- Joined
- Mar 25, 2008
Hanyu has progressed extremely quickly; he was outside the top ten at his first Junior Worlds, but the next season he was unbeatable, even though he didn't turn 15 until midway through the season and was regularly competing against skaters more than four years his senior (he was the youngest competitor at the JGPF and one of the youngest at 2010 JW*). And Hanyu is young for a senior skater, of course (17 tomorrow, happy birthday to him!), but he's not juniorish - and his marks suggest that the judges already see him as a real contender. But it's worth remembering that this sort of progress is unusual even among top skaters; most guys will not be ready to compete as seniors at the age of 15. Even Patrick Chan, clearly a unique talent who did succeed as a teenager, was not getting these sort of scores at the comparable point in his career.Ohhhhh......wow, it seemed just like yesterday they were competing at the same level, and now Yuzuru surpassed him so quickly! lol wonder how Hino feels
Hino is still very young, and it's perfectly reasonable for him to still be competing at the junior level. With so many talented Japanese skaters, he'd be better off developing as a junior and gaining a positive reputation for himself that way.
* Of the competitors with Wikipedia entries, only one was younger: Czech skater Petr Coufal, who finished 19th (ETA: the youngest competitor appears to have been China's Wenbo Zang).
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