G.O.E +3 @aliyaskates - Tumblr Blog

I haven't checked my tumblr in ages, what did I miss? Did you all miss me? No? Okay :')

Back at my favourite meme-making game 😚

#patrick chan #figure skating #meme #ice wine everywhere

Happy 2016 everyone! ♡

Team Japan backstage at 2015 Japanese Nationals (x)

Skaters are rivals, but we also get along really well. … When I’m not doing well, they’re there to encourage you before anything else. Even without saying anything, they’re there encouraging, supporting. (x)

Looking back on 2015

1: What did you do in 2015 that you’d never done before?

2: Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

3: Did anyone close to you give birth?

4: Did anyone close to you die?

5: What countries did you visit?

6: What would you like to have in 2016 that you lacked in 2015

7: What dates from 2015 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

8: What was your biggest achievement of the year?

9: What was your biggest failure?

10: Did you suffer illness or injury?

11: What was the best thing you bought?

12: Whose behaviour merited celebration?

13: Whose behaviour made you appalled?

14: Where did most of your money go?

15: What did you get really, really, really excited about?

16: What song will always remind you of 2015?

17: Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?

18: What do you wish you’d done more of?

19: What do you wish you’d done less of?

20: How did you spend Christmas?

21: Did you fall in love in 2015?

22: What was your favourite TV program?

23: Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

24: What was the best book you read?

25: What was your greatest musical discovery?

26: What did you want and get?

27: What did you want and not get?

28: What was your favourite film of this year?

29: What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

30: How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2015?

31: What kept you sane?

32: Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

33: What political issue stirred you the most?

34: Who did you miss?

35: Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2015.

36: Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

#bored in a hospital #ask #ask ask ask

tatsuki-machida

I have so many weaknesses that it’s hard to name my strong points. Once I retire, everyone will forget about me. But if I had to choose a strong point, it would be my love for skating.

Tatsuki Machida

mselmag

Yuzuru Hanyu // Sportiva Hanyu Yuzuru Aratanaru Hisho Nihon Figure Skate 2015-2016 Season Preview (х)

aliyaskates

Any increase to spots for the big countries will only ever come at the expense of the smaller-country skaters who are already struggling against an unfair system that is biased towards said big countries. You will kick the little countries out of Worlds over my cold dead body.

Not necessarily? It would only increase meritocracy. If you are a good skater from a small country you would still go. What’s the point of giving two spots to Kazakhstan when they don’t even have a second men to send, when there are skaters in Japan that could finish in the top 10 but can’t even go? And this is just an example. The problem is even bigger when it comes to Euros, where we more or less already know who will podium in the end because the gap between the top 3-4 and the rest of the skaters (in basically all the disciplines) is too big. Of course anything can happen, but if we opened the competition to more skaters (if they deserve it, of course) we might at least see some real competition for those medals. This is just my point though. Also, since you seem to really like to comment on my posts, why don’t you switch off of anon, he? ;)

namlulu

The thibg is, when you’re from a small Country you don’t get to be in big competitions. Take Italy, where I live. Nationals are like nothing. No broadcast, no audience and not even competition for the international athletes, like Anna and Luca. If you consider nationals in Russia, USA or Japan it’s more of a big deal and people lerform at their best to try and beat the others from the same country. So of course most of their scores would be better than theo ones of small countries’ best skaters. I think all nations should have a chance at worlds because they improve athletes, teams and influence future generations of the small Countries

aliyaskates

I’m from Italy too (😁) and I get the point very well. What I was saying in my first post wasn’t that we should take spots away from smaller countries and give them to skaters from bigger countries. Smaller countries have every right to go to international competitions, including Euros, 4CC and Worlds. My point was (and is) that if a skater doesn’t make the world team because his/her country doesn’t have enough spots, but still proves to deserve to compete, there should be a way for him/her/them to qualify for these events. Also, in some ways athletes from smaller countries have an easier life compared to skaters from bigger countries. Since they have less rivals in their home country, they can still go to international events even if they didn’t do perfect in their national championships. For example, Carolina Kostner (or even Valentina Marchei) wasn’t always in top form, but still made it to international competitions every year, because there weren’t other italian ladies that could do better. Instead, skaters from bigger countries can’t take a day off of perfection because there are tons of other athletes that are ready to take their place (and here I’m using poor Daisuke as an example again, because he’s out of the world team, while if he was from a country like ours he would probably never even leave it). I think it’s pretty frustrating and unfair for a skater to be in such situation. This is the main reason why I’m saying there should be a way for them to qualify (but again: they have to deserve it).

namlulu

That’s absolutely right. In my reasoning, I started from the assumption that they aren’t gonna put extra spots at worlds and increas the number of athletes competing. Unless they do that I don’t see a way of changing things up.

But I agree with you about the athletes’ frustration and lives in different Countries.

aliyaskates

Yes of course my whole idea started from the possibility to increase the number of athletes competing in each event. There would be no point in having a world championship where Russia, Japan, Canada, China and the US just compete against each other haha! Anyway, it’s all really just my opinion, I don’t think the ISU is planning to change the qualification system any time soon.

triple-axel-blog

If they increased total number of athletes, that would be great, but then other countries would also complain that “oh such-and-such country got this many spots, but so-and-so shouldn’t even be at Worlds because they didn’t do well at Nationals for their country…” It’s actually why quite a few skaters switch affiliations. Take Chris Caluza for example. He used to skate for the US, but he has dual citizenship with the Philippines. He skated for the Philippines because it was easier to get to Worlds and the Olympics (which politics of skating screwed up for him anyway. I’ve spoken to him about this). While I do think increasing the total number of skaters is awesome, I don’t want to see the politics of skating (i.e. whining about skater count per country) involved where the number of slots for the next world championships comes in. Also, do we want Worlds to go on for like…a million years? XD

aliyaskates

That is a good point indeed (although in all honesty, considering how depressed I get when worlds are over, I wouldn’t mind them to go on for a million years ahahah). Let’s imagine this very surreal scenario though: Yuzuru Hanyu wins the GPF, breaks all the world records, but then messes up at Nationals, finishes 6th and doesn’t go to Worlds. Would that be fair? I don’t know, I personally don’t think so. Of course using Yuzuru as an example isn’t fair either (lol) but you never know, right :’) This might also be a problem for smaller countries too: if they only have one spot, but that particular year two skaters do really well, one will have to sit out just because someone the year before didn’t do good enough to get more spots. It kind of kills the competition, in my opinion. Of course I’m not saying that we should let all the skaters that get the minimum tech go to worlds cause that would kill the competition too lol. And anyway, as a skating fan (and as unfair to the skaters as this will sound), if I have to watch a short program where a ton of men score in the 60s, I would also like to see 4 or 5 men score in the 80s-90s-100s, even if they’re all from the same country :’D

triple-axel-blog

So what would be the option here? If not all the skaters that get the minimum tech score go to Worlds, what’s the other option? It’s up to each country who they send. I know Japan (for the Olympics at least, this has been mentioned by multiple commentators) uses the GPF as a selection as well. Daisuke Murakami (I think he was mentioned somewhere in the original post? either way…example here…) didn’t do that well at GPF, either. Even if he was 3rd at both of his GP events, he was 6th at GPF and didn’t do well at Nationals. Just because he medalled at other events doesn’t mean he should go to Worlds. Countries have to earn their spots. What’s the point of giving another country another spot if the skaters they have won’t even finish in the top 10? It seems a little political to be adding spots where they aren’t earned. Even if you want to see all your favorites go to Worlds, the skaters know what they have to do to get there. They also know that one bad skate can change everything, and they try harder next time. It’s just how skating works.

Let’s say Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold are at the top of their game and winning everything. US Nats comes along and they both bomb. You bet your ass that USFSA will still send both of them to Worlds because that’s politics. But wait! Mirai Nagasu won Nationals and deserves to go to Worlds! But the US doesn’t have another slot. Too bad. Politics. The problem doesn’t lie within the ISU system. It lies within each country’s system. Last season, after Worlds, I saw the requirements for Japan’s World team selection. I think (and I’m going on memory here…) the requirements were something like participating in the GP events and also 1st and 2nd at Nationals. Whether it’s fair or not, why send someone who isn’t guaranteed to earn another slot?

It’s a matter of personal opinion though, and I think some of this doesn’t make sense. XD I have a cold. I’m a bit fuzzy right now.

aliyaskates

Your Wagner/Gold/Nagasu example is exactly my whole point. If we pretend Team USA only has two spots for Worlds and Mirai doesn't get to go even after winning nationals, for me that's unfair. At the same time though, if Wagner had to sit out after an amazing GP only because she bombed at Nationals, that would be unfair as well. And these should be the cases where there should be a way for the skaters to earn their spot for Worlds independently of what country they're from. How this should work though, I still don't know exactly (and it was one of the reasons why I started the whole discussion). World ranking? (But considering it's based on the results of the past three years, that wouldn't be the fairest system) Season's best? (Again, I don't feel like it would be fair cause one could have an awesome score once and then bomb every competition of the season). Using just the minimum tech score would open the competition to literally everyone, which is nit what I'm aiming for. I'm still trying to come up with some sort of idea on this (LOL as if I was the ISU anyway XD). This is all just my opinion though, of course, and I do understand your point and agree with you on many aspects. I'm sorry I can't write a proper answer to everything right now (sitting in a hospital waiting room and running on 4 hours of sleep, I would probably make no sense XD) but it's always interesting hearing different points of view ;)

yuzusorbet

Hiroyasu Shimizu is a Japanese speed skater who won an Olympic gold medal at 1998 Nagano Olympics. He is well-known to be only 1.62m and he has asthma. He wrote about Yuzu in a short article for Asahi. My translation:

I have written about this before. It’s about meeting figure skater, Yuzuru Hanyu. Nagano Olympics had ended and some time had passed. I went to Sendai for an event and a boy came to me to request for my autograph. Not on coloured paper but on a knapsack. After I signed, I noticed Plushenko’s signature was there as well. “I’ve got the signatures of my 2 heroes!” an innocent voice said happily. That was Yuzuru Hanyu.

At that time, his mother was with him and she said to me, “This boy has asthma. Shimizu-san also has asthma, right? But even then, you achieved a gold medal. Is it alright for this boy to continue with figure skating?“

I replied, “It’s alright. For the part where the lungs are weak, he must continue with the hard training . When he can surmount that, the hard work that he did more than other people will enable him to compete against the world. ” After that, the next time I met Hanyu-kun was after he had won the gold medal at Sochi Olympics. I said to him, “You’re amazing! That’s why I said it’s alright, isn’t it?” Hanyu-kun was very surprised and said, “Eh??? You remembered about me???” He was so humble. ——————-

I was moved when I read the article…. a boy’s cuteness, a mother’s worry, and hard work that is way more than what a normal athlete has to put in.

Pic credit: ameblo.jp/hiroyasu-shimizu Original article: asahi.com (Thanks to sukisukiyuzu for the article and links)

tinyqueensatoko

Yuzuru Hanyu and Satoko Miyahara National Championships winners interview || Medalists on Ice 2015 (s)

aliyaskates

Any increase to spots for the big countries will only ever come at the expense of the smaller-country skaters who are already struggling against an unfair system that is biased towards said big countries. You will kick the little countries out of Worlds over my cold dead body.

Not necessarily? It would only increase meritocracy. If you are a good skater from a small country you would still go. What’s the point of giving two spots to Kazakhstan when they don’t even have a second men to send, when there are skaters in Japan that could finish in the top 10 but can’t even go? And this is just an example. The problem is even bigger when it comes to Euros, where we more or less already know who will podium in the end because the gap between the top 3-4 and the rest of the skaters (in basically all the disciplines) is too big. Of course anything can happen, but if we opened the competition to more skaters (if they deserve it, of course) we might at least see some real competition for those medals. This is just my point though. Also, since you seem to really like to comment on my posts, why don’t you switch off of anon, he? ;)

namlulu

The thibg is, when you’re from a small Country you don’t get to be in big competitions. Take Italy, where I live. Nationals are like nothing. No broadcast, no audience and not even competition for the international athletes, like Anna and Luca. If you consider nationals in Russia, USA or Japan it’s more of a big deal and people lerform at their best to try and beat the others from the same country. So of course most of their scores would be better than theo ones of small countries’ best skaters. I think all nations should have a chance at worlds because they improve athletes, teams and influence future generations of the small Countries

aliyaskates

I’m from Italy too (😁) and I get the point very well. What I was saying in my first post wasn’t that we should take spots away from smaller countries and give them to skaters from bigger countries. Smaller countries have every right to go to international competitions, including Euros, 4CC and Worlds. My point was (and is) that if a skater doesn’t make the world team because his/her country doesn’t have enough spots, but still proves to deserve to compete, there should be a way for him/her/them to qualify for these events. Also, in some ways athletes from smaller countries have an easier life compared to skaters from bigger countries. Since they have less rivals in their home country, they can still go to international events even if they didn’t do perfect in their national championships. For example, Carolina Kostner (or even Valentina Marchei) wasn’t always in top form, but still made it to international competitions every year, because there weren’t other italian ladies that could do better. Instead, skaters from bigger countries can’t take a day off of perfection because there are tons of other athletes that are ready to take their place (and here I’m using poor Daisuke as an example again, because he’s out of the world team, while if he was from a country like ours he would probably never even leave it). I think it’s pretty frustrating and unfair for a skater to be in such situation. This is the main reason why I’m saying there should be a way for them to qualify (but again: they have to deserve it).

namlulu

That’s absolutely right. In my reasoning, I started from the assumption that they aren’t gonna put extra spots at worlds and increas the number of athletes competing. Unless they do that I don’t see a way of changing things up.

But I agree with you about the athletes’ frustration and lives in different Countries.

aliyaskates

Yes of course my whole idea started from the possibility to increase the number of athletes competing in each event. There would be no point in having a world championship where Russia, Japan, Canada, China and the US just compete against each other haha! Anyway, it’s all really just my opinion, I don’t think the ISU is planning to change the qualification system any time soon.

triple-axel-blog

If they increased total number of athletes, that would be great, but then other countries would also complain that “oh such-and-such country got this many spots, but so-and-so shouldn’t even be at Worlds because they didn’t do well at Nationals for their country…” It’s actually why quite a few skaters switch affiliations. Take Chris Caluza for example. He used to skate for the US, but he has dual citizenship with the Philippines. He skated for the Philippines because it was easier to get to Worlds and the Olympics (which politics of skating screwed up for him anyway. I’ve spoken to him about this). While I do think increasing the total number of skaters is awesome, I don’t want to see the politics of skating (i.e. whining about skater count per country) involved where the number of slots for the next world championships comes in. Also, do we want Worlds to go on for like…a million years? XD

aliyaskates

That is a good point indeed (although in all honesty, considering how depressed I get when worlds are over, I wouldn't mind them to go on for a million years ahahah). Let's imagine this very surreal scenario though: Yuzuru Hanyu wins the GPF, breaks all the world records, but then messes up at Nationals, finishes 6th and doesn't go to Worlds. Would that be fair? I don't know, I personally don't think so. Of course using Yuzuru as an example isn't fair either (lol) but you never know, right :') This might also be a problem for smaller countries too: if they only have one spot, but that particular year two skaters do really well, one will have to sit out just because someone the year before didn't do good enough to get more spots. It kind of kills the competition, in my opinion. Of course I'm not saying that we should let all the skaters that get the minimum tech go to worlds cause that would kill the competition too lol. And anyway, as a skating fan (and as unfair to the skaters as this will sound), if I have to watch a short program where a ton of men score in the 60s, I would also like to see 4 or 5 men score in the 80s-90s-100s, even if they're all from the same country :'D

aliyaskates

Any increase to spots for the big countries will only ever come at the expense of the smaller-country skaters who are already struggling against an unfair system that is biased towards said big countries. You will kick the little countries out of Worlds over my cold dead body.

Not necessarily? It would only increase meritocracy. If you are a good skater from a small country you would still go. What’s the point of giving two spots to Kazakhstan when they don’t even have a second men to send, when there are skaters in Japan that could finish in the top 10 but can’t even go? And this is just an example. The problem is even bigger when it comes to Euros, where we more or less already know who will podium in the end because the gap between the top 3-4 and the rest of the skaters (in basically all the disciplines) is too big. Of course anything can happen, but if we opened the competition to more skaters (if they deserve it, of course) we might at least see some real competition for those medals. This is just my point though. Also, since you seem to really like to comment on my posts, why don’t you switch off of anon, he? ;)

namlulu

The thibg is, when you’re from a small Country you don’t get to be in big competitions. Take Italy, where I live. Nationals are like nothing. No broadcast, no audience and not even competition for the international athletes, like Anna and Luca. If you consider nationals in Russia, USA or Japan it’s more of a big deal and people lerform at their best to try and beat the others from the same country. So of course most of their scores would be better than theo ones of small countries’ best skaters. I think all nations should have a chance at worlds because they improve athletes, teams and influence future generations of the small Countries

aliyaskates

I’m from Italy too (😁) and I get the point very well. What I was saying in my first post wasn’t that we should take spots away from smaller countries and give them to skaters from bigger countries. Smaller countries have every right to go to international competitions, including Euros, 4CC and Worlds. My point was (and is) that if a skater doesn’t make the world team because his/her country doesn’t have enough spots, but still proves to deserve to compete, there should be a way for him/her/them to qualify for these events. Also, in some ways athletes from smaller countries have an easier life compared to skaters from bigger countries. Since they have less rivals in their home country, they can still go to international events even if they didn’t do perfect in their national championships. For example, Carolina Kostner (or even Valentina Marchei) wasn’t always in top form, but still made it to international competitions every year, because there weren’t other italian ladies that could do better. Instead, skaters from bigger countries can’t take a day off of perfection because there are tons of other athletes that are ready to take their place (and here I’m using poor Daisuke as an example again, because he’s out of the world team, while if he was from a country like ours he would probably never even leave it). I think it’s pretty frustrating and unfair for a skater to be in such situation. This is the main reason why I’m saying there should be a way for them to qualify (but again: they have to deserve it).

namlulu

That’s absolutely right. In my reasoning, I started from the assumption that they aren’t gonna put extra spots at worlds and increas the number of athletes competing. Unless they do that I don’t see a way of changing things up.

But I agree with you about the athletes’ frustration and lives in different Countries.

aliyaskates

Yes of course my whole idea started from the possibility to increase the number of athletes competing in each event. There would be no point in having a world championship where Russia, Japan, Canada, China and the US just compete against each other haha! Anyway, it's all really just my opinion, I don't think the ISU is planning to change the qualification system any time soon.