Chan v. Hanyu: 2015-16

[daniiltimin]

Oh Honey.....You have NO IDEA what Maria Butyrskaya had to deal with. Try being dumped by your own Federation and having to compete with ZERO support in your own Country. Try knocking 2 time and defending Champion Michelle Kwan off her throne like Maria did. She couldn't have been less popular Especially in the US. I got tons of hate just for being her fan since I was from the US. I always loved Michelle but I knew Maria didn't have much time left to achieve her dreams.

Believe me. Pressure doesn't just come from jumping. It comes from sponsors and Federations. The older you get the more pressure you feel. At least in my case

There are always some exceptions and Butyrskaya is one of them. I actually never said anything bad about Maria. What I meant is that it's harder for the male skaters above 24-25 to keep up with the quads. In the history of sport there were not that many guys of age 25+ who was able to do a consistent quad jump. I can think of Elvis Stojko, Plushenko, Joubert, maybe Van den Perren, who else? Example of Konstantin Menshov who is 32 for the moment and still able to land 2 different quads is just blowing my mind, its just crazy.

 

[gravy]

Oh Honey.....You have NO IDEA what Maria Butyrskaya had to deal with. Try being dumped by your own Federation and having to compete with ZERO support in your own Country. Try knocking 2 time and defending Champion Michelle Kwan off her throne like Maria did. She couldn't have been less popular Especially in the US. I got tons of hate just for being her fan since I was from the US. I always loved Michelle but I knew Maria didn't have much time left to achieve her dreams.

Believe me. Pressure doesn't just come from jumping. It comes from sponsors and Federations. The older you get the more pressure you feel. At least in my case

I love me my Butyrskaya.

Nothing like getting coached in the middle of your program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl9yRZOapKc&feature=youtu.be&t=159

 

[Sydney Rose]

Chan is not a middle of the pack skater, and not a middle of the pack performer to me. I was just talking about emoting - which IMO, is one of several qualities that can make up a good performer. Chan definitely has good performance qualities, like his posture and carriage, which are very lovely. He's musical and hits the right beats in the music. But he doesn't give me the same feeling of involvement in his music that Hanyu does, or the same communication with me as an audience member as Fernandez or for example Brown. That's what I meant.

I think it's a charisma issue, both on and off the ice. In addition to his extraordinary skating talent, Hanyu just oozes charisma. In fact, he's one of the most charismatic skaters I've ever seen. The camera just LOVES him (something outside his control) and he adds to that with his high level of emotional intelligence: He instinctively knows how to relate to his audience and please them. He always comes across as a happy fellow with a great sense of humor who appreciates his fans (and his coach!) and never, never looks arrogant.

Much of the above is also true for Jason Brown, which is why he's the most popular American skater right now. Well, that and RiverDance.

 

[Ophelia]

It also helps that Hanyu looks like he walked out of a manga. He has a Justin Bieber-like fandom amongst young Asian girls.

 

[wookchub]

I think it's a charisma issue, both on and off the ice. In addition to his extraordinary skating talent, Hanyu just oozes charisma. In fact, he's one of the most charismatic skaters I've ever seen. The camera just LOVES him (something outside his control) and he adds to that with his high level of emotional intelligence: He instinctively knows how to relate to his audience and please them. He always comes across as a happy fellow with a great sense of humor who appreciates his fans (and his coach!) and never, never looks arrogant.

Much of the above is also true for Jason Brown, which is why he's the most popular American skater right now. Well, that and RiverDance.

It's like Kurt Browning said after Yuzuru's NHK fs - he has the audience before he starts. They don't know what's coming but they know they don't wanna miss it haha

 

[Franklin99]

It also helps that Hanyu looks like he walked out of a manga. He has a Justin Bieber-like fandom amongst young Asian girls.

Not just the young girls judging by the older women reactions to him in NHK.

 

[mrrice]

It's like Kurt Browning said after Yuzuru's NHK fs - he has the audience before he starts. They don't know what's coming but they know they don't wanna miss it haha

That sounds like something Kurt would say. I really like him.

 

[MaxSwagg]

Why am I counting more crossovers than 7? What am I doing wrong? :hopelessness: (still impressive though)

If you go here, they analyze pretty much everything in his short program:

http://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/dobroefk/864397.html

 

[MaxSwagg]

It also helps that Hanyu looks like he walked out of a manga. He has a Justin Bieber-like fandom amongst young Asian girls.

It's the same with Ryohei Kato, right.

 

[shiroKJ]

Not just the young girls judging by the older women reactions to him in NHK.

And grandma/grandpa's.....he's like Japan's national grandson lol.

 

[qwertyskates]

Hanyu's NHK performance would have me standing on my feet screaming "Bravo!", it was great, and his jumps are divine. He levitates over the ice on wings, he is flexible and a beautiful performer. He is also an admirable workhorse and a unique talent that is a rarity.

However, when it comes to moving me to tears, it's Patrick with or without his jumps.

Out there it's Patrick, his blades and the ice, nothing comes between them. He moves with such power, speed, grace, control, precision, definition you can see and hear the ice flying as he blazes through the curves he slices and etches on the ice. The camera simply can't catch up with him. His posture, line, body weight shifts, edges, everything...perfect. He has complete mastery and the ice is like the canvas upon which he carves his piece. He's not a performer *on* ice, the ice is his integral other half, where he toys with the forces of physics. It leaves me speechless to watch this and I pinch myself and say ok...this *is* figure skating.

I hardly even noticed his face, charisma or expressions, I forgot I'm watching Patrick Chan, I don't care if he's playing a character convincingly or if the music is Chopin or Vivaldi, I behold this Platonic ideal of ice skating I've always dreamt of.

It's like watching Brazil play in the World Cup, they might not beat teams like Germany or are endowed with movie stars looks like Beckham, but they make soccer "the beautiful game".

As an aside, I do wish Patrick would stop wearing grey with black like he did at SC - it makes his upper figure more of a blur against the white rink and his bodyline is unsatisfyingly cut off this way.:disapp:

It crossed my mind that with Jin, his insane quads, and Hanyu upping the ante with his jumps layout, Patrick might get knocked off the podium. However, as a sport, fair play needs to be applied - no shifting of goalposts in the middle of the game, not even when it's a young novice like Jin.

Say, if Patrick gets knocked off the podium, frankly I don't care too much about medals, I wish he would keep skating like Menshov, he doesn't have to jump quads, he just needs to skate the way he loves to skate, master of the ice.

 

[Interspectator]

It's the same with Ryohei Kato, right...

Kato fan here! But Uchimura is King! topic:

After much consideration and reading everyone's good arguments, I have concluded that I like who I like. I feel fortunate that figure skating provides enough variety in styles to suit almost anyone. Chan and Yuzu and Javi with a side order of Denis are a wonderful group to have at the top of the sport.
Jin and Shoma -two extreme opposites - are also on the rise. Murakami is the hard-worker who rose to the occasion and may rise further if he keeps his nerve.

I'm a happy fan.

 

[4everchan]

Hanyu's NHK performance would have me standing on my feet screaming "Bravo!", it was great, and his jumps are divine. He levitates over the ice on wings, he is flexible and a beautiful performer. He is also an admirable workhorse and a unique talent that is a rarity.

However, when it comes to moving me to tears, it's Patrick with or without his jumps.

Out there it's Patrick, his blades and the ice, nothing comes between them. He moves with such power, speed, grace, control, precision, definition you can see and hear the ice flying as he blazes through the curves he slices and etches on the ice. The camera simply can't catch up with him. His posture, line, body weight shifts, edges, everything...perfect. He has complete mastery and the ice is like the canvas upon which he carves his piece. He's not a performer *on* ice, the ice is his integral other half, where he toys with the forces of physics. It leaves me speechless to watch this and I pinch myself and say ok...this *is* figure skating.

I hardly even noticed his face, charisma or expressions, I forgot I'm watching Patrick Chan, I don't care if he's playing a character convincingly or if the music is Chopin or Vivaldi, I behold this Platonic ideal of ice skating I've always dreamt of.

It's like watching Brazil play in the World Cup, they might not beat teams like Germany or are endowed with movie stars looks like Beckham, but they make soccer "the beautiful game".

As an aside, I do wish Patrick would stop wearing grey with black like he did at SC - it makes his upper figure more of a blur against the white rink and his bodyline is unsatisfyingly cut off this way.:disapp:

It crossed my mind that with Jin, his insane quads, and Hanyu upping the ante with his jumps layout, Patrick might get knocked off the podium. However, as a sport, fair play needs to be applied - no shifting of goalposts in the middle of the game, not even when it's a young novice like Jin.

Say, if Patrick gets knocked off the podium, frankly I don't care too much about medals, I wish he would keep skating like Menshov, he doesn't have to jump quads, he just needs to skate the way he loves to skate, master of the ice.

 

[4everchan]

so hanyu will be past his prime next year then... accordingly to what you are saying...

Well, let's look at the facts and some examples.

Urmanov won 1994 Olympics at the age of 21. It was a peak of his career and he been struggling with many injuries since that success.

Ilya Kulik won in Nagano when he was 20.

Yagudin's best season 2001-2002. For the moment of the Salt Lake Olympics Yagudin was 21.

Trough Plushenko's entire career his best season was 2000-2001. He was only 19 I think.

There are so many more examples I can give you: Timothy Goebel, Brian Joubert, Stephane Lambiel. They all had their best seasons at age of 20-22.

 

[MaxSwagg]

Based on what we know and their jump technique:

I can't see Patrick getting better technically or adding more difficulty. Yuzu yes, just because he's young(er), his jump technique is very pristine-the best of the field-and he can do four different quads and many different odd and difficult combinations. Mostly, he's incredibly fortunate that his best triple jump is the 3A and that his 4S and 4T are quite consistent (and even if one of those starts to fail he has, based on a lot of practice footage, a very good 4Lo). He's getting to the point that he has a variety of consistent difficult jumps that his programs are very hard to Zayak so he has a lot of flexibility in the ways he can get a lot of points.

 

[AprilS]

Hmmm, I don' t know how many times people ask that question, like if seing somebody live could change something. If you don't like or appreciate or whatever verb you want to use, it doesn't change because you see him live. Yes, I've seen both of them, and it doesn't change the opinion that I have of them. I see most of their performance on TV, and the feeling is the same.But if I change my mind after GPF (I'll see it live :hap93, I'll post it

I just want to say- I went to the Skate Canada free skates this year, and everyone came across pretty much how they seemed on TV. I really don't get the whole "See them live and it will change everything!!" crowd Like no... it really didn't. If anything, I think skating skills actually came across better on TV for me, since I can zoom into and concentrate on the feet when I'm watching on my laptop. I did really enjoy my first live skating experience though! (I remember thinking the amount of standing ovations were getting a bit out of hand but it was such a great experience to be surrounded by so many skating fans while watching skating!)

Also, have fun at GPF tzazu! :hap57:

 

[Violet Bliss]

so hanyu will be past his prime next year then... accordingly to what you are saying...

Well, by that postulation, Hanyu is the only one of the Fab Four with one or two golden years left but will be past his prime by 2018, along with Jason Brown. Chan, Fernandez, and Ten are already old geezers. So are Murakami, Mura, Rippon, Dornbush, Miner, Voronov, Ge.........

Why aren't all the old geezers just withering away instead of hoarding the medals and the podium?

 

[Khoai]

so hanyu will be past his prime next year then... accordingly to what you are saying...

Actually Mr. Yagudin won Olympic when he was 21 years old 11 months, so we can count it as 22.
Mr. Fernández won his WC when he's 24 years old.
So I think golden years of the men is from 20 to 23 at max, with 22 being the best.
However Mr. Hanyu is Asian, so his growth might be different. As great as he was at NHK, he has yet to reached his full power. I think he will peak at the right time.

 

[noskates]

I frankly don't put a lot of credence into age. Much of it has to do with conditioning. being injury free, attitude, and still loving the sport. I don't think you can count anybody out at this point in the elite group.

 

[Lexiglass]

For me, I don't really understand how people think that one is obviously better than the other. When they skate well, Hanyu and Chan are both pretty magical to me. Even when they skate poorly, I enjoy watching both of them, often more than people who skated better. I honestly love them both, I don't think everything needs to be an either/or. I think Hanyu will score higher, but I hope Patrick skates really well. His free at SC made me cry.