19-year-old has been comeback kid after stress fracture in hip
Women's figure skating
Satoko Miyahara
Satoko Miyahara recalled the moment when she finished her near-perfect performance in the free skate at the All-Japan Figure Skating Championships in December, saying, "I held up my fists in triumph with all my heart." She won the championship after finishing second in the short program and secured her spot at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Miyahara longed to go to the Games. But until that moment, she'd been forced to struggle with an injury -- a stress fracture on her left hip joint -- for almost a year, since January 2017. In the spring of last year, she couldn't skate for a month due to rehabilitation.
She was recovering smoothly when she began to feel some abnormalities in July. Miyahara explained the unfortunate turn of events as "pain developing everywhere, again." She had to cancel her jumps practice so she could recover, and skipped an international competition in October.
Her fellow skaters were practicing hard with her coach Mie Hamada, focusing on the Olympics. The days went by and she watched other skaters execute highly difficult jumps on the rink, but Miyahara could only practice regular skating.
Even during those tough days, however, she did not slack off. She never lost her dedication, which is her most outstanding feature as an athlete. "She's been so patient. Most athletes can't deal with setbacks like she can," Hamada said. The coach advised Miyahara in October to skip the Olympics, as she was afraid of the possibility of another injury if she had to practice in a hurry.
But Miyahara didn't give up. Because she had more time than usual for basic training, she was confident of having advanced the quality of her skating.
After getting the all-clear, she returned to competition in November. By the time the All-Japan Figure Skating Championships came around, Miyahara had regained her sense of how to perform jumps. As a result, the 19-year-old Kyoto native grabbed her fourth straight title at the championships.
On Coming-of-Age Day in January this year, the silver medalist at the 2015 World Figure Skating Championships, wearing a furisode long-sleeved kimono, answered a question on her Olympic preparations by saying, "I want to continue my practice as it should be done, as usual." She's convinced that is the way to a medal -- which is her next dream.
Defending champion overcomes physical issues to be in Games
Men's figure skating
Yuzuru Hanyu
As he aims to become the first male figure skater to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in 66 years, Yuzuru Hanyu has been competing against "a formidable enemy" -- a ligament injury to his right ankle. Hanyu suffered the injury in November, during practice the day before a competition, and has called the damage "the strongest enemy to overcome in my life." The Olympics were just three months away at that point. Suppressing his frustration, Hanyu managed to resume practicing on an ice rink early in the new year.
Hanyu broke his own world record for a short-program score at the first competition of the season in September, and successfully landed the ultra-tough quadruple lutz for the first time at the Cup of Russia in October. Having climbed steadily to the top again, he was unexpectedly swept off his feet by the injury.
It happened when Hanyu was practicing a quadruple lutz, his fourth kind of quadruple jump in addition to the toe-loop, Salchow and loop. Because Hanyu has been an outstanding skater in both the beauty of his jumps and the quality of his overall performance, Hanyu's coach Brian Orser once insisted, "There is no need to add another quadruple jump in his performance."
Hanyu nonetheless decided to attempt the lutz, feeling that "unless I take on something difficult, it will be meaningless to continue skating." He won the Grand Prix Final in figure skating four years in a row from 2013 to 2016, and has logged men's world records for the short program, free skate and the final combined score.
Even after Hanyu won his first gold medal at the Sochi Winter Olympics at 19, his regret has grown over the two falls he had on jumps in his Sochi free program. He has been determined to become "a skater who deserves the gold medal" since then.
Hanyu has repeatedly said "another gold medal at Pyeongchang" in public in order to encourage himself. Even he has often encountered obstacles, but every time he thought about leaving the ice, he reestablished his resolve to evolve and go beyond his limits as a top skater. As a result, Hanyu has set world records, and people started calling him "The Undisputed King."
Hanyu is expected to return to the Olympics, which would be his first competition in about four months. It will be the toughest ordeal he has yet faced, but there's no time for him to feel down. All he can do is move forward with determination to skate like the king he has made himself to be.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
