Chapter 92 I can accept that good things often come with difficulties.
Since the popular athletes hadn't finished their matches yet, Yang Yiyan was surrounded by reporters from various countries as soon as she entered the mixed zone. If it weren't for the barriers, she probably wouldn't have been able to leave.
Xia Yuezi stood in the corner, listening to her answer the questions in fluent English, and a sense of relief welled up inside her, as if her child had grown up.
Yang Yiyan from the youth group was still a language novice who could only travel abroad alone with the help of a translator. Her English was only enough to pass the middle school entrance exam, and she couldn't do interviews without her coach. Now she can stand on her own, although she still needs her coach's help with some questions she doesn't understand.
In addition to the mixed interview, Yang Yiyan also had an exclusive interview.
Xia Yuezi had already received the news that CCTV and the platform would send people to conduct interviews, and an outline of the relevant questions had been prepared so that the contestants could simply memorize it.
Before handing it over to Yang Yiyan, Xia Yuezi glanced at it beforehand. Most of the questions were about injuries and rehabilitation. If the reporter asked about other aspects, she could stop them in time.
However, her pre-match training session with Feng Simai clashed with an interview, so she had to go train with Feng Simai and left the interview to Meng Xin.
It has to be said that the speed at which the difficulty of the men's singles matches has increased has exceeded Xia Yuezi's expectations.
Besides Lin Ye achieving 4LZ, Fujiwara Yoshino also achieved 4F in the first four weeks. Wayne and Anthony, the two representatives of American and European styles, no longer rely on their low-level four-week skills and are trying to achieve higher difficulty levels. However, both of them are too injured, so their success rate and completion rate of the advanced four-week skills are not high. Not to mention the remaining young players.
Xia Yuezi propped her chin up with her hand, seemingly still paying close attention to the training, but her mind was actually wandering off somewhere else.
Feng Simai's muscles are already strong enough to reach 4S. However, due to his height and physical limitations, it will be difficult for him to go further. If he does reach the top 4S in the free skate, he will probably have to sacrifice his rating like Lin Ye.
This wasn't Feng Simai's forte to begin with, and after all the effort, it might not even be as good as sets two or four.
Moreover, if we really look at the results, Feng Simai can only be considered between the second and near-first tier. It's just that his skating performance is outstanding in men's singles, and he has the support of the newly emerging figure skating market in China, so he has some popularity. The judges can't suppress him too much, which is why they gave him a score at the bottom of the first tier.
He can still rely on his skateboard for a while, but if European and American skaters start practicing advanced quadruple jumps on a large scale, Feng Simai will definitely fall behind. He will have to follow others' lead, which will bring him back to the original problem, like a dead end.
Xia Yuezi could only hope that he could remain stable and seize the opportunity while the difficulty was not too high or when others made mistakes, to win more medals and improve his treatment.
Whether Feng Simai understood the problem himself or got anxious seeing others doing advanced quadruple jumps, he jumped two quadruple jumps in a row, leaving Xia Yuezi speechless.
Sidorov, standing at the other end of the ice rink with his cane, said to the woman next to him, who was wearing a Russian team uniform, "We need to give Andrei extra training when we get back. We can't keep him stuck on one jump. If he still can't uphold the status of Russian men's singles in the senior competition, we can only wait to be suppressed by the junior athletes after they move up to the senior level."
After joining Seedorov's coaching team, Dawer directly took over some of the youth group players. Viktor, the silver medalist in men's singles at this year's World Junior Championships, was accompanied by Dawer during the competition.
With such a coach by his side, and the Slavic young man's good looks and decent performance, he gained many more fans who followed him in just one season, and Xia Yuezi had also heard about him.
Viktor is currently the only athlete in the junior men's singles competition who has mastered a quadruple jump, but he also has the same problem that Mao Nan has always had - poor stability.
It can be said that if he can land all four dives, the gold medal will be a piece of cake; if he can't, his final score will depend on his overall performance.
For example, at the recently concluded World Junior Championships, a skater fell 4T during the free skate, ultimately handing the championship to a Canadian skater.
The Xia group is still known for its women's singles, and there are not many men's singles players to train. Otherwise, Xia Yuezi could also give it a try, which would relieve the pressure on the men's singles in the adult group.
Before the men's singles short program, Xia Yuezi repeatedly told Feng Simai not to believe Hele's smokescreen and that stability was the most important thing. Then she pushed him onto the ice.
The Chinese players generally had bad luck with the draw. Feng Simai drew the first player in the last group, and Lin Ye drew the first player in the second-to-last group.
As soon as the two drew their lottery balls, Xia Yuezi and Song Qiao's expressions looked about the same as their luck.
Meng Xin looked up at the ice rink ranking screen. Lin Ye was currently ranked first. He learned his lesson from the final and, after discussing with the coaching team, put 4LZ in the short program. His total score reached 92.65, which widened the gap with the second place to more than 6 points.
She whispered to Song Qiao, who was standing next to her, "You really only let him practice difficult moves, without considering honing his footwork?"
Even in the men's singles competition, the second-level step sequence is considered a disaster, and only this player from their country performed normally.
Looking at that score of just over 38 for program content, to say something Song Qiao might not like to hear, Feng Simai got this score in his first year as an adult, and they've been competing for three years now, while Lin Ye is only at the starting line.
Lin Ye is the first player in the world to complete 4LZ. If his timer hadn't been so bad, his treatment wouldn't be so poor now.
When this topic was brought up, Song Qiao burst into tears: "I practiced! Of course I practiced!"
They only have one decent adult men's singles player in Heilongjiang Province, so they are well aware of his shortcomings and invest countless resources in him every year.
Back in China, despite the disapproving looks from the ice dance coaches, they forced him into the ice dance team, where he did graphic training with them. They even contacted a Japanese coaching group for him, and he did countless short-term training trips abroad. But just like a girl curling her hair, it only looks good at first, and after a while, it goes back to its original shape.
Looking at the comments from fans on the official website every day, all of Lin Ye's coaches were so worried that their hair turned white.
Listening to Song Qiao's complaints, Meng Xin patted his shoulder with deep sympathy and offered a suggestion: "I heard from Simai's mother that he has been taking tango classes. You know that dance style is very suitable for training emotions and body movements. I happened to pick him up before and know the address. I heard there is also a branch in Harbin. Why don't I make a connection for you and you go to Beijing to ask?"
Before Feng Simai's short program music started, Song Qiao got the address of the tango studio and planned to try it out with a sliver of hope after returning to China.
Seeing Feng Simai gradually slide across the entire court from the edge of the barrier, her footwork becoming very clear, Song Qiao suddenly thought of something and slowly walked to Xia Yuezi's side.
"Did you know that the USA Ice Hockey Association is discussing training opportunities with our country?"
Xia Yuezi felt a little relieved when she saw Feng Simai fall to 4T+3T. She thought about it carefully and said, "It seems that there was such a thing. Coach Li told me about an exchange program, but the Skating Association didn't agree."
The US Ice Hockey Association made the request after Lin Ye posted 4lz. They sent several coaches to learn jumping techniques, and China also sent the same number of coaches to the United States to learn. The specific number can be discussed later.
Upon hearing this, Xia Yuezi rolled her eyes without hesitation. What was there to learn from them? To learn how to steal Zhou Cuo's blade, or for the entire team to legally use drugs? Even if it was to learn gliding and spinning, there were other countries with better techniques to choose from.
While Chinese figure skating is not developing well, it shouldn't have fallen to the point of resorting to desperate measures.
Besides, they're not stupid. The US singles skating scene is declining, American judges aren't favoring the athletes from their home country, and there aren't many promising talents in the junior divisions. It's no wonder the USA Skating Association is worried.
However, what Xia Yuezi could think of, the old foxes in the Chinese Skating Association could also think of. It's just that the United States still holds some say in the International Skating Union, and it would be too disrespectful to refuse directly, so they drag it out and make excuses until the end of this season before politely declining.
As the show progressed into its second half, Feng Simai once again drew the audience into the cemetery-centered stage. His physical performance was already very mature, and even seasoned ice skating fans who had seen it many times couldn't help but immerse themselves in it again.
This program also earned Feng Simai a score of 90.17, setting a new career high.
The last group's competition had just begun, and there were already two players with 90 points on the leaderboard. The atmosphere backstage was extremely tense. If it were a younger player, they would have been terrified.
Fortunately, the contestants waiting to go on stage were all experienced competitors. Even Andrei, whose performance was extremely inconsistent, did not cause any major problems in the short program.
As soon as the World Championships ended, Chinese figure skating fans eagerly waited in front of the forum for the final results. Before long, the overall rankings and individual scores of each athlete were posted on the thread.
To everyone's surprise, both of China's men's singles players made it into the last group. Lin Ye, who was the least reliable player, even managed to win a small medal. This seems to be one of the few times he has beaten Feng Simai in a match.
Many fans who are generally infatuated with the contestants felt like they hadn't woken up yet, bubbling up with happiness on the forum, while the individual fans of the contestants were already arguing fiercely.
The top domestic player has yet to be determined. In terms of difficulty, Lin Ye is far ahead of Feng Simai. However, in terms of results, Feng Simai has indeed achieved better rankings in major competitions thanks to his stability and sliding watch.
After the Sochi Winter Olympics, the side effect of the increasing popularity of figure skating was the early formation of fandoms. Fans from both sides argued countless times over this, and the other side posted a lot of negative posts, but it did not affect the friendship between the two athletes at all.
Xia Yuezi stood in the corner of the room where the press conference was being held, watching the two people shoulder to shoulder, chatting and laughing around the small bronze plaque.
After Lin Ye left, she asked Feng Simai if she really felt no resentment at all.
The young man, who had just entered university, gave a clear smile and replied in a good mood.
“I really want to win a medal, but I also know very well that being compatible with both 4T and 4S is pretty much my limit. So as long as I don’t embarrass my country, and as long as the Chinese flag is flying on the podium, I can accept whoever is standing on it.”
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