Chapter 134, Section 230: She won't lose again.
On the last day of the finals, the men's singles competition started and the women's singles competition ended. Xia Yuezi was stuck in the venue due to the schedule and sat in the stands when she wasn't playing.
Fortunately, the women's singles competition for the junior group has already ended, and they took home a bronze medal; otherwise, the summer group coaches would have been under a lot of pressure today.
Feng Simai drank painkiller powder backstage beforehand. He pinched his nose, his face full of disgust.
"Could you ask the team doctor to adjust the taste, so it tastes like the sweet soup we used to drink?"
No matter how many times I drink this medicine, I find it hard to swallow. It tastes like toothpaste, especially when the coach hands it to me before the powder has even been shaken. One sip and my throat feels completely sticky, and the taste goes straight to the top of my head.
Xia Yuezi glared at him: "If you think it tastes bad, then you should suffer less."
Feng Simai immediately fell silent, obediently picked up the bottled water next to him, took a sip to suppress the taste in his throat, and was ready to go on stage at any time.
According to the plan, his free skate routine was a triple loop routine with double triple Aces as the main element. Many fans who were watching the live broadcast saw this performance and posted on the forums, wondering if Feng Simai was injured.
However, he also explained these things in a post-match interview, nipping various conspiracy theories in the bud.
On the other hand, Xia Yuezi and Meng Xin received a lot of calls from China as soon as the competition ended, all of them inquiring about them.
Feng Simai didn't have any injuries to hide, so the two of them used their previous excuses to fob off the group.
In contrast, the women's singles in the adult group has more to offer in terms of entertainment value.
Although Elizabeth and Carolina are young, they must have some skill to have managed to come out of Russia. Another player, Claire, is known for her skating in women's singles.
With the judges from both the Russian and American schools battling it out, the scores of the three skaters were incredibly close, and by the time Yumikawa finished, her score had already surpassed 220.
"Wow, Mengchuan is really going all out. The 3A shaft is crooked, and he still has to force a 2T connection to the back."
Xia Yuezi sighed: "What can we do if they don't accept? We can't keep jumping to discounts, that would be a huge loss for 3A."
Although having a super center makes the show more forgiving of mistakes, it also consumes a lot of energy. You can't afford to make too many mistakes in the second half, otherwise all the previous moves will be for nothing.
Before her injury, Yang Yiyan had tried the double 3A configuration in training, but she ended up skating until she was out of breath in the second half, not to mention her emotions.
Only after confirming that she really couldn't skate with a dual 3A setup did she focus on working on her existing setup. Anyway, her dual 3LO setup could make up for some of the skill gap, and it wasn't too far behind others.
Meng Xin pursed her lips, quietly watching Yang Yiyan who was still getting used to the ice rink, and couldn't help but silently pray, "Just be safe and sound."
Although the theme of love in "Gone with the Wind" is maternal love, Asians are generally reserved, and even though Yang Yiyan usually seems cheerful and carefree, she would never say such sentimental things.
To better express the emotions of the music, Yang Yiyan would secretly download some audio recordings of fairy tales and put them on her MP3 player, recalling her interactions with her mother to evoke the emotions without feeling too embarrassed to talk about them.
Every mother is different. What Yang Yiyan brought to the ice was her mother as she sees her, so this character is more three-dimensional and warmer than any of her previous performances.
Yang's mother has a great sense of art, but she is relatively slow to grasp music. When this program first appeared, she didn't understand its meaning until she watched the interview later.
In today's performance, Yang Yiyan continued the form she had shown in the previous two leges. Every smile she wore was dignified, but her almost divine eyes reminded people of her own story with her mother.
After scoring his own points, the Chinese referee glanced at his colleagues' scores and quickly calculated Yang Yiyan's final score in his mind.
Originally, figure skating fans thought that Yang Yiyan's score at the China Grand Prix was already quite good, but unexpectedly, she set a new record again, achieving a total score of 230.15.
Mengchuan Liya glanced to her side and saw Yang Yiyan hugging her coach with tears in her eyes. She suddenly remembered the conversation she had with the reporter before the interview yesterday.
It seems that to win the championship this year, one must either compress the margin for error and make the jumps as clean as possible, or add more jumps in the second half to improve one's technical score.
However, given her current situation, the first option is more suitable. She is afraid that if she jumps too much in the second half, her stamina bar will not be able to hold up.
Polina's free skate was based on the Russian classic film "Dead Souls." The entire costume was predominantly white, but her expression was quite solemn.
This also resulted in a flawed landing on her first 3A jump. To the naked eye, the rotation was clearly insufficient, and in any case, the goe of this jump would be negative.
"Has she not had a smooth free skate this season yet?" Meng Xinfa asked.
There's a difference between a clean surface and a smooth road ahead; the latter has higher requirements.
Aside from obvious mistakes like touching the ice or falling, errors such as jumping or landing flaws may cause the indicator light on the real-time scoreboard to turn red, indicating that the goe for that move is negative. However, in many people's eyes, the program is at least complete.
A perfect green light means that there are almost no flaws in the three parts of jumping, footwork, and rotation. Even if there is a gap in the jump, the jump can be completed and then corrected.
"That's true, but you can see that her condition is not affected at all; she glides as smoothly as water."
Classic performances can be enjoyed again and again because of more than just the contestants' control of their emotions; it's also about the seamless transitions in their footwork, which truly reveals their skill.
Polina's skating isn't particularly good, but the fact that she can achieve this level of skill while maintaining a high level of difficulty is enough to show her ambition for an Olympic gold medal.
Of course, her coaching team may have also trained her reaction and calculation abilities; otherwise, given Polina's personality, Xia Yuezi doesn't think she would give up her second 3A.
Coach Xia looked at Yang Yiyan, who was already captivated by the program, and couldn't help but smile. Then he heard Meng Xin's voice.
“As soon as the Olympic season begins, there are many more high-quality programs. You wouldn’t believe it, but the forum has already started selecting classic programs from the PyeongChang cycle. When I clicked in, I saw that there were an unusually large number of nominations for this season.”
"Isn't this a good thing? The more classic programs there are, the more diverse the performances of the contestants, the more it shows the prosperity of this sport."
Xia Yuezi stretched and said in a drawn-out voice, "As for which program is better, let the International Skating Union decide. Didn't they have some kind of award for best choreography and most entertaining program of the season?"
Although Xia Yuezi once felt that some of the awards became less prestigious as they went on, and that it seemed like some people were being treated unfairly, she did not deny that some people did deserve the recognition.
However, when it came time to announce the scores, both the Chinese and Russians present were very nervous. The two had similar scores in the short program, but Polina made a slight mistake in the free skate, and her technical score was lower than Yang Yiyan's. It all depended on how the program component scores were awarded.
Xia Yuezi turned her head to look at the referee's table and could clearly feel her palms sweating. Meanwhile, the person in question was still hugging a doll, leaning back on the sofa and eating a rice ball, looking completely unnerved.
An announcement came on, and a scoreboard appeared at the bottom of the large screen.
Technical score 74.24, program component score 72.39, free skate score 146.63, followed by a number 2.
Xia Yuezi's pupils contracted slightly. If she remembered correctly, Polina's technical score had been reduced by two points compared to the real-time score.
The score bar paused for a few seconds before quickly calculating the final total score of 228.57.
Upon seeing the final total score and ranking, many people on the field gasped in shock, especially Chinese ice hockey fans, who remained stunned in front of the screen for a long time.
What's going on?
It's always been other countries' players who beat Chinese players by a fraction of a point. When did they become able to beat others by a narrow margin, especially the Russian player?
Even the Chinese coach was stunned. It was only when the photographer next to them called out to them and asked if they could take a picture of Yang Yiyan that the two of them regained their senses.
However, there wasn't much of an emotional reaction from the Russian side. Davil held a small paper score sheet, on which a "<" was clearly marked after 3A, and a "q" was marked on the second jump in the consecutive jumps. Everything else was fine.
The technical experts for this match included a Japanese referee and an American referee. They were most likely working together to dehydrate Polina and make the technical aspects of this match particularly strict.
Davil sighed. If they really did that, Yang Yiyan, as a contestant whose interests conflicted with theirs and who didn't have the advantage of nationality, wouldn't gain anything. At most, she would just get a boost in the chaotic battle.
He watched the entire competition, and even if all the scores were adjusted, the final rankings wouldn't change.
Davil patted his junior sister and student's head, trying to comfort her, but Polina shook her head and dodged away, waving her hand to indicate that she was fine.
"The situation on the field is ever-changing. Besides, it's not like I've never lost before."
After saying that, she turned to look at Yang Yiyan, her eyes blazing with fierce fighting spirit: "We'll win it back next time."
According to the competition schedule, the next time the two will meet on the international stage will be at the Winter Olympics. Only then will she not lose to these Asian girls again.
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