Heartbroken Chinese fans of Yuzuru Hanyu praise 'brave' performance

Yesterday was probably the hardest day for fans of Japanese figure skating superstar Yuzuru Hanyu. At least it was for Emic Chen.

The two-time gold Olympic champion failed to defend his title, but he managed his best to challenge the quadruple axel, or 4A, a jump no skater has ever landed in competition.

The scene broke Chen's heart. She was a relatively new fan, starting to pay attention to Hanyu just six months ago, but her passion, in her own words, is "fiery."

"It's hard to describe how I feel now," said the 24-year-old postgraduate student.

"I worry about the injury to his feet, and was heartbroken to see him apologize in the interview after the event, but also proud that he was brave enough to challenge himself at an Olympics."

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It's no secret that despite his nationality, Hanyu enjoys extreme popularity in China. He has topped the "most searched" topics on Weibo several times since the Games kicked off. On Bilibili, one of China's most popular video-sharing sites, clips of his events often attract millions of clicks and tens of thousands of comments.

The official Twitter account of Beijing 2022 posted a picture yesterday that showed stacks of packages of postcards and fan letters for Hanyu collected by the Games' organizing committee.

There were so many that they almost blocked an aisle in an office. The tweet gained more than 22,000 likes and thousands of quotes and retweets, many of which were contributed by Chinese fans.

"We hope you can feel the love from your fans around the world," was the comment on the hashtag YuzuruHanyu.

The stacks included one sent by a fan with the screen name "Lunanana" from China.

"When will you give the postcards to him?" she commented under the tweet. "We really want him to see our love for him."

But she was also worried that the best wishes from fans would make Hanyu feel even worse.

"The postcards and letters were sent before the event," she tweeted. "Many of us wrote to wish him a big success on 4A as well as the event. Now I worry that he might think he disappointed us. We want him to know that we stand by him forever."

The Hanyu fever in China can be sourced back to 2015 after he free skated to the music "Seimei" in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating.

Two years later, he was captured on camera helping Chinese skater Jin Boyang arrange his Chinese national flag. The action was recognized by Chinese fans as an act of "true sportsmanship that transcends boundaries."

Jin, who finished ninth in the men's singles figure skating at Beijing 2022, is also a friend of Hanyu.

"I have been looking up to him since I was a teenager," said Jin in a previous interview. "He is an all-rounder who I have much to learn from."