Kazuki Tomono | Page 224 | Golden Skate

Kazuki Tomono

KiraraChin said:
Thanks you so much, and please thank your friend on our behalf 🤗
The bit about Milan's cortina means he's thinking about the next Olympics, which is talking place in Milano-Cortina in Italy. That means he intends to compete until the Olympic season at the very least 🥹

Meanwhile, non-no said the next Tomono's Monogatari article is coming soon:


and the next Quadruple Axel magazine includes a conversation between Kazuki and Sota!
Click to expand...

You’re welcome. ☺️ I knew Milan meant Olympics but I had no idea Cortina was part of it too. That’s great he will skate for at least 2 more seasons. He can do it.
 
Figskater23 said:
You’re welcome. ☺️ I knew Milan meant Olympics but I had no idea Cortina was part of it too. That’s great he will skate for at least 2 more seasons. He can do it.
Click to expand...
Cortina is for ski, Figure Skating Olympics are to happen in a close suburb of Milano, so we are not really interested in Cortina, unless we're also watching ski.
 
kwanette said:
https://nonno.hpplus.jp/article/120597 Great read!
Click to expand...
Sorry I've been busy and I wanted to comment on this article properly. Yes it's a great read and reading about his favourite buys in 2023 was great fun. But what really blew my mind was the info re: the aftermath of Nats and his determination for the future. His grit and ability to turn any negatives into positives is one of the main reasons why I became his fan 🥹

DeepL translation:

After All-Japan was over, I was suffering from burnout. I had practiced so hard that I thought, "I don't want to practice that way anymore," before the competition, but the competition was really great.

Compared to the past, I was mentally exhausted. I even thought I might have had some leeway until last year (laughs). I had given it my all, and my body was in a completely immobile state. The moment it was over, I thought, "I can finally rest ......" (laughs). It was the first time I had ever been so tired, and it was the first time I thought, "I need to take a break for now".

One of the rewards of taking a good rest like that was that I learned the importance of rest. This is not only for the body, but also for the mind. There were good times, bad times, and frustrating times at All-Japan. I think it was meaningful for me to be able to forget skating and take it easy, to put it all in perspective. Now that I have resumed skating practice, I feel that skating is fun, and now I am preparing for the next competition with a new mindset.

I was just nervous in the short. I was told by others that I was not grounded. I guess my nerves got the better of me, and that led me to miss my quad salchow. However, I had been really good in Salchow. I had made only one mistake since I came to Nagano, and it was during the competition. I was really frustrated because of that, and I realized that competitions are really difficult.

But I am happy that I could get level 4 in all spins and steps, without collapsing from there. Even though I made mistakes on jumps, I could not shake the foundation that I have been working on. I always make mistakes in the short at All-Japan, so next season, I will try to make no mistakes.

Actually, I had more trouble in the free skate than in the short skate. I was not in perfect shape that day, and my movement in the 6-minute warmup was not good either. I was worried that I couldn't make even a single toeloop in 6 minutes, but I kept my cool, and went into the competition with all my heart.

To be honest, I don't remember much from the performance. My body was moving on its own, and when I realized it, I had finished all jumps and entered the step part. It was just a short 4 minutes, which I got through only with my concentration. It was a very strange and rare experience. I haven't felt like that since my first year of senior competition, World Championships FS.

When the music stopped and the performance ended, I saw before my eyes the scene I had set my sights on. The performance, the applause from the audience, everything was exactly as I had envisioned.

I had decided to never break the world view of the program until I went up the rink, and I kept it even when I was greeting the audience.
I came back to the rink side with a fluffy feeling, as if my consciousness was still in the program. I was relieved when I saw the coaches' faces, and I had a sense of finally coming back to reality. The coaches said, "Good job, good job, I'm glad it's over". I don't remember much, but I think they welcomed me as usual.

In FS, I was able to get revenge for my Salchow, and I was happy to get a high score being the first in the group to skate. That score in spite of my mistakes gave me confidence for the future.

That was one month ago. Anyway, I am full of positive feelings right now.
I have been working for the past couple of years without a break, and now I can finally take some time off. I feel that I have been able to grow so much with all the ice shows and busy schedule, but at the same time, I really thought that I could not grow any more if I did not make time for it.

In All-Japan, I could know where I stand now that everyone in the final group had done well in their own performance. Now I have to go beyond my limits. It was a good opportunity for me to realize once again that I need time as a training period for that.

Although I am frustrated about not being sent to the competition, I am really satisfied with my performance, and I am excited that I now have more time to prepare for the next season. I hope that I can take this as a positive thing and make explosive growth during this period of time!

And for me, I still have the feeling that I want to make it to the Olympics. Then I feel that in the long run, this time will be very important. Considering that the Olympics are only about two years away, now is the best time to do it. If anything, I even thought I was lucky.

For my part, I feel that it would be worse to compete in the Games with my performance as it is at this stage of my career. I need to be able to go home with a medal, not just be satisfied with a half-assed performance. If I don't achieve that level of performance, there is no point in being sent as a representative of Japan. So I hope to get stronger during this training period and take revenge next season.

Actually, I came down with the flu after All-Japan was over. It came back and I was bedridden for more than half of the time. Thanks to that, I resumed practice much later than I had expected. ...... But while I was resting, I was able to digest a lot of things and came up with these ideas. So I think it is important to take a break.

I always get sick after All-Japan, but this time I was really levered up. They say that sickness starts with the mind, but the moment everything was over, my body's guards were down, and it was all coming back in. I must have been pushing myself that hard.

Now I am gradually picking up the pace for the National Sports Festival (Kokusai Sports Festival). I still have some things to worry about, such as my physical strength, but I want to do what I can to get off to a good start in the first match of the new year.

To sum up in my own way, this All-Japan was a catalyst for me to push the limits in the future. I felt that this frustration was necessary for me, and that this time now is essential for me in the future.

This All-Japan was one piece of the puzzle for the Olympics, and it was an important piece of the puzzle for the next two years, and it fit perfectly.
 
Ok, jumps were rough? yeah.
Spins level 4 but with low GOE? Fair.
Steps level 4 with good GOE? Fair.

BUT WTF ARE THESE PCS!? 7s across the board? are you kidding me!? 🤬
They did pretty much the same to Nobu. JSF is really like: no oldies here!!! 🧓❌

Sigh. Apart from that, we can see the flu did a number on Kazuki, he clearly lost weight. I just hope he'll be OK tomorrow in the free. There's about three weeks until Challenge Cup, hopefully it's enough time to regain some of his strength.


 
KiraraChin said:
Ok, jumps were rough? yeah.
Spins level 4 but with low GOE? Fair.
Steps level 4 with good GOE? Fair.

BUT WTF ARE THESE PCS!? 7s across the board? are you kidding me!? 🤬
They did pretty much the same to Nobu. JSF is really like: no oldies here!!! 🧓❌

Sigh. Apart from that, we can see the flu did a number on Kazuki, he clearly lost weight. I just hope he'll be OK tomorrow in the free. There's about three weeks until Challenge Cup, hopefully it's enough time to regain some of his strength.


Click to expand...

On one side of the Pacific, a skater deserving 6s or less in PCS can get 9s even with a fall.
On the other side of the Pacific, skaters deserving high 8s or low 9s (or even high 9s, if the scale is 0 to 10 in comparison with the current international field) get 7s. That's Figure Skating.
 
DizzyFrenchie said:
On one side of the Pacific, a skater deserving 6s or less in PCS can get 9s even with a fall.
On the other side of the Pacific, skaters deserving high 8s or low 9s (or even high 9s, if the scale is 0 to 10 in comparison with the current international field) get 7s. That's Figure Skating.
Click to expand...
Pick an event..go on Skating Scores and you will see outrageous scoring for many skaters.Federations, powerful coaches and the like...in PCS and in tech..
 
Figskater23 said:
I asked my friend about 14:30-20:00. They can only interview skaters after Nationals. Skaters can talk before Worlds. Kazuki was not chosen as part of the national team. Kazuki was asked how he felt about it. The 2 guys talking in the podcast thought he had a wonderful score. One guy asked if Kazuki thought he himself assumed he would be chosen as a member or not. Kazuki said he didn’t think he would be chosen at the time because he knew other skaters did well. Other skaters scores were high. The kanji he chose this year was 枠 waku which means post because he had to be chosen as any other great skater. ISU seems to consider it. Kazuki and one of the guys started talking about the next program Kazuki will do for next season. Kazuki said it is a bit early, but he is thinking about Milan’s cortina or coltina game (my friend wasn’t sure which one. I’m not sure what it is either.) Photos of the interview were taken in Osaka, but will be published in the future.
Click to expand...
Sorry for the late posting. It seems that something got lost in translation, so I transcribed the podcast and translated it word for word. The podcast was recorded by two reporters, Haga and Kurasawa. Kurasawa is the one who interviewed Kazuki on January 15th.

K: At the All-Japan, we can only interview the skaters before the rankings are finalized. So it becomes a reflection of their own performance, like how their jumps were, and their own opinions, and so on. Now that Tomono senshu placed 6th this time, well, I was wondering for a long time how he felt after the assignments and national team selections were announced.
H: So you didn't have that opportunity.
K: Well, there are press conferences set up for things like the World Championships representatives, but especially in cases where someone didn't make the team, interviews aren't set up during the All Japan period, so I was a little curious about that, so I asked Tomono-kun if I could interview him about that, and he said yes.
H: Well, you know, as it turned out, he was not selected for the national team. So don't you think we should be a little bit considerate? When we do interviews.
K: Well, I was wondering what he thought about it, frankly, and in terms of the score, his score was up from the last competition.
H: That's right, I watched the competition while I was working on the breaking news. It was a fantastic performance, wasn't it?
K: And so I asked him directly and said, "There are some things you can only say now." For example, the moment it was over, and even before it was over, there was a round of applause. So I asked him, "Did you think you were going to be on the podium?" and he said, "No, I didn't."
H: He didn't think so?
K: "No, I knew everybody was going to do well, so I looked at the score and I thought if it was 280, maybe there would have been a podium, but it was in the 270s," he said.
H: Yeah, the level was too high. Well, isn't it too high?
K: At this time of the year, people always come up with kanji characters for the year. I really wanted the character for "枠 (slot). I really wanted a character for "slot." Really just one character for this year's kanji, "slot."
H: Hey, it's not three slots, is it?
K: I don't think there are enough slots.
H: Can't we have more than three slots?
K: It's just an example...
H: Like a special slot or something.
K: Just as an example, if you win the world championships, then there could be a champion country slot or something like that.
H: That would be more than three slots max.
K: So like a champion country slot. For example, the champion country can participate unconditionally the following year or something like that.
H: Like the Jingu Tournament quota for the high school baseball tournament.
K: Something like that used to exist for previous events like the FIFA World Cup, where the winning country could participate again next year and things like that. If we had something like that, maybe another spot would be added or something like that...just my thoughts.
H: Please tell that to the ISU.
K: If the rules change just because I say so...it would be quite a lot of changes (laughs).
H: The rules could change from just one letter.
- to be cont'd -
 
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rRainbow said:
Sorry for the late posting. It seems that something got lost in translation, so I transcribed the podcast and translated it word for word. The podcast was recorded by two reporters, Haga and Kurasawa. Kurasawa is the one who interviewed Kazuki on January 15th.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much, rRainbow! Very interesting to know that Kazuki didn't think he would make the podium with that score. Japan needs six spots at the very minimum 😭

Kazuki skates soon at the National Winter Sports Festival senior men free skate (5:15pm local time). But first, I wanted to share a wonderful article by one of the Mainichi photographers:



Here's the DeepL translation:

Beyond the frustration, Looking for the peak: Kazuki Tomono

Capture things at their peak. This advice was given to me by a senior photographer when I was still too new to call myself a photographer. Kazuki Tomono's finish in the free skate at the All-Japan Championships at the end of last year was just like that. He seemed to be immersed in his world, or to be receiving the applause with his whole body, as he remained motionless with his hands down, staring into the air.

When I looked back at the video later, I realized that it actually lasted only a few seconds. But I was not the only one who felt that the time was very long. The pain of not being able to achieve the desired results this season, and the fact that it was his best performance after overcoming that pain, were all packed into his pause and facial expression.

The first half of the season seemed to be filled with patient performances. I was able to cover Skate Canada, the first round of the Grand Prix Series, on site. With "Underground" in the Short Program (SP) and "Halston" in the FS, the program was supposed to show a new aspect of him with a new tune from last season. However, he made mistakes in jumps in both SP and FS, and placed 4th. As he said in an interview the next day, "I was so frustrated, so disappointed," his expression, with his mouth set in a straight line, showed how frustrated he was after his performances.

In the following Cup of China, he failed to make it to the podium, and failed to qualify for the finals. In the All-Japan Championships, the battle for the podium was fierce. In the tense atmosphere, he landed a quad toeloop in the beginning, and then he made his jumps steadily. With his ever-increasing concentration and his specialty skating, the audience was drawn into his worldview.

Towards the end of the competition, riding on a quiet piano melody, applause began to be heard even before the last spin was completed. The applause, which Tomono had been aiming for, "came out of the silence," poured out onto the rink. This is the climax. It was not a simple gut-punch. It was a shutter release of his appearance, as he gave it all he had. I felt that this was an important scene not only for Tomono on this day, but for the rest of the season.

As if inspired by his good performance, the following competitors also continued to perform at a high level, and the result was 6th place. But Tomono's "peak" is surely yet to come, as he has gained much more than just a ranking. [Kenji IKAI]
 
Congratulations Kazuki on winning Kokutai!

For what it's worth, if anyone's interested, here's my attempt at translating the rest of the January 16 podcast by Mainichi Shinbun reporters Haga and Kurasawa.

-cont'd from last part -
Part 2
K: Yeah, that's right. Well, I had a chance to listen to him at length, and he was very passionate about what he had to say, and I didn't want to make any mistakes in the information, so I finished the interview and said, "Okay, Tomono senshu, I'll go with this interview, and he said, "Oh, yes, please."
H: So you already had a rough idea of how the interview would turn out.
K: That's right. So as a rough flow of the story, I said, "Well, I'll tell you what I heard at the beginning of the interview, and then I'll tell you this story at the end, and I'd like to include this story in the interview manuscript, and he said, "Yes, that's fine. And I was like, "Yippee!"
H: Yeah, well, the look-back story too. Well, to be honest, I read through the interview (laughs), but for those who haven't read it, let me ask you this: Is this just a reflection story?
K: Well, he looked back on what went on, and I asked him "What are your honest thoughts now about not making the national team?" And, well, maybe it's a little early to say, but what he was thinking about next year and after that.
H: (Laughs) That's too soon!
K: I asked him, "What are your plans for the program?"
H: (Laughs) Isn't it soon to decide?
K: Well, anyway, he was delving into it quite a bit, and he was even looking at the Milano Cortina season.
H: Oh, so far into the future.
K: Every year, a lot of skaters think about what to do the next season. You know how timing is important when thinking about these things. Especially for those who have graduated from university, every year is a critical year. So, I heard from Tomono-kun that he is looking toward Cortana in the future, so I think I can still see him, Tomono-kun in competitions.
H: Is it possible that there is no such possibility?
K: Well, you know, there are skaters who see it as a one-year challenge, of course, and there are also skaters who feel that if they are satisfied with their performance, they can quit at any time.
H: I see. Hmm, I understand. You took pictures, didn't you?
K: Yes, pictures were taken. You know, Aiko Umeda-san, a reporter from the Osaka Photography Department, took the photos this time, and, well, she took various shots. She also took some pictures for my column.
H: Oh, those have not been published yet, have they?
K: I hope you like the photos for the column. I hope to show some of them gradually in my monthly column.
H: So you are releasing some photos little by little.
K: Yes, in a way there will be a little something extra. I hope you look forward to it.
- to be cont'd -
 
Part 3
H: Well, the photo this time shows Tomono-senshu checking his own programs in the past (laughs) Was he seriously checking them? (laughs)
K: He was seriously checking the past programs. (laughs)
H: (laughs) I thought it looked very realistic (laughs). It's hard to find photos like that, isn't it?
K: Well, he checked his past programs, and he was also like, "Actually, I think I might have done that jump in that competition," so, you know, he looked up the results on the official website of the Japan Skating Federation. And, this coming Tuesday, his column "Be Honest, Smile, and Be Happy" will be posted on the website. That's next week. His "My Memorable Programs" series has just started, so he has been researching the past programs.
Y: I see. Ah, I get it now. So it will be used in the column.
K: He was working on it. So, let's see, "Be Honest, Smile and Be Happy" is gonna come out this coming Tuesday.
H: I haven't received the manuscript yet.
K: The manuscript hasn't arrived yet.
H: Will it include the "Dog Policeman"?
K: Well, let's talk about the Dog Policeman. He mentioned it in the last issue, so I am not sure if "The Dog Policeman" will be featured this time.
H: But he talked about the memory of that program at the online event the other day, didn't he?
K: Yes, but he wrote about "Destiny", Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and so on, and it didn't come up again. This time it will be a little bit different.
H: I look forward to it.
K: I listened to him and I thought it was interesting.
H: I see.
K: Yeah. You can look forward to that as well.
H: What are Tomono senshu's plans from now on?
K: Well, according to him, there are a few more competitions. Yes, but, well, as far as talking about his assignments, that will probably be subject to the approval of the federation.
H: Well, I guess we'll have to wait until it's officially announced.
K: I think it will be after the official announcement. He is also planning to participate in the Kokutai (National Athletic Meet).
 
rRainbow said:
For what it's worth, if anyone's interested, here's my attempt at translating the rest of the January 16 podcast by Mainichi Shinbun reporters Haga and Kurasawa.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much, rRainbow! That is so interesting, I really love this thoughtful aspect of Kazuki. I'm really grateful to the Mainichi journalists for being so interested in him. It's truly a blessing.

Kazuki posted about his experience at Kokutai on IG - seems that he had lots of delicious food! IIRC Hokkaido is known for its amazing seafood 🍣



I had forgotten to post this, but Fleur Bazaar also released new pictures in commemoration of his Kokutai victory
 
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