Mao: post-Sochi news and articles

I was at the livestream of Mao's first press conference post-Sochi. Mao, as usual, was her charming self. Here are a few highlights:

- Flight delay pushed the conference to be at least half an hour late.
- Since this was held by a Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, there was a translator.
- About future plans: Still has one big competition left, then she says she is 50/50 about retiring.     
- When asked about former PM Mori, Mao did not want to comment at first. Finally, she said that he probably regrets his words.   
- Mao says that she couldn't help but cry because she was relieved she could put a good performance after being anxious the previous night.   

There were weird questions such as:
- What did Mao expect to change in Korean-Japan relations?
- Asking about twitter photos. (BTW, Mao is the athlete with the most tweet mentions in Sochi, so I hope she makes a twitter account!)

Maybe someone can do a transcript, I think I may have missed some things since my connection was pretty bad.  

kisses wrote:

I suggest that we should have separate topic for all accolades Mao received on and after Sochi

aoi88 as well as the other members provided links to a few articles already, but I agree this needs a separate thread.

klarification wrote:

I was at the livestream of Mao's first press conference post-Sochi. Mao, as usual, was her charming self. Here are a few highlights:

- Flight delay pushed the conference to be at least half an hour late.
- Since this was held by a Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, there was a translator.
- About future plans: Still has one big competition left, then she says she is 50/50 about retiring.     
- When asked about former PM Mori, Mao did not want to comment at first. Finally, she said that he probably regrets his words.   
- Mao says that she couldn't help but cry because she was relieved she could put a good performance after being anxious the previous night.   

There were weird questions such as:
- What did Mao expect to change in Korean-Japan relations?
- Asking about twitter photos. (BTW, Mao is the athlete with the most tweet mentions in Sochi, so I hope she makes a twitter account!)

Maybe someone can do a transcript, I think I may have missed some things since my connection was pretty bad.  

The first time I saw Mao, I couldn't imagine she could be both so demure and feisty    

klarification wrote:

I was at the livestream of Mao's first press conference post-Sochi. Mao, as usual, was her charming self. Here are a few highlights:

- Flight delay pushed the conference to be at least half an hour late.
- Since this was held by a Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, there was a translator.
- About future plans: Still has one big competition left, then she says she is 50/50 about retiring.     
- When asked about former PM Mori, Mao did not want to comment at first. Finally, she said that he probably regrets his words.   
- Mao says that she couldn't help but cry because she was relieved she could put a good performance after being anxious the previous night.   

There were weird questions such as:
- What did Mao expect to change in Korean-Japan relations?
- Asking about twitter photos. (BTW, Mao is the athlete with the most tweet mentions in Sochi, so I hope she makes a twitter account!)

Maybe someone can do a transcript, I think I may have missed some things since my connection was pretty bad.  

  for translating Mao's press conference. I love how positive she is. Goes to show that more than winning a OGM, Mao wanted to skate her very best. And that's WINNING!  

P.S. Hey Mori... 

And this is Ima's message for Mao! So sweet~  

I split the topic! :)I suggest posting Sochi-related posts here, and more general posts in the 2013-14 news thread

klarification wrote:

I was at the livestream of Mao's first press conference post-Sochi. Mao, as usual, was her charming self. Here are a few highlights: (...)

Thanks for the summary!   

Yeah, I bet Mori is regretting opening his mouth now. OTOH I'm almost glad he said what he did - hopefully it brought to the Japanese people's attention the fact that he's a jerk with no respect for the hard work of people who bring honor to their country.

Hopeful news about Mao being 50/50 about retiring! Now I just hope the media won't bother her so much that she'll decide to retire just to get away from them :sweatdrop:Personally I hope she'll take a season or so off, then come back (because there's still so much she can accomplish), but even if she retires, I'll be satisfied because the moments like her Sochi LP are just one in a lifetime.   

Mao's press conference @ JCC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfTbfr6kRCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TSnmzRtRw

klarification wrote:

There were weird questions such as:
- What did Mao expect to change in Korean-Japan relations?

Mao seems like didn't consider this question weird or uncomfortable. On the contrary- she smiled and said what she was supposed to say. Here's the press conference with English translation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TSnmzRtRw

You go, girl!  

let`s talk wrote:

klarification wrote:

There were weird questions such as:
- What did Mao expect to change in Korean-Japan relations?

Mao seems like didn't consider this question weird or uncomfortable. On the contrary- she smiled and said what she was supposed to say. Here's the press conference with English translation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TSnmzRtRw

You go, girl!  

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I'm planning to watch it fully!

Since the other thread was closed, please allow me to reply here.

Iceriver wrote:

Well I see that while I was writing my long post some comments have been written about all the Yuna thing. I wrote these nice things about Yuna because this is how I feel about her, not because I'm trying to campaign in her favour after reading the comments. Just wanted to point that out  

Iceriver, sorry if I have scared you out with my rant.     
I have no intention to deny your opinion nor I don't think that's the campaign in her favor because I understand what you wrote is based on your experience and I respect it.

Regarding your comments on Adelina, I agree with you both her special quality and issues with step sequence/refinement. When I saw her skate in GPF live, I found she was slow in StSq in particular, to be honest looked slowest to me among those six skaters.  I watched Sochi games on TV so it's maybe apple & orange comparison, but I think she's improved a lot since then (although it's not as much as the score she's given).  I do not agree with the score though, I'm happy for her that she was able to live up to the expectation from her country, by which I mean she didn't have meltdown like before but delivered two good performances.

Sorry for posting back to back and another rant.   

Re. JCC interview
Silly same questions asked repeatedly on the Mori’s remarks.  I felt that they really wanted to make her to say something newsworthy about it.
Well, Mori is known for his slip of tongue. He is a big figure in the politics and the sports world in Japan though, he receives a very little respect, as far as I see, from the general public because of his language.

But, as a matter of fact, he didn’t criticize Mao.  He criticized JSF.  This link has a transcript of an excerpt of what he actually said in the speech. http://www.tbsradio.jp/ss954/2014/02/post-259.html (in Japanese)

Within this speech, he made terrible gaffes here and there in addition to how he put it about Mao.  I do not agree with what he said: "Without fail, she falls at critical times." It’s not true at all.  But, once you read through it, it’s not difficult at all to understand that he intended to criticize JSF, not Mao.  In a nutshell, he blamed JSF for Mao’s bad performance in SP because, as he said, they put too much burden on Mao in the team event for a very, very small chance of medaling (which he believed zero chance) and left her with mental scare going into the single event.  In his opinion, JSF should have known the nerves often get the better of her and therefore refrained from using her in the team event.

It’s obvious that the media found the particular phrase was newsworthy and twisted his message when they wrote the news.  They should’ve known that many people in Japan are now aware of what actually Mori said.  I don’t like Mori and I have no intention to defend him, but it’s too much to see the media trying to put their words in Mao’s mouth to make another news out of this.

Now I should shut up my mouth and refrain from polluting the forum with my rant   

linglang wrote:

Sorry for posting back to back and another rant.   

Re. JCC interview
Silly same questions asked repeatedly on the Mori’s remarks.  I felt that they really wanted to make her to say something newsworthy about it.
Well, Mori is known for his slip of tongue. He is a big figure in the politics and the sports world in Japan though, he receives a very little respect, as far as I see, from the general public because of his language.

But, as a matter of fact, he didn’t criticize Mao.  He criticized JSF.  This link has a transcript of an excerpt of what he actually said in the speech. http://www.tbsradio.jp/ss954/2014/02/post-259.html (in Japanese)

Within this speech, he made terrible gaffes here and there in addition to how he put it about Mao.  I do not agree with what he said: "Without fail, she falls at critical times." It’s not true at all.  But, once you read through it, it’s not difficult at all to understand that he intended to criticize JSF, not Mao.  In a nutshell, he blamed JSF for Mao’s bad performance in SP because, as he said, they put too much burden on Mao in the team event for a very, very small chance of medaling (which he believed zero chance) and left her with mental scare going into the single event.  In his opinion, JSF should have known the nerves often get the better of her and therefore refrained from using her in the team event.

It’s obvious that the media found the particular phrase was newsworthy and twisted his message when they wrote the news.  They should’ve known that many people in Japan are now aware of what actually Mori said.  I don’t like Mori and I have no intention to defend him, but it’s too much to see the media trying to put their words in Mao’s mouth to make another news out of this.

Now I should shut up my mouth and refrain from polluting the forum with my rant   

You are not polluting the forum, quite the opposite, you being able to understands Japanese helps members like me clarify any misunderstanding that might be circulating on the net, and also prevent fans who are not able to read the original statement to refrain from holding any grudge against a person who may not have said it or meant it the way the media portrayed it.

I found the press conference both funny, and silly at the same time, it was clear that many reporters who attended it, didn't have much knowledge about figure skating, and some of the question were just soo stupid and inappropriate to ask an athlete that I had to shook my head quite i few times. but I was really impressed with Mao's Answers and how she handled the whole thing.

linglang wrote:

Since the other thread was closed, please allow me to reply here.

Iceriver wrote:

Well I see that while I was writing my long post some comments have been written about all the Yuna thing. I wrote these nice things about Yuna because this is how I feel about her, not because I'm trying to campaign in her favour after reading the comments. Just wanted to point that out  

Iceriver, sorry if I have scared you out with my rant.     
I have no intention to deny your opinion nor I don't think that's the campaign in her favor because I understand what you wrote is based on your experience and I respect it.

Regarding your comments on Adelina, I agree with you both her special quality and issues with step sequence/refinement. When I saw her skate in GPF live, I found she was slow in StSq in particular, to be honest looked slowest to me among those six skaters.  I watched Sochi games on TV so it's maybe apple & orange comparison, but I think she's improved a lot since then (although it's not as much as the score she's given).  I do not agree with the score though, I'm happy for her that she was able to live up to the expectation from her country, by which I mean she didn't have meltdown like before but delivered two good performances.

Oh I wasn't talking about anyone in particular and I know you didn't want to deny my opinion   . It's just that it took me a long time to write the post and once I had sent it I realised that some comments regarding Yuna had been added too. So I didn't want my post to look like something in response to that, it only showed some random thoughts of mine, nothing else. No need to apologise  

Thank you for that information, linglang.

Mao said in a recent article (I can't post links yet, but it's a CBC article) that she is 50-50 on whether to retire.

I don't know how I feel about this.  Selfishly I would love to see her continue skating, but for her sake, I think she should retire.  She just ended her Olympics on a spectacular note with her free skate and will end her season in Japan at Worlds.  This sport has treated her so unfairly (including at the Olympics with the bogus downgrades), and I can't see what she would gain from continuing to compete that she doesn't already have. I think her time would be better spent developing her future career off the ice.

Adelina is on Russian TV today, and she said that she wanted Mao to medal and cried after Mao failed in her short program. Also she mentioned Caro, that she was happy for her medal and that she's a great athlete.   

polosatik wrote:

Adelina is on Russian TV today, and she said that she wanted Mao to medal and cried after Mao failed in her short program. Also she mentioned Caro, that she was happy for her medal and that she's a great athlete.   

Adelina is so cute!!   I hope the best for her in the future competitions. You know, if Mao could not to gain the gold medal in Sochi, I am more than happy that was Adelina who got it.

This clip has Mao's FS from different angles in some parts   


MA

Mao said Mr. Sato told her she could do it and if something wrong happened he would go and save her. Also before FS warm-up, Lori told her something like, show us a skate that she love. (This is translation from what Mao said so wording and phrasing may be different.)  She also got a lot of text messages saying they wanted to see her smiles.  At last, she's determined to believe in herself and to finish the game without regret. She wanted to respond to those people who said they want to see her smiles at the end.

It was first time for Akiko to watch Mao's FS performance. She said she was holding her tears and the performance gave her goose bumps.

And, thank you ballerinamao for your comment  

Knitting lady with a huge ball of yarn behind Dai

chapis wrote:

polosatik wrote:

Adelina is on Russian TV today, and she said that she wanted Mao to medal and cried after Mao failed in her short program. Also she mentioned Caro, that she was happy for her medal and that she's a great athlete.   

Adelina is so cute!!   I  hope the best for her in the future competitions. You know, if Mao could not to gain the gold medal in Sochi, I am more than happy that was Adelina who got it.

You know what's ironic? Adelina's FS score against Yuna was done in the same way Yuna was scored against Mao in Vancouver. Since Mao skated her SP before Yuna, Mao Sp was held down just in case Yuna didn't go clean, there scores would have stayed close. And in the FS, They skyrocketed Yuna' s score to make sure Mao couldn't catch up.

No wonder Yuna was crying. She now knows how hopeless Mao felt going after her to skate her LP. There was no chance of Yuna winning over Adelina's huge score and 7 triple program.

Thank you everyone for the news. A few more videos I found:


I think the videos are from the same show linglang shared last time, only longer.

Some magazines which feature Mao:



AERA 2014 3/3  [Amazon JP] [CDJ] [HMV]
Sports Graphic Number 2014 3/13  [Amazon JP]
Shukan Asahi 2014 3/7  [Amazon JP] [CDJ]
Sunday Mainichi 2014 3/9  [Amazon JP] [CDJ]

If there is a local branch of Kinokuniya nearby your place, they will probably have stocks of these magazines.  


_{EDIT: Not sure why, but you have to log in first to click on the links.}

shar wrote:

You know what's ironic?  Adelina's FS score against Yuna was done in the same way Yuna was scored against Mao in Vancouver.  Since Mao skated her SP before Yuna, Mao Sp was held down just in case Yuna didn't go clean,  there scores would have stayed close.  And in the FS, They skyrocketed Yuna' s  score to make sure Mao couldn't catch up.

No wonder Yuna was crying.  She now knows how hopeless Mao felt going after her to skate her LP. There was no chance of Yuna winning over Adelina's huge score and 7 triple program.

It's called karma.   

This might be a weird question, but when was Yuna crying? I only saw smiles from her in K&C.    True, I thought they were fake, but I saw no tears. She looked anything but happy on the podium though.

IMO, the situation in Vancouver was ten times worse then Yuna's in Sochi. In Vancouver, Mao had two freaking 3A in her LP, and despite that she wouldn't be able to win. Those two mistakes didn't play any role, she could've been perfect and she still would've ended in 2nd. While in Sochi, Yuna didn't have as technically demanding program as Adelina, she had level 3 spin/s, level 3 footwork, her jumps weren't that good in quality, and her overall presentation was blah. Only IMO.

This is so weird, I'm so hapy for Mao, and she didn't even medal. That amazing LP was all it took, and I couldn't care less about medals. I still get goosebumps and teary eyed when I watch it.    I'm so freaking proud of her, words can't express it.  

Hi guys i created an account here just to say my reactions to these whole olympics.

I couln't watch it live because i had classes on the SP but i still watched ansiously for the event reprise (even though it was 1:00 am). When mao started skating i was like "She's gonna deliver it" but she didn't.

I was really sad for the whole thing, that was the last thing i could imagine to happen.

The other day i still waited fro Mao to skate, i felt that this time she was really going to do the best peformance ever. When she trew that 3A i was like NO WAY, but that's not all, she still made a whole friggin peformance and with everything clean(ok the judges gave her some unfair marks, but it is clean for me just like her GPF sp).

I wanted to say thank you for her, she gave us the best peformance any skater have ever done, and didn't even got a medal for it. Part of me wanted her to continue her quest for a gold medal, but i just want her to be happy, and this sport was so mean to her that i can't even stand the fact that she can have more 4 years of unfair judging, so, retiring or not i will always love her.

Welcome to the forum, breynows!

To add some info, it was announced that after World, Mao is confirmed to be in the following shows/tours:

Superstars on Ice (SSOI) in Sapporo: Apr 7-9
Casts announced so far: http://ssi2014.jp/performer/

Stars on Ice (SOI) Japan tour:
In Tokyo: Apr 12-13
In Nagoya: Apr 16-18
In Osaka: Apr 19-20
Casts announced so far: http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/soi2014/tokyo.html

zarinaballerina wrote:

IMO, the situation in Vancouver was ten times worse then Yuna's in Sochi. In Vancouver, Mao had two freaking 3A in her LP, and despite that she wouldn't be able to win. Those two mistakes didn't play any role, she could've been perfect and she still would've ended in 2nd. While in Sochi, Yuna didn't have as technically demanding program as Adelina, she had level 3 spin/s, level 3 footwork, her jumps weren't that good in quality, and her overall presentation was blah. Only IMO.

I agree completely.  I never understood why it seemed to just be accepted in Vancouver that two 3axel Mao could not beat a clean Yuna with six regular triples.  It made no sense.

I have no idea why there is even a controversy that Yuna should have won here.  Six triples, no transitions, level three layback...there is no reason that should win over other ladies skating 7 and 8 triples.  Does the gold medal have Yuna's name on it or what?  Yuna was actually overmarked.  I can see why Adelina placed above Yuna (higher technical difficulty).  However, I cannot see why Yuna with 6 triples placed above Mao with 8 triples by 3 points.  That is the real controversy.  Mao's long program should have won, and she should have broken the world record with at least 155.  Mao's free program was the most spectacular free program I've ever seen.  Too bad the judges didn't fairly score it.