Chapter 18: Configuration Changes Secure Finals Spot
Inside the Heilongjiang Provincial Team office, Song Qiao was watching the International Skating Union's live broadcast. The icing machine was slowly running on the ice, preparing for the last group's competition.
On the other page of the screen was the men's singles short program rankings, with the top three all scoring above 70 points.
Song Qiao flipped through the men's singles competition results that had already ended. The page was on the results sheet for the third leg. Lin Ye won a bronze medal in this leg, but when he opened the sub-score sheet, most of the spin and step scores were at level two, and there were very few at level three.
He mentioned the grading issue to Lin Ye's coach more than once. He not only assigned him the best skating coach from the provincial team, but also sent him out for training, which slightly improved his grading.
Lin Ye is going to participate in the last leg of the competition, but he seems to have had some bad luck in choosing the legs this season. He runs into two or three top-tier players at each leg, making the competition for the podium extremely crowded.
Song Qiao switched to a different page; the men's singles competition had already begun. Currently on the court is Canadian athlete Kier, who suffered a triple A in the short program and was also penalized with a < by the judges, failing to secure a spot in the bottom three for a turn.
Xia Yuezi stood on the sidelines, watching the skater defiantly attempt a 3A again in his free skate. He had a long build-up time in his glide before leaping forward and completing the jump with explosive power.
Applause quickly erupted from all around. In figure skating competitions, jumps are more direct than expressiveness and are more likely to attract the audience's applause and attention.
The judges were happy to give this brave athlete a high score, allowing him to jump to first place with 209.91 points, almost securing a podium spot.
The player, who had just been promoted to the next level this year, hugged his coach, enjoying the joy.
Feng Simai's breathing became somewhat rapid. This score was very close to his score in the previous event, and Kiel, like him, had won a silver medal in the previous event.
This also means that he and Kiel have a direct conflict of interest. If he wants to win the silver medal and enter the finals, he cannot afford to make any mistakes. At the same time, he also has to see if the referees will lower his score.
Xia Yuezi held his hand, trying to comfort him: "Take a deep breath, relax, and feel the joy of skating. Only by enjoying the sport can you perform at your best."
Feng Simai followed the coach's breathing rhythm, his expression gradually calming down. Xia Yuezi placed her hand on his shoulder and, as she had done before, pushed him away from the barrier.
As the music began, the young man on stage quickly regained his composure, incorporating tap dance elements into his gliding, as passionate and unrestrained as a leaping flame.
When Xia Yuezi entered the first jump of the second half, she noticed that he was not raising his left leg, but his right leg, and he turned inwards while gathering strength for the jump. This is the way to take off in an F jump.
Although a program will have at least two backup plans during the choreography process, these plans are also adjusted according to the contestants' skill levels.
Xia Yuezi's heart sank. She knew that Feng Simai wanted to take a gamble and temporarily switched to a more difficult setup, but the latter half of the 3F+3T was too much for him.
She still vividly remembered the fall on flat ground after the last jump. She didn't know if he could complete this jump, but now she could only choose to believe in him.
When Feng Simai landed on the ice, his whole body tilted slightly, and his skates almost stopped on the ice without sliding off. His thigh muscles bulged instantly as he tried to stabilize his body and continued to skate out in time with the rhythm.
Xia Yuezi breathed a sigh of relief, her eyes never leaving Feng Simai until he had completely finished the program.
Many skating fans in the audience were throwing plush toys onto the ice to show their love for the show. When Feng Simai returned with a bunch of plush toys, he was met with a slap on the forehead from his coach.
"Remember to tell me before you change the configuration next time."
After being hit, Feng Simai glanced at Xia Yuezi again and found that the coach didn't seem so angry. She then silently followed behind her to the waiting area.
Xia Yuezi endured another agonizing wait for the score. She didn't know how many times she had looked towards the judges' table. If eye glares could materialize, the nine judges over there would probably have all collapsed by now.
Not only her, but also Kiel, who had already finished his match, and Andrei, who had not yet played, were paying attention to this score.
With a technical score of 69.21, a program component score of 65.87, a free skate score of 135.08, and a final score of 209.26, Kiel finished just a narrow margin behind Kiel.
Even though Feng Simai showed impressive performance, the judges still lowered his program content score, making it even lower than the previous episode.
Feng Simai clenched his fists, his face showing reluctance and unwillingness, which broke the hearts of the ice skating fans in front of the screen, who immediately began to curse the referee.
Only a parent truly cares for their own child. Xia Yuezi gently patted his shoulder and advised, "Smile for the camera. At least there's a chance of making it to the finals."
Although the chances are extremely small.
Feng Simai obediently did as he was told, and the fans, seeing the forced professional smile on the screen, cursed even more fiercely.
As soon as they arrived backstage, Feng's mother rushed over and hugged her son, looking him up and down. Heaven knows how panicked she was when she saw him about to fall during his jump; she wished she could fly from the stands to his side.
"Mom, I'm fine."
Hearing her son's lowered tone, Mrs. Feng looked incredulous: "Whenever you come back, you always say the same thing, only good news and never bad."
Feng Simai applied an ice pack to her ankle, and as she listened to her mother's rambling, the unpleasantness in her heart dissipated somewhat.
By the time the awards ceremony began, Feng Simai had been completely calmed down by her mother and coach.
Yang Yiyan looked at the three people taking a group photo on the highest podium and burst out laughing: "Coach, don't they look like WiF?"
In the podium group photo, the champion stands in the middle, the runner-up stands on the left, and the third-place winner stands on the right.
Feng Simai is the tallest of the three, while Kiel hasn't started developing yet and is estimated to be only 1.4 meters tall. The three of them form a perfect slide in terms of height.
When Feng Simai returned, he looked at the coach whose shoulders were trembling slightly and his senior sister who kept glancing at him, and a huge question mark appeared on his head. But when he asked, the two of them laughed it off.
Before the start of the competition on the second day, Feng Simai arrived at the ice rink early, where a Russian ice dance duo was on the ice.
He had just sat down when someone sitting behind him tapped him on the shoulder. The person was wearing a mask and casual clothes, but his curly hair and blue eyes gave him away.
“Andrei?” Feng Simai called out uncertainly.
The curly-haired boy pulled down his mask, raised an eyebrow at him, and said with a heavy "r" sound, "Yes, what are you doing here?"
It took Feng Simai a while to figure out what Andre was saying. He replied in broken English, "The women's singles match is about to start. The coaches are backstage helping Xiaoyan with her makeup, so I came up first."
Andrei's English listening comprehension wasn't very good, but he understood the words "women's singles match" and "Yan," and could guess the rest.
He took out a translator from his pocket; it was a gift from his parents after he accidentally got lost abroad and returned home.
Through the translator, Feng Simai realized that the female partner of the couple he had just met was his twin sister. He asked, "Why don't you two team up?"
In pairs and ice dance events, brother-sister or sister-brother pairs are quite common, and they tend to have better chemistry and a shorter adjustment period than temporary pairings. Most importantly, the height difference between them is not significant.
Andrei shook his head: "She didn't start out as an athlete. She wasn't good at jumping, but she was great at gliding. She was tricked into going there by Victor."
Viktor was the male partner in that pair, but Andrei always seemed to grit his teeth when he mentioned him.
Feng Simai felt that he should shut up at this point.
Shortly after the women's singles match began, a man and a woman wearing Russian team uniforms sat down next to Andrei; they were presumably Andrei's sister.
They communicated in Russian, which Feng Simai couldn't understand and didn't have a translator. He could only sit in his seat and watch the ice rink. But after a while, Andrei sat down next to him with a livid face.
Driven by curiosity, Feng Simai first glanced at Andrei, then cautiously peeked behind him, just in time to see the two holding hands, chatting and laughing together.
Feng Simai quickly looked away; he now understood the source of the animosity between Andrei and Victor.
Beside her was the menacing Andrei, and behind her were a sweet couple. Caught in the middle, Feng Simai felt like she was being pricked by needles. Finally, her senior sister made her appearance.
Yang Yiyan stood at the entrance of the ice rink, glanced at the coach, and silently said something. Before Xia Yuezi could answer, she rushed onto the ice.
Xia Yuezi recognized her and said, "Can I change the configuration?"
Coach Xia seemed to think that children are harder to manage once they grow up; this wasn't asking her, it was giving her a direct decision.
Yang Yiyan knelt on the ice and glanced at a certain spot in the audience before the music started. Her head was lowered, her body swaying gently, and she quickly became immersed in the emotions of the music.
She crossed her legs, pressing her left leg outward and lifting her right leg slightly backward, keeping the distance between her legs as short as possible when ice skating.
This is Yang Yiyan's first time fully executing the 3lz in an international competition.
Xia Yuezi raised her arm and exclaimed, "Beautiful!"
After the windmill turned, Yang Yiyan slid out a bit to match the music, her hands clasped together as if in prayer.
Feng Simai looked at the big screen with his brows furrowed. Yang Yiyan's jumps looked like they were starting from an F, but the time she spent gliding and building up power was longer than before.
This jump sequence is 3F+3Lo, and it's the most difficult combination jump after the configuration upgrade.
Xia Yuezi's hands clenched unconsciously. Yang Yiyan seized the opportunity and quickly touched the ice, tensing her body as she landed and forcefully turning upwards.
When Xia Yuezi saw Yang Yiyan skate out with a high kick, she unusually lost her composure and jumped up from the sidelines.
With a smile on her face, Yumikawa Ria said to her coach, "This girl spins pretty fast, she can even do this combination jump."
As soon as she finished speaking, Yang Yiyan dropped 3S+3lo.
Ms. Chishima saw it clearly: "She's not good at it, she just knows how to do Lo."
Yumikawa Ria glanced at Alisa, who was about to go on stage, and became interested in the coach's words: "You mean, she's the same as the students in Takagi's group?"
Takagi is a coach at the club, and his students are famous for their lo-jumping.
Ms. Chishima nodded: "It should be, otherwise there wouldn't be two programs, not even one of which is 3T."
However, Yumikawa Ria believes that not being able to achieve a 3T is not a big deal, as the students in the Takagi group ranked quite high in the previous All-Japan Championships.
Moreover, she didn't think Yang Yiyan would stop there, and her coach wouldn't leave such an obvious shortcoming unaddressed.
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