Polar Bear Ice Rink, midnight.
Arturo stepped onto the ice carefully, and a long-lost sense of familiarity arose from the soles of his feet, making him want to run on the ice.
But because they were Xie Yunjun's ice skates, the child only dared to step on the ice lightly each time.
Arturo wanted to be a professional figure skater since he was a child. Even though Colombia is located in South America and has backward infrastructure, he still did not give up this unrealistic dream.
Xie Yunjun's ice skates and skates are both top-notch. This brand is hard to find in Colombia. Before fleeing the war, Arturo had never used such good ice skates.
After Erica and Carlo went on the ice, they played the reverse spiral. Carlo was forced to be the one drawing the circle, but Erica was too weak to hold him back, and he sat down on the ground before he had even completed half a circle.
Carlo flew straight out of sight.
Lu You covered his mouth and leaned in Xie Yunjun's arms, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
If this kind of nonsense happened during normal practice, Eugene would be so angry that he would pick up a broom and chase them.
When Arturo saw several people of different skin colors playing and fighting on the field, a smile appeared on his face unconsciously.
The scene of practicing with like-minded partners was indeed full of warmth and laughter as he had imagined.
Arturo raised his arms and looked at his light brown skin, unsure if he could join in.
Xie Yunjun noticed Arturo's reservedness, leaned over and whispered in Lu You's ear, and then the two of them slid over hand in hand.
They braked in unison to steady themselves, and then Xie Yunjun asked Arturo: "Do the skates still fit?"
Arturo nodded quickly: "It's perfect, thank you."
The kid looked extremely nervous. He obviously wanted to skate, but since he got on the ice he has only dared to move slowly along the edge of the rink, and we didn't see him make any big moves.
Lu You had always been the youngest in the provincial team and in competitions. Now that she met a younger brother who was even younger than her, she had no experience in getting along with him.
In order to relax him, Lu You simply started chatting with him: "I never saw any Colombian skaters during the competition, Arturo, why did you practice figure skating at that time?"
"When I was ten years old, I saw Hinata Yoshimaru's Olympic free skate on TV," Arturo said, speaking English fluently when he was not nervous. "I thought it was beautiful. The confidence Hinata Yoshimaru showed on the ice was fascinating."
Lu You thought silently in her heart: Yoshimaru Hinata-senpai is really popular. This is the Nth person she has heard of who got in touch with figure skating because of him.
He is worthy of being the hot man who ignored the referee's crooked butt debuff and stood on the top of the single skating pyramid, making countless ice fans crazy.
"Because Yoshimaru Hinata started practicing figure skating...then you are practicing men's singles?" Lu You guessed.
Arturo nodded sheepishly. “Well, there’s actually only one coach at the ice rink in my hometown. After he taught me 3T, he told me that he had nothing more to teach me.”
"Later, I could only learn by watching videos."
Lu You: "Watch the video and learn by yourself? Then what jumps have you learned now?"
Arturo said: "Except for 3A, I have tried the others, but I have only succeeded in 3Lz a few times, and I haven't practiced for a long time. I don't know if I can still do it now."
Lu You: “???”
Is this the legendary talented player?
"It turns out that the term 'self-taught' is really true," Lu You told Xie Yunjun, "Arturo made me feel the disparity in the world."
Although he hadn't been on the ice for a long time, when Arturo started practicing with everyone's encouragement, his jumping height was still amazing.
——If you ignore his horrific use of the blade.
Erica skated to the side of the ice rink and secretly turned on the camera that was usually used to record videos so that coaches could review the games with the players.
Because several people had to train the next day, they didn't dare to play too late. Around one o'clock, they secretly climbed out of the ice rink and went back to rest. In the early morning of the next day, the first group of people who came to the ice rink for training saw the criss-crossing sliding tracks and ice pits on the ice and were a little confused.
"Did you forget to repair the ice yesterday?" a male singles player said, "No, that's not right. I was the last one to leave yesterday, and the ice repair truck had already arrived before I left."
His companion replied: "Maybe someone came here early in the morning for extra practice."
The men's singles player glanced at his watch. It was six in the morning, Canadian time.
If we have to practice extra in the morning, we have to get up very early, the male athlete thought, even though it is the Olympic season, it is too hard.
In the room, Lu You, who was "suspected to be doing extra training", had just climbed out of bed. After washing up yawning, he almost hung on Xie Yunjun as he walked to the club restaurant.
Erica and Carlo were not much better off than her. They greeted the two of them in a listless manner.
Jiang Ran looked surprised: "Did you four go to steal wires last night?"
Lu You yawned loudly, leaned back in his chair and began to nibble on his boiled corn: "Yeah."
Jiang Ran: “?”
Lu You took a look at today's training schedule. There were two hours of morning exercises on Friday, and then daily ice training. Eugene would come to give guidance.
The Polar Bear Club starts its weekend at 3 pm. Lu You and Xie Yunjun will use this time to go out to dance classes with Erica and others, and then come to the club for self-training on Saturdays and Sundays.
Before going to the dance class this time, the four of them took a detour to another commercial ice rink in Toronto to get an annual pass. They had their own training tasks, and it was unrealistic to stay up every day to help Arturo climb over the wall.
Lu You took a look at the pair of ice skates and found that the upper was a little collapsed and the leather on the surface was a little peeling, but it was said that this was already the highest-end pair of ice skates that the ice rink rented out.
Lu You: "Will these shoes work?"
"It's a bit of a stretch to do a triple jump, but Arturo hasn't been on the ice for almost a year, so it should be enough for rehabilitation for now," Xie Yunjun said. "After he really recovers from the triple jump, he may need to change to a better pair of shoes."
Carlo said, "I do have a pair of unused ice skates. At that time, I met an unscrupulous sharpener. He claimed to sharpen the skates manually but actually used a machine to sharpen them. The blades were not sharpened well."
Carlo still feels a little itchy when talking about this: "I just needed to change my equipment at that time, so I just changed my sword and shoes to a new set."
"Arturo's size is the same as Jun's. Ice skates can't have insoles... He should be able to wear my shoes if he laces them tighter."
Ice skates come with built-in pads. If you use insoles, you may slip when doing movements, which is very dangerous, so you can only choose ice skates one size larger.
"I can lend this pair of skates to Arturo first," Carlo said. "If Arturo can really pick up the five triple axels and start practicing 3A, at his age, the difficulty will be higher than that of most Canadian youth skaters."
"I have an idea, but I don't know if it's feasible..."
…
The next night, Lu You gave Arturo the ice rink annual pass and Carlo's old ice skates.
Lu You told him: "If you can successfully pick up five types of triple jumps, you can send the video of these jumps to Erica, and she will help you pass it on to Coach Eugene."
"This coach has a free trial class that will recruit some talented players. Erica said that if you can get good results under the guidance of Coach Eugene, you will have the opportunity to join the Maple Leaf country as a naturalized player."
She recounted a feasible plan tailored by two Canadian Aboriginal people who understood the country's conditions.
Arturo held his ice skates and annual pass, and had that big dog-like expression on his face again.
The wheat-colored boy looked at Lu You for a long time, then suddenly stepped forward, took her hand and placed it on his chest with a pious look on his face.
“May God grant this girl the light of the Holy Spirit so that she can grow in wisdom and live in peace and joy, my Lord, Amen.
Xie Yunjun had an expression that was hard to describe.
He silently pulled Lu You back to his side, calmly held her hand, and inserted his fingers between the girl's fingers.
Lu You was talking, but his body reacted naturally and he held Xie Yunjun's fingers.
Arturo looked at the two people's interlocked hands, smiled, and then repeated the Catholic blessing to Xie Yunjun, as well as Erica and Carlo who were not present.
In the days that followed, Lu You and his friends would occasionally go to the Toronto ice rink to watch Arturo train, but Xie Yunjun never gave Arturo and Lu You the opportunity to be alone together again.
This child had a certain foundation and made rapid progress. In the first week, he stabilized all the double jumps. Half a month later, he could already jump 3T, 3S and 3Lo.
However, his use of the blade was still confusing. Xie Yunjun tried to correct him several times, but Arturo was used to going his own way and it was difficult to correct him in a short time.
After a while, Ellie showed Eugene the video of Arturo's triple jump in the name of her friend.
Eugene commented: "I have never seen such poor use of the blade. What kind of foundation did this kid's coach give him when he was young?"
But after hearing that Arturo came from the UNHCR and was almost self-taught, Eugene remained silent for a long time, but did not make a clear statement whether he would give Arturo a trial opportunity.
In the following days, Lu You continued to eat fat-reducing meals, train, and prepare for the new season's program as before.
However, towards the end of the overseas training, Eugene doubled the training volume. Whenever Lu You felt that he could not hold on any longer, he would think that this was all his mother's money and his father's love, and he would feel that he could do it again.
At the end of August, the Chinese athletes' training in Canada is coming to an end.
Jiang Ran and Yu Botao's 4S jump success rate remained at 50%. For two veterans with an average age of over 26 to achieve this level is the result of their hard practice.
Lu You and Xie Yunjun successfully included 3F and 3FTh into their stable difficulty reserves. Since 3LzTh and 3FTh had the same score, they directly skipped 3LzTh and moved on to 3ATh practice.
However, the two have never successfully landed on the ice. Being able to fully circle the ice is already their current limit, and it also depends on a bit of luck.
The triple Axel throw is 2.02 points higher than 3FTh and 3LzTh in terms of basic score alone, and is only 0.5 points lower than the simplest quadruple throw. This shows how difficult this throw jump is.
Eugene once said that the difficulty of 3ATh is almost the same as that of quadruple throw. If they are just pursuing competition scores, Eugene will directly teach them to practice the more cost-effective quadruple throw.
But since Lu You and Xie Yunjun are still young and there is no pressure of competition results, they naturally have to take one step at a time. It would be better to use 3ATh to lay a solid foundation before moving on to the quadruple throw.
After they have truly mastered 3ATh, when they practice quadruple throw, their speed will be many times faster than that of the combination that has not practiced triple Axel throw.
On the eve of the return of Lu Xie and Jiang Yu, good news came from the national team.
Nie Hanhan and Han Feiyang's quadruple twist has stabilized, and it is basically confirmed that they will perform quadruple twist in the Olympic season.
However, before domestic ice fans could be happy for just two days, a post on a figure skating forum poured a bucket of cold water on them.
[Orthopedics Department of the Third Military Hospital of Huai City. The person just brought over by the ambulance seems to be Nie Hanhan, the second pair skater. She is still wearing a training suit... [Picture]]
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