Chapter 35: You have a very impressive 3A and expressiveness in the four weeks.
After the competition, the final rankings were not much different from the short program rankings, but Yang Yiyan relied on her advantage in the free skate to climb all the way to fourth place.
Recalling the difference after the decimal point, Xia Yuezi almost lost her composure in front of the camera.
Is this the treatment you get when you're caught making a mistake and the referee tries to unfairly lower your score? Vivian's goe with her hand on the ice slam dunk wasn't even as good as Yang Yiyan's three-turn spin.
However, the little girl didn't seem upset at all. She's been quite cheerful since the score was released, and I even tried to coax her into not worrying about the consecutive jumps.
Xia Yuezi turned to look at Yang Yiyan, who was being interviewed. Yang Yiyan was maintaining a polite smile while being interviewed by a local reporter, with the team translator beside her.
The reporter, a middle-aged woman, looked at the girl standing obediently in front of her, holding a doll, and unconsciously raised her voice: "I heard you were sick before the competition, but you performed exceptionally well in the free skate. Can you tell me how you adjusted your condition?"
After the translator relayed the question to the athlete, Yang Yiyan blinked and gave a sweet smile: "Adjusting to the change in environment did take a lot of effort, but the coach and team doctor took good care of me. Before the free skate, I was almost back to normal."
The reporter then asked, "Do you feel any regrets about this competition?"
Yang Yiyan tilted her head back and thought for a while: "I have done my best in this competition, and I have also made mental preparations for the result before the free skate. But if I were to talk about regrets, it would probably be that after arriving in Italy, I have been adjusting my physical condition and have not had time to go out and see the world."
She tilted her head slightly as she spoke, and her smile was very genuine.
Xia Yuezi watched Yang Yiyan from the side, and the depression in her heart suddenly dissipated a little. At this moment, she really wanted to pat Yang Yiyan's head and give the girl some consolation prize.
When the interview reached China, many figure skating fans were still calculating the Grand Prix points rankings and predicting whether Yang Yiyan would have a chance to enter the Grand Prix Final this season, showing more concern for the athletes than some domestic leaders.
Meng Xin had just sent Xia Yuezi a video of Feng Simai landing 4T when she saw many posts on the forum telling Yang Yiyan to get some rest.
When she saw that Xia Yuezi had replied to the message, she casually forwarded the forum post to her. Xia Yuezi read a few posts before her gaze drifted to Yang Yiyan.
After the competition, the young girl was completely relaxed and her appetite improved a lot. Polina and another Italian athlete called her over to join them at the hotel restaurant, where they had noodles with sauce and pizza recommended by the local athletes.
However, Chinese athletes do not eat meat when they are away from home, so Yang Yiyan's meals were very limited.
She held an orange juice in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other, stuffing it into her mouth, with ketchup still stuck to the corners of her mouth.
Coach Xia sat at another table, leisurely eating pizza, and silently raised his phone to zoom in with the camera, taking a picture of them, and then shamelessly sent it to Meng Xin.
Coach Meng replied with a meme of Yang Yiyan's hamster pouting in anger, followed by a sentence.
[If I were to post photos of Xiaoyan enjoying her meal now, this post would probably get dozens more replies.]
Xia Yuezi zoomed in on the meme and couldn't help but chuckle. If she remembered correctly, the background of the photo seemed to be a race from last season.
Thinking about it carefully, there are quite a few similar athlete memes on the forum. She remembered that Meng Xin had previously posted a collection of images on a forum, which were full of memes or GIFs made by ice skating fans.
While staring intently at her phone, Xia Yuezi suddenly felt a section of the soft chair next to her collapse.
Yang Yiyan had slipped over unnoticed, holding a glass filled with scoops of ice cream. Xia Yuezi was about to say something to her when the little girl anticipated her arrival.
“I didn’t eat it. Monica said the ice cream was delicious and the raw materials were directly from the ranch that the national team works with.”
Monica is the Italian women's singles player who will also be promoted to a higher group next season.
Yang Yiyan's food intake is still being controlled. Although it's not as exaggerated as Zhang Mengyi's, she can only eat until she's half full at each meal. If she gets hungry in between, she eats some beef jerky and fruit provided by the cafeteria.
The restaurant had air conditioning on, so the ice cream scoop shouldn't have melted so quickly. Xia Yuezi took the glass and said thank you.
She took a spoonful, and the ice cream was indeed as delicious as Monica had said.
Xia Yuezi heard the sounds of several girls laughing and joking nearby. She looked up and saw Polina handing a piece of paper to Yang Yiyan. Yang Yiyan's nose still had ketchup on it, and she wondered how she had eaten it.
She suddenly remembered that when she went out to compete before, as long as the atmosphere of the competition was not particularly oppressive, the hotel restaurant also had a similar atmosphere.
Compared to other sports, the atmosphere among figure skaters is relatively harmonious. Apart from a few particularly petty people and conflicts of interest, most skaters are able to build friendships with skaters from other countries.
Of course, there are many reasons for the depression, such as "meeting with an enemy", the influence of public opinion, etc. The most common reason is a series of mistakes made by the riders on the day of the competition, such as the major crash scene in the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Canadian leg is the first leg of the Grand Prix series. Before participating in this competition, many adult competitors had already practiced their programs in the B-level competition.
The men's singles competition was on the second day, and Feng Simai could only sit in the stands with his coach to cheer for the other athletes, but the ice rink was particularly toxic today.
First, Lyubov, a favorite to win the women's singles title, fell on the 3LZ+3T and failed to make it into the last group even with a PT inverted hang. Then, a "chain reaction" occurred in the pairs skating competition, and in the end, not a single skater scored above 75 points.
In contrast, the ice dance was so normal that it didn't seem like they were skating on the same ice rink as the other skaters. There was even a group of European and American skaters who ended their performance by holding each other's faces and kissing, without any camera tricks, which shocked Feng Simai so much that he leaned back.
The stadium erupted in cheers and jeers from the spectators. Xia Yuezi propped her head up with her hand, her eyes filled with amusement.
Feng Simai leaned closer and said mysteriously, "Coach, I heard from a rumor that they are a couple."
Xia Yuezi glanced at him, picked up a mineral water bottle from the ground, and smashed it on his head. Feng Simai immediately covered his head, looking puzzled.
"Stop bashing Ice Dance, they're just pretending."
Because ice dance and pairs skating involve close-knit movements, vivid storylines, and intimate partnerships, many ice skating fans ship these two sports as a couple. Many talent agencies have also capitalized on this, pushing athletes to their limits. However, such actions generally only lead to one of two outcomes.
First, everyone was so engrossed in the CP drama that they couldn't extricate themselves, including the two protagonists. However, most of the protagonists had already found their own partners, and it eventually turned into an old-fashioned melodramatic novel, turning the two athletes who had been together since childhood from deep affection to hysteria, becoming a topic of conversation for ice skating fans in later generations.
Secondly, the athletes cooperated in the performance, selling their bodies but not their hearts, leaving only heartbroken ice skating fans behind when they retired and split up.
However, it's not impossible for some of these couples to eventually get married, but their numbers are far fewer than the former. Therefore, many veteran fans earnestly advise new fans not to invest too much emotion in shipping their favorite pairings.
Feng Simai stared wide-eyed in surprise at the coach's "I knew it" expression, silently covering her wounded heart.
Xia Yuezi chuckled: "What, you're shipping them?"
Xiao Feng shook his head sadly: "I don't kowtow, but for a moment, I thought they were real."
Xia Yuezi couldn't stop smiling. She reached out and patted the child's shoulder, comforting him, "It's okay, you'll get used to seeing this kind of thing after a while."
She thought to herself: This is nothing. You haven't even seen the big shots in the skating world. Some of them are juggling more than a dozen relationships. And there are some athletes in the Olympic Village who know they have no hope of winning a medal, but they start socializing all sorts of things as soon as night falls.
She personally witnessed a European female player, T, entering and leaving different male players' rooms at different times.
The second day's men's singles competition began in the morning with Feng Simai playing the fourth match in the third group.
During practice, he wore a black kautensil and performed a 4T jump on the ice, following the gliding trajectory.
Although she fell due to foot problems, she still attracted the attention of many viewers.
A handsome blond man with long hair, wearing a French team jersey, stood by the barrier and said to the middle-aged coach next to him, "Look at these kids, they're all curling up around the perimeter now."
This handsome man with long hair is Anthony's coach and former French number one. When he retired, Anthony had already made a name for himself in international competitions, so he took the initiative to follow his former coach and mentor him.
Despite having the title of coach, he is only a few years older than Xia Yuezi, and no more than thirty years old.
The middle-aged coach glanced at his top student, then looked backstage with concern: "The men's singles team that started with Anthony caught up with the beginning of quadruple jumps. Knowing only one quadruple jump is enough, but for the new batch, one jump definitely won't be enough. They'll have to work on the difficulty level later."
Most of today's top men's singles players only know one of the four-times jumps or four-times jumps. At most, they can only squeeze in three four-times jumps after two programs.
Only the current world number one men's singles player, Dawer, can perform two quadruple jumps, but he is currently suffering from a serious back injury and is on the verge of retirement. It would be good if he could perform two quadruple jumps in his two programs combined.
The middle-aged coach has coached many players and has a clear understanding of the future of men's singles.
As soon as Feng Simai stepped off the stage, the coach grabbed her by the back of the neck and hit her hard: "Did you even have four weeks for your short program before you went on? Don't you know how dangerous that move is!"
A 1.74-meter-tall male singles player was being lifted up by a coach who was only 1.65 meters tall, with his neck tilted back. This scene was quite novel, and the surrounding players and coaches all looked over. After sensing Xia Yuezi's anger, they silently looked away.
"Coach, let go first..."
Feng Simai glanced around, silently shrank back, and squatted down, trying to minimize his presence.
Xia Yuezi let go of her hand and instead poked her: "So you know how to be embarrassed? If you had fallen and gotten seriously injured, had you considered the consequences?"
Some skaters had already started performing on the ice rink, their blades slicing across the ice with a "whoosh" sound. Feng Simai remained crouched on the ground, lowering his voice as he said, "Actually, I just saw Davil and the others backstage."
The top players from each country are all in the last group to compete, and judging by the time, it should be time to warm up. But Feng Simai's words now are definitely not that simple. He probably saw them practicing the four-sided circumference exercise.
She put her hand on Feng Simai's shoulder and pulled him up: "Take care of your 4T first, hurry up and do a few jumps, be careful not to get cold when you go on stage."
As the announcer announced the next athlete to take the field, Feng Simai pounded his muscles, his mind replaying the words his coach had spoken before he went on stage.
“They have four weeks of mature experience, but you have a great 3A and expressiveness, and you have plenty of time to challenge yourself. Don’t worry about it.”
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