NHK Trophy 2008

Mao landed beautiful 3F-3L and 3Lz in her SP run-through:
https://www.dailymotion.com/ippanjin2008/video/x7jdt4_mao-news3_sport
In the second half of the video Nobunari landed 4T-3T-3L!

Press conference:
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/07JJ6ZrfLQ3Ms/340x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/06EodRj1uU1tl/340x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/07GV9Dtes685b/340x.jpg
http://www.jiji.com/news/photos/photo_news/images/450/view7482912.jpg
http://www.jiji.com/news/photos/photo_news/images/450/view7483021.jpg

Practice:

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/04sXaYabk7faC/610x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/03gG5PXajk7uo/340x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0fPa4sbe6Ggis/340x.jpg
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/081127/oth0811271920003-n1.htm

That's an incredible lutz right there from Mao!
According to the on-site reporter, Mao's jumps are pretty consistent, and although there's some issues with the 3A (landing, leaning air position) she was able to land most of them, which can surely be attributed to her balance training. Good luck Mao!

Looks like Yukari has a slight injury on her right hip joint from over-practicing. I hope it won't affect her too much - looks like she didn't try any 3A's at all during official practice because of it.

I also wish Ashley and Mirai luck, although I haven't seen any updates from either of them on the web.

Nobunari...holy cow!

Awww..!!!

That pic of Mao and Nobu is just awesome.
It makes me laugh that Mao is as tall/taller than the Japanese male skaters. In fact, Tarasova said that part of the reason why Mao is having problems with her jumps is because she grew 3cm since last season. (If Mao keeps this up, she's going to be a giant!) Tarasova also said Mao just got new boots at the end of October; hopefully Mao's broken them in now.

I'm glad to hear that Mao's jumps seem to be in pretty good condition, though I'm still a little worried. I think Mao needs to be hitting her jumps 100% of the time for her to feel really confident...Hopefully she can conquer her nerves and just go out and do it! Because I know she can!

Is the other lady who Mao was talking to at the boards Shanetta Polle (her other listed coach)?

I hope Yukari's hip doesn't hurt too much..

Nobu - wow, wow, wow!

Mirai-chan, ganbare!

How sweet!!

And I know this is a very unrelated comment but Mao's hair looks awesome! Every time I see a new photo, it seems to be looking better and better. And that top... I wish I was that tiny!

Ladies' SP is less than 15 hours away (I know... I'm totally obsessive).

oh! I love the videos! Mao seems in better shape than at TEB! I can't wait for the SP, but unfortunately, I'll have to wait until the morning because here, it happens in the middle of the night, and I have to sleep..because I have school tomorrow! ... well, I can't wait for the SP and I hope Mao will enjoy herself out there!

Quote :

oh! I love the videos! Mao seems in better shape than at TEB! I can't wait for the SP, but unfortunately, I'll have to wait until the morning because here, it happens in the middle of the night, and I have to sleep..because I have school tomorrow! ... well, I can't wait for the SP and I hope Mao will enjoy herself out there!

Hehehe I'll be sleeping as well anyway since cbc.ca is not broadcasting the short, but you can bet I'll be up at 4:30 saturday morning to watch the free

Go Mao

chiyori wrote:

Quote :

oh! I love the videos! Mao seems in better shape than at TEB! I can't wait for the SP, but unfortunately, I'll have to wait until the morning because here, it happens in the middle of the night, and I have to sleep..because I have school tomorrow! ... well, I can't wait for the SP and I hope Mao will enjoy herself out there!

Hehehe I'll be sleeping as well anyway since cbc.ca is not broadcasting the short, but you can bet I'll be up at 4:30 saturday morning to watch the free

Go Mao

I don't know yet if I'll be up at 4:30...because I have a figure skating test at 9:00 the morning, so maybe I'll sleep to be in top shape! But whatever, Mao will be surely skating in the last skaters so she may skate at around 5:30-45 so it isn't so bad!

Gah! I have to work tomorrow and I don't know if I can wake up in time to see Mao skate. Then I'll have to decide if I will read the spoilers or wait until I can watch the video (which I did for TEB). I'm getting nervous just thinking about it!!

In general, I have a better feeling about the NHK Trophy than I did about TEB. It seems that Mao's disappointing performance at TEB has given her some fighting spirit (even if her jumps aren't yet at 100%).

Go Mao!!

inskate wrote:

My FSU subscription just expired yesterday and I can't even read practice reports... I won't be able to renew it for 2 weeks!

No practice reports on FSU whatsoever. Only a newspaper article that reported Mao underrotated many of her jumps in the morning practice on Nov. 27 (JPN time). Her jumps were better in the afternoon practice.

I'm glad she'll be focusing on her jumps in this competition. In a long thing that I wrote after TEB that the server decided to barf, I was hoping that Mao and TAT would set a specific goal for each competition and try to clear it one at a time.

Apparently, the best scenario for competitive skaters is to shut down their brain and go on auto pilot during a competition. In order to be able to do this, 'electrical circuits' have to be firmly established in the brain (almost hard wired), which can only come from endless repetitions of a given element. For new things like 3 sal and 3lutz for Mao, these electrical circuits are only soft-wired. Under the competitive pressure that can act as an electrical noise, the soft-wired electrical circuits are easily disrupted and the skater can become confused. I'm not sure if this is what happened to Mao at TEB, but it is not a far-fetched scenario, either. Anyway, this is why I think it's a good idea for Mao to insist on practicing as much as she wants in order to establish firmer electrical circuits (some call this muscle memory).

Ganbre, Mao-chan!! We love you!!

bibi wrote:

I don't know yet if I'll be up at 4:30...because I have a figure skating test at 9:00 the morning, so maybe I'll sleep to be in top shape! But whatever, Mao will be surely skating in the last skaters so she may skate at around 5:30-45 so it isn't so bad!

In Russia now is early morning and I hope I can back for ladies sp, the question is can I watch it? I wish our Dear Mao good luck and just do her best, I believe in you Mao - chan!

Dance CD and Pairs SP are over... Faiella/Scali and Pang/Tong in the lead.

Ganbatte, Mao & Nobu!

oh when is the ladies event starting?

In about two hours!

Thank you, Okami! It is taking too long!

Nobunari in first with 81.63 points! That's 4 points higher than at Nebelhorn.

Posted by 1795 at GS:

Quote :

oda ....is now the reason why i live

Johnny still to go.

Welcome back, Mr. Nobunari Oda! Long time no see.

Wow...Nobu first...

Johnny in 2nd with 78.15 points!

All the skaters actually seemed to skate quite well, only 1 fall in the entire competition and all the second group (judging from PBP) went clean.

Congrats, Nobu, for placing 1st in SP!

Results:
1 Nobunari ODA JPN 81.63 45.78 35.85 7.50 6.75 7.20 7.10 7.30 0.00 #8
2 Johnny WEIR USA 78.15 41.70 36.45 7.35 6.95 7.35 7.30 7.50 0.00 #12
3 Yannick PONSERO FRA 74.39 42.04 32.35 6.70 6.05 6.50 6.45 6.65 0.00 #10
4 Takahito MURA JPN 69.70 39.30 30.40 6.30 5.65 6.30 6.00 6.15 0.00 #6
5 Stephen CARRIERE USA 68.99 37.24 31.75 6.35 6.15 6.30 6.45 6.50 0.00 #11
6 Kevin REYNOLDS CAN 67.51 37.46 30.05 6.00 5.75 6.15 6.15 6.00 0.00 #9
7 Adrian SCHULTHEISS SWE 66.31 37.46 28.85 5.80 5.50 5.80 5.95 5.80 0.00 #7
8 Yasuharu NANRI JPN 63.87 35.72 28.15 5.80 5.40 5.55 5.75 5.65 0.00 #4
9 Anton KOVALEVSKI UKR 58.84 32.94 25.90 5.25 4.75 5.40 5.25 5.25 0.00 #1
10 Peter LIEBERS GER 58.27 33.62 24.65 5.15 4.60 4.95 5.15 4.80 0.00 #2
11 Andrei LUTAI RUS 56.34 31.34 26.00 5.50 4.90 5.30 5.25 5.05 1.00 #5
12 Jamal OTHMAN SUI 55.94 29.94 26.00 5.25 4.90 5.20 5.35 5.30 0.00 #3

I just finished watching men's SP on TV. Nobunari was just fantastic!!! he got much better than the last time I saw his performance!!!!

Johnny looked like he has caught cold or something... He was taking something like medicine before he skated and was coghing after his performance. hope he is ok.

Excellent showing for Nobu! Unfortunately, I've missed over half of the men's event, and I only saw the last 20 secs. of his program. Until today I had no idea he was also skating to Masquerade as well!

Johnny did pretty well too. He 2 footed his combo, but still very good. I shouldn't be surprised, really, but he sure has some adoring female fans! I think I've even heard a slight groan from them when his scores were announced. And the Japanese rinkside announcer (the female one, not the male one who announced in English) kept saying Johnny "Where." ウィアー(Weir)does not equalウェアー(where).

Ladies event in less than 15 minutes! I'll be watching both the NHK broadcast and WebTV, so this should be fun.

Hopefully my connection won't go berzerkers - I'll be recording the following ladies for the SP:
-Katrina Hacker, Akiko Suzuki (Group 1)
-All of group 2 (Na-Young, Ashley, Mirai, Laura, Yukari, and of course Mao)

Best wishes to all the ladies!