Next big Japanese lady? Sochi?

[Bennett]

In addition to guys being tiny and thin, ice time would be an issue, too. You can practice ice dancing in the public sessions, but pairs would never be allowed to do so.

 

[Nadia01]

Kanko should start training abroad anyways - go to the US or Canada and then maybe if she wanted to switch to pairs she could find a partner and if not she could improve on her singles skating.

But doesn't that take some political maneuvering and so on, so that she can represent the US or Canada w/ her foreign partner?

Getting a Japanese citizenship is really really hard. It takes almost 10 years of living in Japan or something like that to get JP green card.

 

[bigsisjiejie]

But the chinese men are short too, yet they have great pairs teams. There's not a huge height difference between Shen and Zhao. If Kanako stays tiny, even a 5'6'' or 5'7" guy will be big enough for her. I think the major obstacle is the lack of interest in pairs in Japan.

Northern Chinese men (where the ice skaters come from) are generally taller and stronger than Japanese men. I've seen Shen and Zhao and Pang and Tong in real life with and without skates, and Zhao is a relatively small guy (5'-9-ish but quite strong) but also not Oda-sized, and Tong is pushing 5'-11, also quite strong. The Chinese pairs ladies are also kept artificially (dangerously) thin, but that's another issue for another thread.

Japan isn't all a nation of hobbit-sized men, it's a large enough country to have some variety. But skaters have to be noticed and developed from a reasonably early age. And what Japan is most lacking is a Bin Yao.

 

[silverlake22]

Northern Chinese men (where the ice skaters come from) are generally taller and stronger than Japanese men. I've seen Shen and Zhao and Pang and Tong in real life with and without skates, and Zhao is a relatively small guy (5'-9-ish but quite strong) but also not Oda-sized, and Tong is pushing 5'-11, also quite strong. The Chinese pairs ladies are also kept artificially (dangerously) thin, but that's another issue for another thread.

Japan isn't all a nation of hobbit-sized men, it's a large enough country to have some variety. But skaters have to be noticed and developed from a reasonably early age. And what Japan is most lacking is a Bin Yao.

Yeah it just seems like the men who skate in Japan are generally small, the ladies not as much but though some male skaters are tall like Lysacek it's probably easier to be a good skater when you are smaller. Oda, Dai, and Kozuka are all very slight in addition to being pretty short (by US standards - maybe not by Japanese standards).