At nine o'clock in the morning in Nagoya, Japan, Nanako Yamamoto arrived at the Youth Grand Prix competition venue on time, carrying a tripod and a telephoto camera. After setting up the camera, she took out a stack of materials full of English from her backpack and began to browse today's competition schedule.
Nanako Yamamoto is a typical Japanese housewife with little work and much money. She is also a senior ice fan. Compared with the adult competitions, Nanako Yamamoto enjoys the joy of nurturing young athletes more. For this reason, she spends a lot of money to fly to all parts of the world to follow the footsteps of the youth athletes.
At the same time, she has another identity - a very well-known blogger of youth figure skating competitions on YouTube. As long as she has time, she will not miss almost every youth competition.
Nanako Yamamoto's husband is from China, and she herself likes her neighboring country very much, so she usually pays special attention to the young contestants in the flower-growing (China) competition.
Yesterday she uploaded the pre-race open practice of the Junior Grand Prix to YouTube. In addition to the much-watched Russian VA combination, Tori-chan and Kimi-san, who participated in an international competition for the first time this year, also sparked heated discussions among international ice fans, because Tori-chan and Kimi-san are really a very pleasing pair skating combination. As a boy, Kimi-san is simply amazingly beautiful, and Tori-chan is as cute as a little peach.
Because the Japanese pronunciation of "酉" is "tori" and the pronunciation of "君" is "kimi", Yamamoto Nanako, as a native Japanese, is accustomed to using this way of addressing them. However, on YouTube, more people still call them You Lu and Yunjun Xie.
After watching yesterday's open practice, Nanako Yamamoto was not only amazed by the two children's good looks. As a veteran ice fan for more than ten years, Nanako Yamamoto also found that the cooperation between Tori-chan and Kimi-san was very spiritual, and their single jumps were also surprising. Their use of the blade was much cleaner than that of many single skaters.
So Nanako went home that night and watched all the competition videos of the two children. However, they had never participated in international competitions, and there were too few video materials available on the Internet. Nanako currently had no idea about the actual strength of the two children.
But no matter what, since they can represent the flower planting industry in the competition, they must be the strongest young contestants in the flower planting industry.
The schedule for the Japan leg is: pairs skating + women's singles in the morning, and men's singles + ice dancing in the afternoon. Pairs skating is the first event, and the athletes should have been preparing in the warm-up room. As an unofficial media, Nanako could not enter the preparation area, so she had to point the telephoto camera at the entrance and wait quietly for the competition to start.
Not long after, the two figures she was waiting for jumped out hand in hand.
Lu You took off her down vest. The costume she wore for her short program was a gray-green short skirt with a small bib around her abdomen. Xie Yunjun wore a white European palace-style shirt. Both of their performance costumes were modified based on the original costume design of the movie "Howl's Moving Castle", showing their innocence and childishness. Only children of their age can wear such dreamy and fairy-tale-like costumes.
Although they were told yesterday that the contestants representing China this year were a pair of young players with stunning looks, Nanako's friends couldn't help but exclaim when they saw Lu You and Xie Yunjun: "These two kids are so beautiful, they look just like real little Hal and little Sophie."
Nanako Yamamoto silently said "kawaii" in her heart and quickly pointed the camera at them.
The last group of the competition is usually reserved for contestants with good results in the past. Lu You and Xie Yunjun were appearing in an international competition for the first time and were placed in the second group, being drawn third to appear. Nan Yazhu was also in the second group, but was the sixth to appear. Kavela and Anatoly from Russia were the last to appear in the last group.
The moment Lu Tingsong got the list, he sighed, "VA, what kind of human bug is this, a combination of strength and luck."
The contestants who were drawn to perform first in each group were not in a good mood. After all, according to the referee's habit, the first contestant to perform would have his score lowered.
At 8:30 Beijing time, the national team head coach Xue Chengze opened a sports live broadcast software on time. Domestic sports channels would only broadcast the finals of the Youth Grand Prix, and the sub-station races could only be watched on the live broadcast software. Xue Chengze projected the live broadcast on the TV, and the voice of the Italian commentator came out -
"Well, dear audience, the first two pairs skating competitions have ended. The third group of skaters will now have a six-minute pre-match practice. In this group, there is the Korean skater Nam Ya-ju, whom we are all familiar with."
"She has partnered up with a naturalized Australian player again during this off-season. I don't know what new performance she will bring to us today."
"The Junior Grand Prix in Japan has started?" Jiang Ran, the top female pair skater in the country, came over. "Are these the two kids that Coach Jiang Yang recommended as candidates for the national team? They are said to be more talented than Si Nan and Xu Zhen?"
"The most valuable thing about them is not only their talent, but their tacit understanding. These two kids are like you and Yu Botao, they grew up together as childhood sweethearts," Xue Chengze said. "To put it in perspective, they have been together day and night for ten years, and have been skating together for almost four years, which is longer than the time Hanhan and Feiyang have been together."
Nie Hanhan and Han Feiyang are the second strongest pair skating combination in China after Jiang Ran and Yu Botao, i.e. the second brother and second sister. Currently, China can stand firm in the pair skating event thanks to the two pairs of veterans.
However, the two pairs of veteran players are both turning 30 this year. Even if they want to continue to compete in the arena in two years, they will be powerless, especially Nie Hanhan and Han Feiyang. They are not young anymore and have new and old injuries. But they cannot retire as they have no reserve players to take over. Otherwise, there may be no one who can perform well in the Beijing Olympics in two years.
We finally saw Si Nan and Xu Zhen emerge, but this year Si Nan fell straight into the development stage.
Seeing that the athlete from his country was about to go on stage, Jiang Ran quickly called his male partner Yu Botao over, and the two of them stared at the TV screen intently.
"It is worth noting that the Chinese team seems to have a brand new pair this year, with 14-year-old Lu and 15-year-old Xie as partners. They are the youngest pair skating team in this competition, both male and female. They are also the champions of the youth group of this year's China Championships."
"It is said that the difficulty reserve of these two Chinese players is comparable to that of South Korean player Nan Yazhu," the Italian commentator said. "I am looking forward to the competition between these two combinations."
The camera moved to the edge of the ice rink, and Jiang Ran finally saw these two children whom he had never met but often heard about -
The young man has a slender back and delicate features that can be described as beautiful. He is wearing a white palace-style shirt with long sleeves that form a beautiful arc at the wrists. The open-shoulder design reveals a beautifully shaped collarbone. His legs are long and straight wrapped in black trousers. He is reaching out to help his female companion enter the venue.
The girl he was supporting was wearing a green dress, with her long hair braided and tied up behind her head. Her round eyes were full of spirit and she was as cute as a little elf in the forest.
When the two stood in the middle of the ice rink, they looked like they had walked out of a fairy tale.
"On the ice, from China, Yunjun Xie & You Lu (Lu You & Xie Yunjun)."
Under the dual announcements in English and Japanese, Lu Tingsong and Jiang Yang pushed the two children forward respectively and said in unison, "Go!" Lu You and Xie Yunjun skated to the center of the ice rink together and saluted the audience gracefully.
In order not to affect the players' condition, ice fans remained quiet before the game and only silently cheered for their favorite players in their hearts.
Jiang Ran couldn't help but say in front of the TV: "Come on, you two pretty girls!"
"Tori-chan, Kimi-san, damn it!" At the competition, Nanako Yamamoto was also silently saying this in her heart.
On the ice, music began to flow slowly.
The first move of the two was still the Axel two and a half weeks. Soon, Yamamoto Nanako was surprised to find that compared to the simple step-down jump in the Chinese National Championships, the two children increased the difficulty this time.
The two of them first did a Bracket (reverse turn in brackets), and then as if they were in tune with each other, they moved in unison. After turning, they pushed forward on the ice at the same time and jumped with their hands raised.
The jump landed, and applause broke out in the venue. The technical judges began to score the jump.
"Oh my god! This Axel double double with the hands raised is so unexpected!" Yamamoto Nanako's friends couldn't believe their eyes. "This high and smooth slide, and the standard spring knee, am I really not watching a single skater's competition?"
Nanako Yamamoto said: "Tori-chan used to be a female single skater. Not only their single jumps, but also their free skating combos are amazing."
Generally speaking, in a pair skating combination, the male partner is like the foundation, affecting the lower limit of the combination's strength, while the female partner is like the building built on the foundation, determining the upper limit of the combination's strength. The physiological structure of boys determines that their natural strength is higher than that of women, and they can pursue higher technical difficulty than women.
Therefore, if in pair skating, you can have a female partner with strong jumping ability, then the overall strength of the combination will have a qualitative leap.
In the meeting room, Xue Chengze asked: "How many GOE do you think this jump can get?"
Jiang Ran said: "Level +2 or +3, after all, this jump is really pleasing to the eye. I think the final GOE score is reasonable within 0.9."
Yu Botao shook his head: "The referee team won't give it that high, let's continue to wait and see."
Soon, the technical referee at the competition site gave the score for this single jump.
2A (Axel)
BV (Basic Score): 3.30
GOE (execution score): +0.47
Current (player's real-time technical score): 3.77
1st (Currently ranked first player's total technical score): 34.63
Outside the baffle, although Lu Tingsong and Jiang Yang were used to it, they still sighed.
Sure enough, they were still suppressed.
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