Chapter 58 A Jump Japan Station
Three days later, at an ice rink in Sapporo, Japan.
The competition in Japan was conducted in both English and Japanese. Before the competition even started, Xia Yuezi could hear the broadcasting station begin operating, with the voice of the Japanese commentator coming through the loudspeaker.
"Before the competition began, the three Japanese athletes were interviewed by Nippon Television. Shirai and Yumikawa both stated that they would aim for a triple A in this program. Both are considered favorites to win and are teammates, both expressing their desire for the gold medal..."
Xia Yuezi was already used to this kind of commentary that created hype while simultaneously digging traps, after all, Japanese sports reporters have always disregarded all ethical boundaries in pursuit of news.
She was leading Yang Yiyan in stretching exercises backstage, and on the other side of the room was one of the main characters mentioned in the commentary, the current world number one, Shirai Nanako. She was wearing the Japanese team uniform, her black hair tied up in a tight bun, tightening her axis to complete a land 3A.
The previous active number one was Sung Eun-hee. After retiring, all her points were reset to zero. After her comeback, she suffered from frequent injuries and did not participate in many competitions, which was not enough to bring her ranking back to the top. She is still hovering around tenth place.
The sound of the rope hitting the ground quickly echoed in, lashing at the hearts of many contestants like a whip.
Most of the contestants in the room were practicing jumping, but Yumikawa Ria moved to the corridor to practice jump rope and wake up her thigh muscles.
Although it's only the beginning of the season, the Sochi Winter Olympics champion prediction thread has been posted at the top of the forum for a long time, with Yumekawa Ria receiving the most votes.
It's strange, even though Yang Yiyan's difficulty level on paper is almost the same as Yumikawa Ria's, few people on domestic forums mention their own child. The most common comment is that it would be good if she could match my country's best Olympic result.
The best result for a Chinese women's singles player at the Olympics was third place. In other words, everyone felt that it would be good enough if Yang Yiyan could make it to the Olympic podium.
Ria Yumikawa already holds titles in two A-level events: the Four Continents Championship and the Grand Prix Final. Even though she is an Asian athlete, her treatment in the last leg of the tournament was better than last season, and her consistency is not bad either.
In this situation, her advantage over other contestants is already quite obvious. However, the situation on the field is ever-changing, and the final list of winners on the podium cannot be determined until the very last moment.
Japanese figure skating fans were just as enthusiastic as their Russian counterparts; when the first home skater took to the ice, the cheers nearly lifted the ceiling.
Meng Xin noticed that this person's short program jump combination was 3lo+3lo, which is relatively rare among active senior women's singles. She picked up her phone and looked up the athlete's information.
"Her coach is Takagi, no wonder."
The Takagi group is one of the three major women's singles groups in Japan. Their best jump is the lo, while the T jump is poorly taught. Students from the Takagi group also have weak jumps. However, despite their technical deficiencies, they have produced a world champion, and many students apply for the program every year.
"This women's singles player has a wildcard entry, so we don't need to pay too much attention to her in terms of qualifying for the finals. It's just a matter of whether the referee will give her a hand to suppress Xiaoyan."
It's no secret that referees from different countries suppress each other. When their own athletes aren't on the field, they'll try to make things difficult for their rivals by promoting other athletes who have a chance to reach the podium, thus creating chaos. This is part of the refereeing game.
Generally speaking, the highest and lowest scores in a free skate can differ by about 20 points. If a judge does something unethical, the difference can be as high as 30 points, which basically determines whether the skater can get on the podium.
Feng Simai's match was after the women's singles, but there was a dinner break in between. He sat alone in the stands wearing a mask, looking rather uninterested.
The young man glanced around and saw that most of the figure skating fans were holding up support items for the athletes, with Yumekawa Ria and Shiroki Nanako being the most numerous. He only noticed a few fans holding up banners supporting Yang Yiyan.
The difficulty of the women's singles competition is not as high as that of the men's singles. Most of the athletes who competed earlier performed low-level triple jumps, and one athlete even missed the second half of the jump, only managing to land a double jump.
Currently, there are only nine singles skating slots for each Grand Prix event, but since 2014, the number has increased to twelve per event. He didn't have to wait long before he saw Yang Yiyan on the sidelines.
Two coaches stood on the sidelines, holding her hands and talking to her. Yang Yiyan nodded obediently and then skated onto the ice.
To better follow the latest gossip, Meng Xin has accounts on both Twitter and YouTube. Every day, she opens these two apps to check if the reporters and athletes she follows have posted any exciting news, and to see how Chinese athletes are perceived and viewed abroad.
Yang Yiyan's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has been loved by many figure skating fans since the beginning of last season. A big figure skating fan uploaded her performance at the Russian Grand Prix to his account, and in a short period of time, the number of views for this newly choreographed program has exceeded 100,000.
In fact, in addition to the leadership's request, the reason for continuing this program for another season was also because fans left comments under the video hoping that she could skate for another season.
Having had an experience like that in Russia, Yang Yiyan was able to integrate her short programs more seamlessly.
After 3A landed on the ice, Yang Yiyan squatted down, her eyes looking down on the world. The dull piano music was like the undercurrent of the martial arts world. She was like a lone swordsman who was in the middle of it but could not integrate into it, gently pulling the audience into the world of martial arts.
The next player to take the field, Yumikawa Ria, took off her jacket and was doing some light exercise on the sidelines to warm up her body.
She glanced at him sideways, a smile playing in her eyes: "Compared to the youth group, she has grown a lot."
When Yang Yiyan first started jumping 3A, she relied entirely on rotation speed to propel her body. But now her axis of rotation is much thinner, her leg muscles have grown, and she has also increased her height on top of her rotation speed, making her aerial posture look more superior.
Yang Yiyan landed her 3LZ and 3F+3LO programs smoothly in the second competition, and cleaned her short program once again.
The two coaches, standing to the side, were not idle either, silently counting the number of rotations.
In the short program at the last Russian meet, Yang Yiyan made a mistake in the transition of one of her spins. Her upper body and shoulders were not level when she started spinning, which resulted in not completing the required number of rotations. One of the transitions was invalid, and she was ultimately downgraded to level three.
The difference between a second-order spin and a third-order spin is 0.5, which may not seem like much, but it could be the result of a single jump.
Therefore, after returning home, Xia Yuezi even made Yang Yiyan practice this set of spins again.
Yang Yiyan's short program score still did not break 70. Her program content score was similar to the previous stop, but her technical score dropped a bit compared to before.
The three people in front of the camera didn't seem to react much. Before the scores were announced, Xia Yuezi had already explained the current scoring situation to Yang Yiyan.
She and Meng Xin stood on the sidelines, silently watching the scores of the other contestants who had appeared before them. The technical scores were generally lower than in the previous round.
If only one person's score is lower than before, that's called score suppression; but if everyone's score is lower than before, it just means that the competition is being strictly controlled.
When Zhao Shuhua, sitting on the judges' table, saw the score, she silently glanced at her colleagues around her. Several of them were neutral, and only two were clearly biased towards the Europeans. Unfortunately, there were no outstanding European players in the Japanese station, which made their scoring today unusually fair.
Ria Yumikawa's performance was impeccable. She is a power-type skater with an amazing 3A height, flying directly over the two advertisements next to the barrier and even managing a split.
Her 3A jump was not modeled after Shirai Nanako, but rather after the earlier Asian 3A pioneer. Therefore, Yumikawa Ria's A jump has a very obvious characteristic: when taking off, her hands do not move with the swaying of her body, but are fixed in front of her chest and tightened.
This is one of the reasons why her 3A is so difficult to imitate; to achieve this, one must train their leg muscles and core effectively.
A deafening cheer erupted from the stands, and Xia Yuezi couldn't help but click her tongue in amazement.
There are different scoring standards between 3A and 3A. If we are not biased, Yumekawa Ria's 3A score is definitely more than one point.
Ms. Chishima stood by the barrier with a smile on her face. When Xia Yuezi looked over, she nodded slightly to her, as if to say, "Thank you for the courtesy."
Xia Yuezi received this provocation, chuckled, and slowly tightened her grip on her hand in her coat pocket, without transferring the pressure onto Yang Yiyan.
There are countless instances of challenges being issued both on and off the field, even between coaches. This is essentially a psychological battle, a gamble on whether you will act impulsively.
Xia Yuezi recalled that shortly after she was promoted to the next group, she participated in a competition. At that time, the women's singles event had just started with quadruple rolls. One skater put a smokescreen in the publicly announced free skate configuration, saying that he was going to use 3LZ+3T, 4T+3T, and 4T, which fooled a group of competitors, including Xia Yuezi herself. On the day of the free skate, she upgraded her configuration, which caused a "chain reaction" on the ice.
The skater who released the smoke bomb went on stage in the last group. Upon seeing this, he adjusted his free skate setup to a normal level and ultimately won the gold medal.
Ria Yumikawa scored 70.13. Her technical score was similar to her previous score, but her program component score increased, setting a new high for her this season.
Yang Yiyan slowly walked down from the stage where she was temporarily ranked first. She was prepared to rank third in the short program, but Shirai Nanako's score was a huge surprise.
The little girl exclaimed in surprise, "No way! Didn't she get a 3A in the short program? How come her technical score is so low!"
Meng Xin had always been paying attention to this contestant. She leaned close to Xia Yuezi's ear and whispered, "Won't the referee catch her missing a cycle for her 3A again?"
When Shirai Nanako did the 3A, she was quite far away from them, and due to the reflection from the ice, it was impossible to see exactly how many rotations she did.
However, her 3A jump was consistently marked "<" towards the end of her career, with a negative GOA for many years. This is why she didn't attempt this jump for a long time. The reason she brought it back this season is probably to try her luck at the Olympics.
Xia Yuezi stood with her hands on her hips, silently looking at the veterans waiting in their assigned areas. Her expression was unusually calm, as if she had already taken it all in stride.
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