“
I've trained for it alone for a long time and failed and fallen many times. If I'm focused on how to win the game, I have a lot of other options, but completing 4A is the strongest motivation in my heart, so I want to successfully complete this action.
—— Japanese figure skater Yusuke Habu
”
On February 10, at the Beijing Capital Gymnasium, when Yu Sheng stepped onto the men's single free skating field of the Beijing Winter Olympics, it seemed that the whole world was holding its breath, waiting for the arrival of the first difficult action of his free skating, waiting for the Axel who had been mentioned countless times but had never been conquered in the official competition. However, this time, the challenge of Yu Yu's knot still ended in a fall, and the expected perfect jump could not be staged. At that moment, there may be countless sighs that will ring out in all corners of the world, but it contains not only regret and heartache, but also more respect.
Defending champion Yusei Yushin, who finished fourth and missed the podium at the Beijing Winter Olympics, was won by American Chen Wei, and his two Japanese teammates Yujin Jianshan and Masami Uno won silver and bronze medals respectively. Although the whole world felt sorry for Habu Knot, he acted quietly and calmly after the game, "This 4A is probably the closest I've ever come to success so far, and I feel that the best 4A I can do now is the best 4A of Habu Knot, which is what it looks like." Of course, I also feel that the second fall is a heavy loss, but at the same time I also have a feeling that that fall is also part of the story of "With Heaven and Earth", and I slipped while thinking about it. I've played my best, without any reservations, and from the start the horsepower is fully unleashed, and the 4A has also tightened its body tightly. In order to successfully jump out of 4A, I challenged myself. This is an Olympic Games that I have done my best to challenge and exert all my energy. ”
The "4A" that can't go through
In fact, for Yusheng Yuxin, how to win the winter Olympic figure skating men's singles gold medal is not an unfamiliar subject, from Sochi in 2014 to Pyeongchang in 2018, he has had two successful experiences. But this time in Beijing, after another four years of twists and turns, the legend of the figure skating world chose to join Axel's four-way jump, a challenge that seems to exceed the limits of today's human body.
The most attractive and difficult action in figure skating is jumping, and the players have six jumping methods in the competition: rear outer point ice, rear inner point ice, hook hand, rear outer knot ring, rear inner knot ring, and Axel jump. Of all the jumps, axel jumped the hardest– the only one that jumped forward and fell backwards on the ice.
As we all know, the four-sided jump is the technical threshold for the figure skating men's singles event to participate in the Winter Olympics, and the athletes have to complete the 1440-degree rotation at a height of about 0.8 meters and a lag time of 0.7 seconds. As for Axel's four-and-a-half jump, due to the different directions of taking off and falling ice, Axel's aerial rotation body is actually half a week longer than other jumps of the same number of weeks, that is, 4A actually rotates around 1620 degrees in the air, and compared with 3A, the highest point is 17 cm higher and the freezing point is 1.1 meters farther. This move is widely recognized as an epic difficult move in figure skating that can challenge human limits, and no player has been able to complete it in an official competition so far. In the words of Yu Yusuke, this action is like a long jumper jumping 6 meters while turning four and a half laps in the process.
In fact, after the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics achieved the defense of the men's singles event, Yu Sheng yuxin admitted that conquering Axel's four-week jump was the only driving force for him to continue his career, axel's three-week jump success rate has exceeded 90%, and he is also considered to be the most likely player to complete this action at the moment, even Chen Wei, the men's singles champion of the Beijing Winter Olympics, has also said that 4A is not within his ability.
According to media reports, between January and April 2021 alone, the number of times Yusheng Knot Challenge 4A was more than 1,000 times, but it was never successful. But at last December's Japan Figure Skating Championships, Yusuke Yusuke challenged the 4A three times in pre-match public practice, including one one-footed icefall, making people look forward to his trip to Beijing even more.
It is worth mentioning that in the scoring system of figure skating, due to the incompleteness of the current stage of 4A, the International Skating Federation did not give a suitable score for this action, and its base score of 12.5 was only one point higher than the second difficult hooker jumping around, which means that 4A is an extremely cost-effective action. But even so, Yu Yusuke still has no remorse, in the short program mistakes, only ranked eighth, with his 4A on the free skating field, although he eventually failed, but this failed action still gets 5 points is also a recognition.
Walking off the altar, you are still the winner
So, why is Yusheng so stubbornly tied his life to the 4A? In fact, for Yu Yu, who regards figure skating as his life's mission, completing this almost impossible challenge has become a new motivation for him to continue to struggle, even if it means that he has to fall on the ice again and again, it means that he needs to focus on this action in training and choreography, it means that he is no longer the absolute king who almost never lost, it means that he needs to pay a huge price for the olympic title defense...
When I do the 4A movement, I feel good. I felt strongly, 'Ah, that's the speed of the four and a half revolutions.' From this level to the ice, it may be a little too dangerous, and humans may not really be able to do it. But in a sense, I think my 4A should be considered complete. Maybe people don't know that my right foot is injured, and to be honest, I really don't want to say this, and I have been thinking about it if I can win the gold medal. I don't know how to say it, in short, I have used a lot of means to deal with it, and I can barely stand. In this case, I walked to the ice rink, and the strongest idea was to jump out of the 4A and spare no effort to exert all my energy. In this Olympic Games, I have challenged my limits and invested all my glory. However, I am not happy at all about this Winter Olympics, because I have a lot of burdens on my back and I feel like I am about to explode.
After exhausting everything, success or failure are no regrets, when the Feather String who completed the game greeted the audience again and again, and said goodbye to the ice surface over and over again, there was no loss in his expression, only relief. Although in the history of figure skating competitions at the Winter Olympics, Yu Yusuke represented the first attempt by mankind to complete the 4A without success, he also won warm applause.
After the competition, I have a lot of ideas in my head, from the content of the show performance, from the perspective of the victory or defeat of the game, my performance today is not good, but from the performance content, perhaps it is precisely because of those two mistakes of jumping, it is precisely because of the 4A, so I interpreted the story of my "With Heaven and Earth". I felt that I did not perform it to the end, but slipped it with all my heart, and I fully interpreted all the moods and the whole story. When I walked off the ice rink, I put the ice on my face. At that time, my heart was full of gratitude. It's true, although I am very unwilling, I always feel that I have given a lot, and I have made the right efforts, and I have done everything I can think of, but in the end I have not been rewarded. But in the end, my heart is still full of gratitude, and God has made me jump to the present, which is really grateful.
"A lifetime of suspense", Yusei Yushin once used this Japanese phrase that means to fight all your life and do one thing with all your strength to describe his attitude towards figure skating. Although in the end it failed to leave a jump that will last forever in the annals of history, the spirit of Yu Yu's self-challenge is still respectable, and the true meaning of the Olympic spirit lies in every breakthrough of the self.
At the end of the show, I raised my hand to the sky for a full 6 seconds, in fact, this gesture symbolizes the 'heaven' in "With Heaven and Earth", and in my heart, it also has the feeling of sending my soul to the sky. The action is the same as the ending pose of Love from Russia, which I slid through when I was 9 years old, when I had a feeling of reuniting myself with my childhood self, a feeling that is difficult to describe in a sentence or two, in short, feeling surrounded by a lot of emotions. But in a sense, from the end of that pose to putting away the ice blades and leaving the ice rink, these are all part of the story I've played. This show integrates a lot of my feelings, I not only did my own regretless things, but also tried to do the best, the heart is still very grateful, or very grateful to be able to slide into this.
From Sochi to Pyeongchang to today's Beijing, Yusheng has participated in three consecutive Winter Olympics, and each Winter Olympics has brought him completely different psychological feelings.
At the Sochi Winter Olympics, I fought for victory with a reluctant mood, in a sense, that was where I grew up. During the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, I unleashed all this growth. What is this session like? Maybe it will take me a while to see the meaning, but now I just feel that for me, this is a challenging and proud Olympic Games.
As a special correspondent for Japan's NTV Television, Turin Winter Olympics women's singles champion Shizuka Arakawa completed a live interview with Yu yushin after the game, and when summarizing the Olympic curtain of Yusei, Arakawa Shizuka said so affectionately, "In order to complete the 4A and willingly bet on the Olympic triple olympic championship, I think there will probably be no more in the future; people who want to challenge the 4A on the Olympic stage, I think if the times change, there may not be anymore." At this moment, I deeply feel that Yu Yusei has shown you the demeanor of a world-class athlete. ”
In Beijing in 2022, there is no story of the champion Yusheng knotting, but the legend of the challenger Yusheng knotting string will always be remembered. For Yusheng, the Beijing Winter Olympics may be his last Olympic journey, but for his figure skating life, this should not be a stop. As a frail and sick child as a child, Yu yushin went to the skating rink in order to exercise, and in the following twenty years, figure skating gave him almost everything, so now, the more mature Yusheng yushin has taken the promotion of the development of figure skating as his lifelong mission...