The 2nd FS practice midday was both hot and cold. While waiting to get to the ice, he hugged Evgenia who lingered by the rink after the ladies practice.
He took a long time to warm up - the whole 6 min and more - before starting with the jumps. And how easy and beautiful they were: 3T, 3S, 3Lo, 3Lz, 3F combo, 3A, 4S. Like clockwork! A little glitch with the 4S combo - only a 2T and stepout..Tried that twice more but with no perfect result. Then just skating around the rink for a long time while Chen and Hanyu were doing their runthroughs. One 3T to keep the jumps going.
But the runthrough was not easy... 4T barely landed, skipped 4S combo, popped 3A combo, did the 1st spin and got the 4S ok, 3A with a hard lean, no 3Lz, 3F combo ok, 3Lo ok. Steps and last spin ok. Before the session finished a couple tries of 3A combo, the first one ok but not perfect. A spin, some stroking and the session was over.
In the evening, his warm-up was fabulous! Everything worked perfectly, he got to do all his jumps to open space, no problems apart from the 4S combo with only a 2T. Held hs right knee a bit after the quad attempt. And then that... It was hard to believe it was the same guy!
If there was a lesson to learn in this, I hope he takes it and moves on. Next weekend Spanish nationals... Marca quote him saying simply that it happens, sometimes you do good, sometimes not and that he was not the master of he jumps but that they controlled him.
I hoped for a better performance, but was oddly really not even too upset about the while thing. He had more problems in the practices than what i've seen before and despite the great warm-ups the programs did not work. Rather would have wanted to skip witnessing this.
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To me things like this is why he is two time WC, he fights for every point like lion, and the save was definitely cat-like! :clapper:
