Blah-blah-blah #010

Yuzuru Hanyu: My amateur (but not completely uninformed) analysis on his chances of dominating at PC 2018

I’ve been wondering for a while, if it comes down to just one thing, would Hanyu rather win the next OGM or would he rather try to skate his ideal skates (which I will sum as one performance). 

See, from what I can tell of his astonishing evolution, and I’m pretty sure is not just in my head, his ideal performance = OGM, but OGM ≠ his ideal performance. This basically means he has more than enough under his belt to win it,  even without the intricately woven fabric of exceptional and unparalleled beauty that he undoubtedly has in his head, no matter what anybody else in the field does (more on this later). In fact, he has more than one way he could choose to do it. 

Here’s the first:

With what he’s been putting out so far this season, I’m fairly confident he now has the capacity to pull something of Ballade No. 1 & SEIMEI’s difficulty+quality off back to back now at least 7-8 out of 10 times. And barring injuries bad enough to tear down his mental defenses, he should be able to pull it off again at the Games with room to spare, and get the kind of points he got back in NHK & GPF 2015. If politics don’t rear its ugly head, his chances of success is, with this strategy, I gather, above 80%, maybe even above 90. He has that cushion now. If only he’d use it. But since those are apparently far from the “ideal performance” of who he is now, and it’d also mean regressing, which would be, in his books, losing against himself, I highly doubt he’d be employing this strategy. There’s also the very real possibility that with this strategy, he’d also be leaving enough room for politicking to happen, cos there are others in the field now who both are good enough *and* come from strong federations to allow it leeway. And let’s not forget the fact that if he does indeed win with this,  it’d just be another “kuyashii shori” for him, even if it’s one that’s quite different from before. I’m guessing he doesn’t want to live through it again in any form, even if he did utterly deserve his win back in 2014–the world was gifted one of its truest champions that day, only we were all too naive to see it.  

His second option would be to more or less to match the BV of those who are chasing him now, but tone down on the bells and whistles. He’s of a caliber that even if he does do it, his total package would still be head and shoulders above everyone else’s. I mean it’d be a lot less beautiful than what’s inside his head but it’d still be pretty godly for the rest of us mere mortals. I don’t think he’s physically capable of pulling off empty or clumsy-looking skates just to make way for his tech because it probably doesn’t even need that much room to soar at this point. His bare minimum standard, higher than the maximum of others’, is probably something he couldn’t fudge on a decent day even if he tried, with the way he is now. Chances of this strategy being a success is, I’d wager, above 70%.  It’s not exactly regressing so I don’t think he’d recoil from this strategy as much as the first BUT, at the end of the day, he’d still be compromising his ideals for the sake of the OGM and, well, whether or not he uses this strategy depends on how badly he wants to secure it. Like, does he want it badly enough that he ultimately wants it more than his perfect performance? Granted, he can always try again later at a different comp but it won’t change the fact that he only had one chance to try to pull it off at the Games but ultimately chose not to take it. Whatever decision he makes, I’m sure no one would judge him for it, so it’s only a matter of whether or not he himself can live with it.

His third is his ultimate double-edged sword of a weapon. It’s the strategy that could potentially lead to the conclusion he’s been dreaming off for most of his life, if it doesn’t blow up in his face. Throw caution to the wind and go for his ideal performance at that point in time (which could mean less BV than some of the others but higher GOEs and PCS). As is always the case with double-edged swords, it’s a gamble. And this is one he’s no stranger to as he’s made it before and albeit the OGM still going to him (I stand by my opinion that that one was meant to be his and his alone), he still left Sochi with his ideal skate just a dream in his head. His ideal skate /now/ is a very different beast than the one he had in mind during Sochi and, let’s face it, he’ll probably be able to pull it off at some point but timing it just right to knock it out of the ball park (re: ice rink) at the Games is, well, the chances are maybe a bit better than a mere shot in the dark but it’s not going to be off the charts. It won’t exactly be a miraculous feat if he were able to do it, because feats of excellence aren’t miracles for people as talented and hardworking as he is, but it would take more than just talent and hard work. He’d also need a lot luck for lightning to strike at the exact right time and at the exact right place–basically his mind and body have to be above 90% aligned right when and where it’d count the absolute most*. And that’s the hardest thing for him to achieve. It’s what he admires Plushenko the most for, and why the guy is known as the Emperor to this day, even if his programs may not be the loveliest out there. The guy’s mental control *is* top notch.

*His mind needs to be at least 90% aligned for all strategies to work perfectly but I think the baseline in order for him to get there for the third strategy is higher than the other two for him now.

If he goes for the third option, then his chances for the OGM are not going to be as high as the other strategies. If he does manage it, he’d win it in the most decisive manner possible, with absolutely no room for pesky political maneuvering to work its black magic (*fingers tightly crossed*), and make all kinds of history and the world will be a perfect, perfect place for many of us for at least that moment BUT if he messes up–especially in the SP as there’s no way to recoup mid-skate if things don’t pan out the way they were planned to–he’d be leaving points on the table he can’t really afford to leave, due to the considerable strength of his competition in terms of tech and consistency, and that second OGM may very well slip from his grasp. (Or it doesn’t but that’d mean others made mistakes as well and his win would have been helped along by others and, well, it would once again be more or less like what happened at Sochi and wouldn’t that be fun to live through again?) The other two strategies would see less chances of him making mistakes as compared to this one. So I’d say his chances of winning with this strategy currently stand below 50%, though it may climb a bit higher depending on how he performs from now until the end of the next GP.

Ultimately though, I think it’ll likely be the third choice he’ll go for, because its yield if successful is what he’s been working so hard towards all these years. So, as long as it’s within the realm of possibility (i.e.: if he isn’t held back physically or mentally), he’d bank on his chances. His skates may not be the most consistent due in part to his injuries and due mostly to his desire to evolve, but his character sure is. If he didn’t waver from his path in Sochi back in 2014, and hasn’t shown signs of it before or after, you can probably safely bet that he’s never going to, come hell or high water. The only difference is he’d have grown, and would be making his chances as high as he can get them (unlike in Sochi, when his chances of pulling off that 4S were actually very low). 

As for the skaters who have an actual shot in beating him, both the ones younger and older than him, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not undermining their abilities at all. They are good enough that if they don’t make mistakes, Hanyu won’t be able to beat them unless he a) compromises his ideals or, b) brings his absolute best to the table with near absolute certainty (if he insists on sticking to his ideals). But do note–and I’m not exaggerating, far from it–that, if the sanctity of the Games is properly upheld, the latter will undoubtedly see him winning by a very, very wide margin even if everyone else skated their hearts out on the Olympic ice. And what better way to lose than to one of the most, if not THE most, legendary skates of all time–if it happens? If I were them, I’d see it as a personal victory to have at least been able to have competed against that, and be very proud that I, in some small way, helped make it happen.

For him, for everyone else on the field those two days, for all the passionate fans and for the sport itself, I really, really hope it’ll happen. Because he is the only one capable of making it a reality, and because he was the one who created that glorious dreamscape and made us all see it in the first place.