuring her to make such comments to get more media attention so that Mao's popularity doesn't go away?

[silverlake22]

I actually don't believe her until I see her doing them at a competition. So she's going to do 3A-3T, 4Lo, 3Lz-3T, and what else? I mean, it's good for her if she can really achieve her goal or rather promises, but some of her comments sound just ridiculous to me. Is JSF actually pressuring her to make such comments to get more media attention so that Mao's popularity doesn't go away?

Yeah I'm with you, Mao's jumps aren't as big and powerful as they used to be. At this point I honestly think she is too thin to pull off those jumps, it looks like she has lost quite some weight and as we've seen with Miki Ando this often can hurt your jumps.

[miki88]

Yeah I'm with you, Mao's jumps aren't as big and powerful as they used to be. At this point I honestly think she is too thin to pull off those jumps, it looks like she has lost quite some weight and as we've seen with Miki Ando this often can hurt your jumps.

That's strange. I also heard her jumps were not so stable before because she had gained weight and so she had to lose some weight to stabilize it again.

[bekalc]

I actually don't believe her until I see her doing them at a competition. So she's going to do 3A-3T, 4Lo, 3Lz-3T, and what else? I mean, it's good for her if she can really achieve her goal or rather promises, but some of her comments sound just ridiculous to me. Is JSF actually pressuring her to make such comments to get more media attention so that Mao's popularity doesn't go away?

It sounds like from her interviews that Mao's main goal right now is not the quad. Its something she likes to do for fun. But right now her main goal is to get her 3lutz, 3sal, and 3/3s back. I think that its a reasonable goal for her.

[Nadia01]

Yeah I'm with you, Mao's jumps aren't as big and powerful as they used to be. At this point I honestly think she is too thin to pull off those jumps, it looks like she has lost quite some weight and as we've seen with Miki Ando this often can hurt your jumps.

I herad that Mao had to lose weight to make it easier for her to jump 3As.

[Nadia01]

Aren't we a little pessimistic? Well, if you read her interview, Mao does acknowledge her faults and seems willing to make changes. She's not like Patrick Chan who thinks he is the future and stuff. I just don't think the term "egotistical" fits her.

I think Mao sorta understands that there's a problem, but she still wants coaches to COME TO HER. This severely limits her coaching options, and though Japan has many great coaches, not all of them can or is willing to go to Nagoya to coach her. To some casual fans (or maybe not so casual fans), it sounds incredibly egotistical, since other skaters don't demand that of their coaches. As a matter of fact, I've never heard of a skater doing what Mao's doing (asking coaches to come to her; refusing to move to where the coaches are, etc.).

I know she said she didn't want to move. Whatever her reasons are, obviously living in Japan is more important than getting the best coach possible. And until she's unwilling to make sacrifices to get the best coaches and so on, it's hard to take her seriously.

[aurora100]

I think Mao is losing it. She should stop talking and doing these interviews. She should get some rest and get her body and mind focused in competing at worlds. And after that she should plan for future. If she is going to try different jumps, she should just do them, quietly. Work on her jumps, choreo, costumes, change her coach or whatever. And she should come out when she is ready and shows what she's got. All this talk is only putting a focus on what she has failed to do for this Olympics (hello, shouldn't she have got her triples together for this Olympics) and raising expectations and publicity she does not need.

[miki88]

I think Mao sorta understands that there's a problem, but she still wants coaches to COME TO HER. This severely limits her coaching options, and though Japan has many great coaches, not all of them can or is willing to go to Nagoya to coach her. To some casual fans (or maybe not so casual fans), it sounds incredibly egotistical, since other skaters don't demand that of their coaches. As a matter of fact, I've never heard of a skater doing what Mao's doing (asking coaches to come to her; refusing to move to where the coaches are, etc.).

I know she said she didn't want to move. Whatever her reasons are, obviously living in Japan is more important than getting the best coach possible. And until she's unwilling to make sacrifices to get the best coaches and so on, it's hard to take her seriously.

I think she may have had a bad experience the last time she did go abroad for train. She did say she was unsure about the coaching situation for next season, so who knows. The one thing we know for sure is that she is finally realizing the TAT relationship is not working well. So it all depends on what changes she will make from now.

[Itcaip]

I think Mao is losing it. She should stop talking and doing these interviews. She should get some rest and get her body and mind focused in competing at worlds. And after that she should plan for future. If she is going to try different jumps, she should just do them, quietly. Work on her jumps, choreo, costumes, change her coach or whatever. And she should come out when she is ready and shows what she's got. All this talk is only putting a focus on what she has failed to do for this Olympics (hello, shouldn't she have got her triples together for this Olympics) and raising expectations and publicity she does not need.

i couldn't have said it better!

[*Sniper*]

• I'm happy to see people congratulating me on my silver
• I take this as a step to Sochi
• I want to work on 3/3s and other triples (I guess she means lutz and salcow?)
• Whether Yu-Na retires or not, I'd like to work towards setting a new record.

She's got some resolve.
I admire her for that.

I'm not that sure about that. Miki fixed her lip problem for the Vancouver Games. It took her like a year, but she did it.

I would imagine it's different for every skater.
Perhaps Miki's problem turned out to be much easier to fix than Mao's flutz.

Back to Mao!

I personally have never seen this kind of drive & determination from any skater, except maybe The King, yet not really even him, but I'm not sure.

I'm talking in terms of breaking records, literally trying to be the best of all time, pushing her body to do things that once were thought impossible. It's not enough to win for her, she must win by completing the hardest elements ever done by a female skater, and mayhap being the first lady skater in history to do a man's program ala The King, complete with 7 triples (including two 3axels) & a quad!

She's already on par to breaking Midori Ito's record of landing18 ratified triple axels in competition. Mao has completed 14 thus far, only 5 more to go to break Midori's record.

She's set so many records thus far in her relatively short career, that I totally believe her when she says she plans on breaking Yuna Kim's record at the Olympics. It'll take all she's got, but I can totally see her doing it, complete with a man's program!

This is truly special to see a once-in-a-lifetime skater come round with not only the talent (plenty throughout history have had talent in spades), but also the resolve & determination & mindset to do it! Usually we see a skater with loads of potential, but not the ambition behind it, or else have tons of ambition & drive, but not the talent to make it happen. Here we have an unusual case, a skater that excels in both aspects of skating (i.e. technical & artistic), but MORE than anything else coupled with that rarest of things ~ drive, ambition, the will & determination to be the best ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MAO-CHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mao doing a "man's program?"
Let's see if she can land a salchow first.

I herad that Mao had to lose weight to make it easier for her to jump 3As.

Wow, I guess I didn't keep up with the news.
Didn't know her weight loss was related to that.
I thought she looked thinner perhaps because the pressure to win gold was wearing her out.

She loses weight to do 3A, but then so goes her stamina.
That's a tricky situation.
Hope she can find the right balance.

[Iscariot]

She's got some resolve.
I admire her for that.



I would imagine it's different for every skater.
Perhaps Miki's problem turned out to be much easier to fix than Mao's flutz.



Mao doing a "man's program?"
Let's see if she can land a salchow first.



Wow, I guess I didn't keep up with the news.
Didn't know her weight loss was related to that.
I thought she looked thinner perhaps because the pressure to win gold was wearing her out.

She loses weight to do 3A, but then so goes her stamina.
That's a tricky situation.
Hope she can find the right balance.

I think her stamina will be fine, the last 2 season she's had two non stop long programs, and she still managed to do some of them clean

[silverlake22]

I think her stamina will be fine, the last 2 season she's had two non stop long programs, and she still managed to do some of them clean

Mao is soo thin now though! I was watching the final group warm up and she made Mirai look really muscular in comparison. Mao needs to work on her speed and using speed to help her with the jumps, if she learns to do this then she won't have to rely so much on rotating super fast.

[Bennett]

I think Mao is losing it. She should stop talking and doing these interviews. She should get some rest and get her body and mind focused in competing at worlds. And after that she should plan for future. If she is going to try different jumps, she should just do them, quietly. Work on her jumps, choreo, costumes, change her coach or whatever. And she should come out when she is ready and shows what she's got. All this talk is only putting a focus on what she has failed to do for this Olympics (hello, shouldn't she have got her triples together for this Olympics) and raising expectations and publicity she does not need.

This girl is not the one who just talks. She didn't talk about 3-3 or other jumps before the Olympics. Instead she talked about three 3As and sticking to Bells. Then she did them.

[Bennett]

I think her stamina will be fine, the last 2 season she's had two non stop long programs, and she still managed to do some of them clean

She did look tired at the latter half of LP. But perhaps it may be because the pressures at Oly are so enormous.

Mao's 3A is very high. I wonder if that has to do with the weight loss.