That's awesome, I'm glad someone caught it on video.
It totally freaked me out to hear my own voice on there, though. Whoever recorded it must've been sitting really close to me. Yikes.
Reminds me that I have a bunch of videos, too, but I haven't even properly looked at them yet. Nowhere near as good as this stuff, I'm sure. ;-)
Anyway, as promised, SP with Dutch commentary version 1. I forgot who the guy is, so I just called him g for guy (*grin*).
g: So we’re starting with the Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu, who made the GPF by the bare minimum (scraped through), but nobody doubts his qualities as figure skater. The only one who ever scored in the 100s, 101.45 at the Olympics, then you’re not putting a single foot wrong. It’ll be very strange if we’re going to see that level today, but what would it be good for the competition and for Yuzuru Hanyu if he showed here that he’s completely back. Last year, not the exact same scenario, but then he let himself be caught off guard twice during the regular GP, but when it really mattered, he was there and won the GPF in Fukuoka, and finally that would result in a terrific season with the Olympic and the world title; a season cannot get much better than that. And he’s starting here first with his short program. Let’s hope we can catch some glimpses of the Hanyu of last season. Five days ago he turned twenty.
K, [I think Karen Venhuizen, she’s a former singles skater, 9-time Dutch champion] We are of course curious to see how he has recovered from all the pain [‘leed’] and injuries, concussions [yes, plural! Pretty sure he didn’t even have 1], let’s see how he’s going to fare. He opens with a 4T, at least that was planned, yes! Flawless, combination spin with foot change, flying camel spin. He’s going for the difficult triple axel and the combination in the second half of the program what will give him a lot of bonus points. Triple axel, yes, without any problem. Ho! Triple lutz, triple toeloop, you could already see with the triple lutz that he wasn’t standing correctly. He thought, I’m still going for it, the toe loop, but no. Step sequence, lots of speed, deep edges.
G: Well, that’s a bit of the Hanyu like we [saw] him the last season, or rather the last couple of seasons, since he’s been a Senior, and in spite of the fall, K, I did notice that by the earlier competitions he opened all the jumps, quads became triples, triples doubles, and look at that technical score, and the fact that he still went for it in spite of the fact that the triple lutz was not ideal.
K: He’s totally happy, in spite of the fall, I think. He also looked different than at the two GPs, like “Guys, I’m back.” And those quad toeloop and triple axel, those were by the book, and I already had a sense of “this isn’t going to go well” with the lutz, and when I saw the take-off, I thought “No.” And still attempting that second triple.
G: Yes, nice. He’s completely back, and saves his for the moment best performance for the so far most important competition of the season. Last year the road to the GPF was a lot better, losing to Patrick Chan in the GP can happen to the best of us, he put things right [stelde orde op zaken] in Fukuoka. It’s getting a bit ahead of the game to say that this is the best SP of this competition, but it will certainly have a large role to play.
K: Yeah, he won’t be placed sixth anymore.
G: Absolutely.
K: He did make a big mistake, so you never know, if the others go clean.
G; but 51 points in the technical score alone, that is---
K: Yeah, you have to wonder how he got those together with a fall. +3 in the quad—
G: that must be it, right? Yeah, the [technical] score will undoubtedly be lowered.
K: surely.
G: here we see it. [the fall]
K: he doesn’t land correctly on his foot.
G: it was round, so he won’t get a deduction for that.
K: I think he had to smile.
G: The confidence was there to jump, even though the first jump wasn’t straight. Yes, nice.
K: yes, he seems to be feeling better again.
G: that is pretty impressive, because he hasn’t had that much time since Osaka, two weeks. The fact he even started in Osaka was extremely “dubious” [dubious, strange choice of words, this, in Dutch, it indicates that the speaker thinks the situation wasn’t entirely correct, in the sense of suspect, instead of, what I’m guessing/hoping the speaker meant, “twijfelachtig” that he felt it was doubtful whether he would be capable of starting due to his health]. If we may believe the interviews, Orser let Hanyu decide whether or not he’d start. And those 51 points are still in the screen, after all, and we’ll already get to see a ‘fat’ 90s mark on the scoring board. Nice, well, Fernandez will probably be annoyed, although they are training buddies, and he’ll probably prefer winning from a good Hanyu than a Hanyu who had completely lost his way. But it’s also quite good (impressive) when you can show such mental strength to bounce back, because it really was awfully bad what we’ve seen of him in the two competitions. Well, the points indeed remain and 94.08 is indeed, in spite of the fall, the highest score we’ve seen so far [from Hanyu this season, I’m guessing he meant]. Yeah, he’s totally back, the mannerisms [???], the confidence, and it’ll be a terrific FS competition tomorrow.
I think it's safe to say the Dutch commentators aren't the biggest Yuzuru Hanyu fans in the world... They're usually more European-focused. :scowl: