I'm always so saddened by how Fumie is less remembered than her co-patriots, she should be up there making it hard for people to choose just 3 skaters. She had great artistry and many memorable and well choreographed programs. I'll admit I made fun of her a bit too for competing so long but she really had that competitive fire.
It was a bit unfortunate that she did face some ridicule for still wanting to compete - and I see the same ridicule directed to skaters like Narumi Takahashi who are sticking around, or skaters like Emanuel Sandhu when they wanted to compete at Nationals again. Gotta give these athletes respect for trying. If Daisuke doesn't perform well, I would hope that people commend him for trying to be competitive, instead of deride him for being not as good as he was at his peak (which is hard to expect any skater to be, especially those coming out of retirement).