This season, Yuzuru Hanyu came in second after Patrick Chan (CAN) at his first event in the GP series of figure skating, Skate Canada, held in October. Even though he left a result by getting onto the medal podium, both his short program and free skate were riddled with mistakes, which, to Hanyu himself, left something to be desired.
Nonetheless, he got off to a convincing start at his second event, Trophee Eric Bompard held in France from November 15. At the official practice session on the said date, Hanyu, with one deft move, effortlessly landed a quad toe and a triple axel, and in that evening's short program segment, he continued to keep up his good form.
"Personally, I was not satisfied with the opening quad toe in the SP," said Hanyu discontentedly regarding an element which, despite its landing being slightly off the centre of gravity, was rated highly and received +2.00 GOE. He also gathered additional points for all the subsequent elements and acquired a new personal best of 95.37.
At the start of the previous season, Hanyu cracked a string of world records in the SP, however, at the dawn of the new year, towards the beginning of 2013, he kept on making mistakes. It was until this season that he felt the satisfaction of having, at last, delivered his short program to near perfection. In spite of this, Hanyu remarked, to his rue, "Compared to last season, I think I move much more smoothly and I've been working hard on my skating. Regardless, I could only surpass last season's [personal] best by merely 0.03 point, so it was regrettable. I have to work a bit harder."
And the one who turned in better score than Hanyu was none other than the current and three-peat World Champion, Patrick Chan. Starting with the opening quad-toe-triple-toe combination, he nailed everything that followed including his jumps as well as his performance to perfection. Even though his technical score fell short of Hanyu's by 0.38, he was ahead in the program components score. He set a new world record of 98.52 [in the SP].
The point differential between Chan and Hanyu was 3.15. "The 3-point margin in the SP is huge. I managed to keep ahead a bit with my elements, but to be able to create such margin with the five program components makes me feel that there are certain things I can't outmatch him. But [in retrospect] at Skate Canada, after the short program segment was over, I didn't aim for anything beyond the second-place finish. This time, it feels like I still have a tiny shred of chance of winning, somewhat."
And so spoke Hanyu who had listened, while nodding in agreement, to Chan's comments at the press conference venue about skating and the ways to improve scores on the five program components."What Patrick said at the press conference is really useful, I'm thinking of putting that into practice," he remarked.
However, the following day in the free skate segment, he experienced an unexpected stumble at the beginning. As he was getting ready for the take-off of his opening quad-salchow, he was struck down by a misfortune: the edge on his left, take-off foot was caught in a rut in the chipped ice rink surface. Consequently, he could not go for the jump.
"There's nothing I could do about it. I just have to nail the next one," and so he switched [his mental] gears, however, he rushed to execute his next element, a quad toe loop, resulting in a fall. Furthermore, despite succeeding on his triple flip, he suffered a point deduction for the wrong take-off edge. He also lost his initial speed in the following step sequence but from there on, he was able to get the feel back for the game.
"While it's true that within a program, you have to keep your focus on jumps, this time, in the practices leading up to this event, I've been working on delivering the jump elements while laying emphasis on steps, skating and choreography. Since I've been training in this way, I was able to put my mind at ease as I moved along the ice," said Hanyu.
At the middle section [of his free skate program], Hanyu landed a triple-axel-triple-toe combination, perfectly enough so as to be rewarded with additional two points and continued to ride out the wave. Afterwards, he beautifully landed four more jumping passes which included two combination jumps and received level 4 on all his spins. For such a well-skated free, he secured a score of 168.22, moving ahead of his previous score at Skate Canada by 13.78. His overall score was boosted to 263.59.
"At the time of Skate Canada, looking at Tatsuki Machida's win at the preceding event, Skate America, I felt pressurized and nervous. I badly thought, "I want to win against Patrick." Post-Skate Canada, Daisuke Takahashi won the NHK Trophy, and I thought that it would be difficult to outstrip his overall score, so rather than aiming for the GP Final, I thought that I should concentrate on what I could do now."
"Had it been last season, in such an event where I miss the two big jump elements in the first half, I would've hit an emotional slump, but this time I was able to keep calm and recovered in the latter half of the program. In a little less than two weeks since Skate Canada, I think I've been able to gradually improve the degree of completion of not only my SP, but also my free skate. So next, going into the Finals, I'm thinking that I would like to produce much better programs."
Standing in Hanyu's way this time was, again, Patrick Chan. Chan received additional points for all his elements in the free, it was a perfect performance which acquired scores ranging from 9.39 to 9.86 on the five program components. His free skate score was 196.75. He achieved a new combined total world record of 295.27 and emerged as the clear winner.
Even if his [Chan's] jumps were to slightly deviate from the axis, their eventual beautiful executions bespeak of the height of his technical ability. With a profound skating capable of varying even the tempo of slow music, he skates while constantly keeping his expressive awareness, even when it comes to the transition between his elements. It wouldn't be a stretch to think that even Hanyu who has been receiving high evaluation on his speed and sharpness, cannot stand head-to-head against him in that aspect.
Hanyu shared his view on this matter, "Skating varies with each person. Patrick's skating requires a great amount of power. Takahiko Kozuka genuinely rides his edges, he has a light and agile quality to his skating. Takahashi's is extremely slick. Of course it's unthinkable to try to be any of those skaters, but if I'm pressed to choose, I'd like to aim for Takahashi's skating style, who's capable of abandoning himself to the flow [of the program] without exerting any effort."
In the midst of going through the experience of competing against the absolute reigning champion, Patrick Chan, this time in the SP, Hanyu was not intimidated by Chan's presence and the pressure from skating at the same competition with him. "To have been able to deliver my performance is a great accomplishment [in itself]," said Hanyu.
"It's uncommon for a skater to be able to deliver both the SP and free skate with no misses just like Chan at this event. So, it's such a great honour to have been present here on the same stage. He's an existence above the clouds, but by witnessing such performances, there's a part of me that thinks, "I have to work much harder."
Additionally, at Chan's words, "I keep myself mindful of the way to use my knees to express the sound, the music" at the post-SP press conference, Hanyu said, "That was dumbfounding."
"Skating is not only about gliding across the ice but also about using the arms and upper body, but in his case, he also expresses the music and the rhythm well with his lower body. It's such a highly-advanced technique and it dawned on me, "He's even capable of doing such thing." Precisely because he's able to do that, he gets a huge point boost."
Furthermore, he also got the chance to listen to Chan's recounting his experience at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, his [first] Olympic challenge back when he was 19.
"It's something that you only get to hear at the venue of the press conference post-competition and it's really informative. This season, I've gradually become better and better at understanding English, so I've been able to listen attentively to what foreign athletes were saying. It really works in my favour."
This season, it can be said that Hanyu, who passed the same stretch of time together with the reigning world champion, Patrick Chan at the two GP events he was assigned to, has reaped more valuable harvest than victory.
How many languages can you speak? It's so amazing.
It is very Yuzuru.
. It seemed to me (through TV) that French ice was a bit too soft (I don't know really), but the condition was same for everyone. It couldn't be helped anyway. He was just unlucky, but his performance after these two failures was so amazing. He is getting improved at every competition. I'm very proud of him.
Fan girl alert!!
