Hanyu set for success in GP series

Interspectator · Oct 22, 2014

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001661525

--An article in English from the Yomiuri News outlet.
A bit of the article I found interesting was that this is the first time an Olympic champion will compete on the Grand Prix Circuit the year after their title was won. This year Adelina is competing too, so that makes a historic 2 Olympic Champions competing right after they won the Olympics.
What did the other champions do?
Did they retire? Rest for a year?

For those of you who don't want to wade through cheesyness and syrup of the Hanyu fan thread, :biggrin:

it gives a bit of news on his new program too.

Mathman · Oct 22, 2014

Newbiespectator said:
For those of you who don't want to ...hat figure skating fandom is all about! :yes:

Sandpiper · Oct 22, 2014

I'm glad it seems like he's competition-ready. Thank you for sharing. I wondered about that "first time Olympic champions competed in following GP" stat (the article refers to Mao Asada as the Sochi silver medalist

). So I actually double-checked, and found that this is indeed true.

Men: Kulik retired, Yagudin retired (edit: Though he did show up to Skate America, but had to withdraw. Thanks, Mathman), Plushenko went on a 4-year break, Lysacek functionally retired
Women: Lipinski retired, Hughes did not participate in the GP the following season, Arakawa retired, Kim did not participate in the GP the next season
Pairs: Kazakova/Dmitriev retired, Berezhnaya/Sikharulidze retired, Totmianina/Marinin retired, Shen/Zhao retired
Ice Dance: Grishuk/Platov retired/ended their partnership, Anissina/Peizerat retired, Navka/Kostomarov retired, Virtue/Moir sat out the GP due to injury

I think we're in a interesting situation, with two relatively young, still-hungry Olympic champions. For most of the other winners, the Olympics capped off the end of their career. Hence the high retirement rate (100% for the pairs

)

Mathman · Oct 22, 2014

Yagudin gave it a shot, though. He came to Skate America in 2002 and won the short program, but had to withdraw from the LP because of his chronic hip situation. The next week at Skate Canada he announced his retirement but skated in the gala.

Interspectator · Oct 22, 2014

Thanks for the info Sandpiper and for pointing out the error of calling Mao the Sochi Silver medalist.
Maybe figure skating journalists should fact-check using Golden Skate as it is so full of knowledgeable members.

Hanyu's Fan thread is a staggering 700+ pages... :eek:

Maria Victoria · Oct 23, 2014

Newbiespectator said:
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001661525

For those of you who don't want to wade through cheesyness and syrup of the Hanyu fan thread, it gives a bit of news on his new program too.

Guilty!

But you know, there is also a benefit to posting on the lively (very) Yuzuru fanfest thread rather than starting a separate thread which may later be archived. I remember one time an administrator (Mrs. P I think) merged a Yuzuru thread with the fanfest thread for that reason.

But returning to the article, also interesting is Yuzuru's ambition to go undefeated this season. I wonder if he'll be the youngest to do that.

Sandpiper · Oct 23, 2014

Mathman said:
Yagudin gave it a shot, though. He came to Skate America in 2002 and won the short program, but had to withdraw from the LP because of his chronic hip situation. The next week at Skate Canada he announced his retirement but skated in the gala.

Thanks. I've edited my post to reflect this (I knew Yagudin gave it a shot the next season, but somehow my brain couldn't connect these things together. :laugh:

)

jace93 · Oct 23, 2014

^
^

Plushenko for sure and maybe others managed to go undefeated at a younger age, but still no matter at what age it happens it's still quite an achievement...

Mathman · Oct 23, 2014

jace93 said:
Plushenko for sure and maybe others managed to go undefeated at a younger age, but still no matter at what age it happens it's still quite an achievement...

I can't think of anyone except Plushenko, who won everything in the 2000-2001 season at age 18. For the ladies, 15-year-old Michelle Kwan won all of her events (including three Grand Prix/championship series contests plus the final) in 1995/96.

Maria Victoria · Oct 23, 2014

jace93 said:
^
^

Plushenko for sure and maybe others managed to go undefeated at a younger age, but still no matter at what age it happens it's still quite an achievement...

Mathman said:
I can't think of anyone except Plushenko, who won everything in the 2000-2001 season at age 18. For the ladies, 15-year-old Michelle Kwan won all of her events (including three Grand Prix/championship series contests plus the final) in 1995/96.

Thanks for the info! Yet another achievement Yuzuru aims to follow his idol.

CanadianSkaterGuy · Oct 23, 2014

Go Yuzu!

I think I'm most looking forward to his overall skating getting even better now that he knows he's got the technical goods to win. Hopefully it'll be less pressure on him and we see his skating reach its fullest potential over the next season/quad.

Although it'd also be nice if he threw in a quad loop in there.

lbc2138 · Oct 23, 2014

CanadianSkaterGuy said:
Go Yuzu!

I think I'm most looking forward to his overall skating getting even better now that he knows he's got the technical goods to win. Hopefully it'll be less pressure on him and we see his skating reach its fullest potential over the next season/quad. Although it'd also be nice if he threw in a quad loop in there.

Haha I have a feeling if he does do a quad loop it may become his new quad sal (aka. lands it in practice but not competition

)

I'm saying this out of admiration of course since I occasionally participate on the cheesy, syrupy goodness of the Yuzu fan fest.

Interesting trend among the other Olympic Champions though, for some reason, I never really noticed.

Interspectator · Oct 23, 2014

lbc2138 said:
I'm saying this out of admiration of course since I occasionally participate on the cheesy, syrupy goodness of the Yuzu fan fest.

Me too!

Ophelia · Oct 23, 2014

Newbiespectator said:
Thanks for the info Sandpiper and for pointing out the error of calling Mao the Sochi Silver medalist.
Maybe figure skating journalists should fact-check using Golden Skate as it is so full of knowledgeable members.

Hanyu's Fan thread is a staggering 700+ pages...

I think he might end up being the most popular male skater ever.

blue dog · Oct 23, 2014

Sandpiper said:
I'm glad it seems like he's competition-ready. Thank you for sharing. I wondered about that "first time Olympic champions competed in following GP" stat (the article refers to Mao Asada as the Sochi silver medalist ). So I actually double-checked, and found that this is indeed true.

Men: Kulik retired, Yagudin retired (edit: Though he did show up to Skate America, but had to withdraw. Thanks, Mathman), Plushenko went on a 4-year break, Lysacek functionally retired
Women: Lipinski retired, Hughes did not participate in the GP the following season, Arakawa retired, Kim did not participate in the GP the next season
Pairs: Kazakova/Dmitriev retired, Berezhnaya/Sikharulidze retired, Totmianina/Marinin retired, Shen/Zhao retired
Ice Dance: Grishuk/Platov retired/ended their partnership, Anissina/Peizerat retired, Navka/Kostomarov retired, Virtue/Moir sat out the GP due to injury

I think we're in a interesting situation, with two relatively young, still-hungry Olympic champions. For most of the other winners, the Olympics capped off the end of their career. Hence the high retirement rate (100% for the pairs )

This is all very true. Even when Pasha and Evgeny won the first time, they didn't skate the competitions in the fall. They previously appeared at NHK (before it was part of the GP), but elected to make their season debut at worlds in 1995.

Interspectator · Oct 23, 2014

Buuuut, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. The GP is ABOUT to start; Hanyu and Adelina haven't come out in competition yet.
They have every intention of doing so, but I will breathe a sigh of relief when I see them both actually competing in their first grand prix event.
I'm actually adding Hanyu to my prayer list now...
Fingers crossed! Don't get injured (again)!

FTnoona · Oct 23, 2014

I wouldn't be surprised if Hanyu has a couple of sub-par skates in the GP with moving his quad to the 2nd half in the short and putting 3 quads in the free. He is an ambitious skater, and boy would it be a treat to see everything come together in one competition. Personally, I hoped that he would have stuck to 2 quads in the free and increased his success rate before going for 3 quads, but he always seems up for a challenge. Hope he can stay healthy this season.

CanadianSkaterGuy · Oct 23, 2014

FTnoona said:
I wouldn't be surprised if Hanyu has a couple of sub-par skates in the GP with moving his quad to the 2nd half in the short and putting 3 quads in the free. He is an ambitious skater, and boy would it be a treat to see everything come together in one competition. Personally, I hoped that he would have stuck to 2 quads in the free and increased his success rate before going for 3 quads, but he always seems up for a challenge. Hope he can stay healthy this season.

I think at this point though, his PCS is high enough that he can actually afford some mistakes... which is good, because he won't be discouraged to try for ambitious difficulty at the expense of potentially losing.

FTnoona · Oct 23, 2014

CanadianSkaterGuy said:
I think at this point though, his PCS is high enough that he can actually afford some mistakes... which is good, because he won't be discouraged to try for ambitious difficulty at the expense of potentially losing.

He probably won't have too much of a problem making the GPF with mistakes, but when he gets to the final, I don't think he has the PCS to hold off a decent Machida and Fernandez. I agree with you that it's good that he's using his PCS gap he has against the other men that skate in his two GP to try his ambitious layouts. You'll never know until you try right?

Skater Boy · Oct 23, 2014

lilahozi said:
I think he might end up being the most popular male skater ever.

However, his market is very specific He is no John Zimmerman, or some macho image skater like Elvis. For those who like effeminate boys who hold stuffed animals. His popularity is the Asian or Japanese market he does not have the mass appeal of Joubert or Candelero.

Hanyu set for success in GP series

Interspectator

Mathman

Sandpiper

Mathman

Interspectator

Maria Victoria

Sandpiper

jace93

Mathman

Maria Victoria

CanadianSkaterGuy

lbc2138

Interspectator

Ophelia

blue dog

Trixie Schuba's biggest fan!

Interspectator

FTnoona

CanadianSkaterGuy

FTnoona

Skater Boy

Similar threads

Connect with us