Hanyu loses gold but continues pursuit of the impossible trick

After a string of falls, Japanese figure skating icon Yuzuru Hanyu still went his own way at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

He tried a quadruple axel, or "4A," a jump no skater has ever landed in competition, in the men's singles free skate program at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing on Thursday. Again, he fell to the ice, only finishing the event in fourth place.

Long-time rival Nathan Chen of the United States took the much-coveted gold in the event, finally claiming the only major prize that had eluded him with his overall score of 332.60 points. This was 20-plus points ahead of his nearest challenger 18-year-old Yuma Kagiyama. Another Japanese skater, Shoma Uno, took bronze.

AFP

AFP

As the music died down, Hanyu skated off the rink with his head held high, with a sense of relief and regret written on his face, earning a thunder of applause rather than boos and jeers. Somewhat ingenuous, his persistence, or "stubbornness," reflects the sparkle of human nature and touches millions of hearts.

"It's the closest I have come to completing the '4A.' I'm not resigned to it. I tried my best but still didn't make it," he said afterwards, holding back tears.

"Can human beings really make it? Maybe I'm the only one who experienced it," he muttered to himself, seeming kind of empty and lost. But shortly later, he looked up and continued: "Please give me more time. I don't want to end up like this. Let me continue to be silly."

Finally, he's becoming the Yuzuru Hanyu in his mind, as he imagined, the one who skates for himself instead of winning events.

Xinhua

The 27-year-old is a two-time Olympic champion and two-time world champion, considered successful enough. But within him, there's a "utopian" pursuit – being the first man to complete the "4A."

"I bet my life on figure skating. I think I was born for figure skating, and I'm laden with responsibility," he told CBC, with overtones that he's destined to challenge the "4A."

In fact, the "4A" is a high-risk-low-reward jump.

Of all the six types of figure skating jumps, the "4A" is the only one in which skaters take off facing forward. It means they have to rotate an additional half-revolution for a jump. For all of its difficulty, its base value of 12.50 is the highest of the six jumps, but just one point more than the quadruple Lutz. Many don't think it's worthwhile, Hanyu, however, finds it is his motivation.

He admitted to media that he felt "burnt out" after winning his second gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. It is his childhood dream of landing the "4A" that has kept him pushing ahead.

"I can finally skate for myself," he said. "I can live so vividly because of the '4A.' It's my last dream as a figure skater. I want to satisfy myself. Then I can throw back my shoulders and say: 'It's the best Yuzuru Hanyu. It's the ideal Yuzuru Hanyu.'"

Xinhua

Over the past four years, he's been trying his best to nail it, but every time it just ends with a heavy fall to the ice. Once, he even tried six jumps in 13 minutes.

"My body is dead. My knees are terrible," the Japanese star smilingly told his choreographer backstage of a show last year in Yokohama. Then he rolled up his pants to reveal bruises all over his legs.

"I just jump in pursuit of completing the '4A.' I don't know when, or if, I will make it. Sometimes, I just think maybe I will fall with cerebral concussion or just fall to my death," he told local media.

But that hasn't held Hanyu back. "To some extent, it's a kind of a barrier built by human beings. I want to leap over it," he stated.

AFP