This is a translation. There are posts to whom I think a lot in advance, and there are posts that I write suddenly, when something catch my attention. This post is of the second type. I read an article, and I reacted emotively. As you can imagine, often my reaction is to start writing. So, I wrote a post in Italian. For me is much simpler to write in Italian, and if I write in an emotionally way, I write in my language. But, considering that Ida, a friend in Facebook, has translated it, for me it’s easy to post her translation. Beyond some little changes, this is what I wrote two weeks ago.

A recent article by Jack Gallagher written for Japan Forward (no, I’m not putting the link, it’s not worth reading) closes with a quote from another keyboard genius, Philip Hersh.

The topic is the Beijing Olympics.

“If Nathan skates two clean programs, Yuzu will need to be as good overall, with a bigger technical element score, as he was at the 2015 NHK Trophy and Grand Prix Final to win in Beijing,” Hersh said.

Hersh concluded his thoughts with a succinct statement.

“Should Yuzu win again, the GOAT (greatest of all time) question will be settled.”

Considering that Yuzuru Hanyu is more complete than Nathan Chen (and than anyone else) in all components items, he wouldn’t need a higher technical score than others to win.

In theory it should be enough for him to have the same technical score as the strongest skaters and surpass them in components. The most difficult thing is to have judges who are able to see the difference between skaters and assign the correct marks, because if we make a comparison in skating skills, transitions or interpretation of music, the only one that stands closest to Yuzuru (while remaining at a safe distance) is Jason Brown, and the next time Brown does a clean quadruple jump it will also be his first. One quadruple, not four.

I’m not criticizing Brown, since Javier Fernandez’s retirement he has become the second skater I cheer for, but I can recognize his limitations. So if  Hanyu beats without problems almost all competitors from a technical point of view, he just needs not to make too many mistakes, with Chen, if they have the same technical score, Hanyu should win. But sometimes Chen had marks higher than Hanyu’s in components or even just close, both situations have happened. This is a scandal, and the ISU should urgently provide better training for judges if it does not want to fall more into ridicule and loose their little left credibility.

The conclusion, however, is a pearl. Does Hanyu really need his third Olympic gold to be called the greatest of all time? Maybe, and just maybe, I can allow Hersh something. Actually there is a skater who can be compared to Hanyu, even if in my opinion Yuzuru is superior. He is an American guy, with all due respect to Hanyu who grew up with the myth of the Russian Evgeni Plushenko, and my respect too, who I’ve always loved the Canadian Kurt Browning. His name is Dick Button.  Button’s is the only name that can be compared to Hanyu’s without uttering a heresy. And even if I started my analysis from an article that has little worth to me, I will make some considerations using all my usual, non-existent, capacity for synthesis. Are you ready for a long text?

Let’s try to do some calculations. I only consider individual competitions, because skating is an individual (or couple) discipline, and sometimes even a good skater, but not a champion, can win an important medal if he is lucky enough to belong to a strong nation.

Let’s take the Americans Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold. They won a team Olympic bronze in 2014. The former has participated in seven World Championships, winning a silver and finishing five times between fourth and seventh place, she won a gold in one of her two appearances in the Four Continents Championship, a silver and two bronzes in his five Grand Prix Finals and five golds, three silvers and six bronzes in the various Grand Prix competitions she participated in. In the individual Olympic competition, she finished seventh. The second has two fourth, a fifth and a sixth place in her four World Championship appearances, a fourth, a fifth and a sixth place in the Four Continents Championship, a fifth place in her only Grand Prix Final and two golds, two silvers and two bronzes in Grand Prix event. In the individual Olympic competition she finished fourth. If we want to look at things with blinders, we can say that both have won an Olympic bronze. Does their Olympic bronze (Wagner fourth in the Short Program, Gold second in Free Skate in the Team Event) worth as much as Carolina Kostner’s Olympic bronze? In 2014 Kostner won the individual bronze. For she I only mention her medals, because there are so many. One gold, two silvers and three bronzes at the World Championship, in a career that lasted for 16 seasons (even if she competed only in 14), demonstrating a remarkable longevity and ability to characterize an era. Five golds, two silvers and four bronzes at the European Championship, she has reached the podium in her last eleven participation. One gold, one silver and two bronzes at the Grand Prix Final. Four golds, seven silvers and three bronzes in Grand Prix:

If we talk about Olympic medals, without looking at anything else, they won a bronze each, if we look at the careers, these three skaters are not comparable. This means that team competitions, whether they are the Olympic Team Event or the World Team Trophy, are not part of my discussion.

The most important competition is the Olympics. The value of a skater is mainly measured here, although there are some exceptions. Paul Wylie won an Olympic silver medal in 1992, on his second participation, but at the World Championships he finished ninth, tenth and eleventh. I liked him, but he certainly wasn’t as important in figure skating as Kurt Browning was, with his zero Olympic medals in three participations but also with four golds and one silver in his last five World Championship appearances and the certification of being the first skater to complete a quadruple jump. As far as I’m concerned Browning was also a more important skater than Viktor Petrenko, who won a gold (in a really mediocre competition, in which almost everyone made disasters) and an Olympic bronze medal, a gold, two silver and a bronze at the World Championship and three gold, one silver and two bronze medals at the European Championship, or by Alexei Urmanov, who can only match his Olympic gold with one bronze medal in seven participation at the World Championship and one gold, one silver and three bronzes at the European Championship.

A skater who has won two Olympic gold medals can only be compared to someone who has done the same. There are some exceptions, someone who for various reasons deserves to be taken into consideration, but they are not currently in activity.

Here are the skaters who have won two or more Olympic golds:

• 3 – Gillis Grafstrom (1920, 1924, 1928)
• 2 – Karl Schafer (1932, 1936)
• 2 – Dick Button (1948, 1952)
• 2 – Yuzuru Hanyu (2014, 2018)

Few, right? Also in other categories the multiple winners are few. These are the Ladies:

• 3 – Sonja Henie (1928, 1932, 1936)
• 2 – Katarina Witt (1984, 1988)

Pairs :

• 2 – Andrée Joly/Pierre Brunet (1928, 1932)
• 2 Ludmila Belousova/Oleg Protopopov (1964, 1969)
• 2/3 – Irina Rodnina/Alexander Zaitsev (1976, 1980, Rodnina also won gold in 1972 skating with Alexei Ulanov)
• 2 – Ekaterina Gordeeva/Sergei Grinkov (1988, 1994)
• 2 – Artur Dmitriev (1992 with Natalia Mishkutenok, 1998 with Oksana Kazakova)

Ice Dance (a category that was admitted in the Olympics only in 1976) :

• 2 – Oksana Grishuk/Evgeni Platov (1994, 1998)
• 2 – Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (2010, 2018)

Thirteen skaters or pairs of skaters in eighty-eight competitions (I’m also counting the 1908 special figure competition), obviously to repeat oneself is difficult.

It is impossible to really compare skaters from different eras, there was a different participation of the athletes, the technical difficulties were different, the equipment and the rules as well. Grafstrom has only participated in the World Championship four times, winning three golds, and he has never participated in the European Championship, because the only really important competition for him was the Olympics Games. In 1932, in his fourth and last Olympic participation, at 38, he got distracted and performed a compulsory figure different from the one he had been asked for, and in the free skate he crashed against a photographer. With these two mistakes he still managed to win silver. According to his contemporaries, Grafstrom was an extraordinary skater, and certainly skating owes him a lot, but I have strong doubts about skaters active so many years ago. The final ranking was the result for 2/3 of the compulsory figures and, although technically difficult, they were less risky than current elements. Current skaters often risk falling, and with falls the rankings change a lot. In the figures it was possible to miss a beak, not to repeat the traces perfectly, but the mistakes were much less harmful, the values ​​more defined and the rankings were much more stable. This is why I struggle to consider skaters like Grafstrom or Karl Schafer on the same level as Button and Hanyu. Schafer was the only one capable of overcoming Grafstrom in an Olympics, he won seven consecutive world championships between 1930 and 1936 and, considering the previous two silver and bronze, he was  always on the podium in his ten participation. Ten participation also in the European Championship, one more gold, one less silver. Both of them are extraordinary skaters, but I find it difficult to approach them to current skaters.

Ulrich Salchow also deserves a consideration, winner of only one Olympic gold, but not for his fault. Salchow, the guy who invented the jump of the same name, won the first world medal, a silver, in 1897 and the first of his ten world golds (a record) in 1901. Unfortunately for him, skating entered the Olympics in 1908, so he couldn’t win it before. When he could he won gold. In 1912 skating was not part of the Olympic program, in 1916, with the First World War underway, the Olympics did not exist. In 1920 he was 42 years old. Not anymore the age in which an athlete is stronger. He finished fourth. Salchow won what he could. Okay, the three of them and someone else who won less (like a certain Axel Paulsen who, for winning cash prizes in speed competition, has never been able to participate in a World Championship), deserves considerations. But for me they are myths, and in my opinion they are a separate category. And if comparisons cannot be made between different eras, neither can they be made between different disciplines. Among myths there is also Ernst Baier, who in 1936 won the Olympic gold in Pairs, skating together with Maxi Herber and silver, behind Karl Schafer, in the men’s competition. Something that is no longer conceivable, the last skater I remember who pursued a career in two disciplines at the highest level at the same time, at least for a few years, was Kristi Yamaguchi, who in 1990 finished fourth at the World Championship in the Ladies competition and fifth in the Pairs competition skating together with Rudi Galindo. To win her two World Championship golds and the Olympic gold, however, she abandoned the Pairs competition. Valentina Marchei, who participated in the Olympics in both disciplines, did not the same: until 2013-2014 season she was a single skater, in the following four years she was a Pairs skater, she did not dedicate herself to the two disciplines simultaneously.

I stop wandering into the past and into other categories.

Evgeni Plushenko deserves something more than a mention, winner of one Olympic gold and two silver, three gold, one silver and one bronze world, and seven gold and three European silver. Three Olympic medals are a lot (as mentioned, I don’t consider the team competition), even without considering their color only Grafstrom has won more: four. Plushenko is the only winner of three medals, with two medals there are, listed in chronological order, Willy Bockl (two silvers), Karl Schafer (the aforementioned two golds), Dick Button (also two golds for him), David Jenkins (one gold and one bronze), Patrick Pera (two bronzes), Brian Orser (two silvers), Viktor Petrenko (one gold and one bronze), Elvis Stojko (two silvers), Philippe Candeloro (two bronzes) and Yuzuru Hanyu (two golds). Twelve skaters capable of winning more than one Olympic medal, compared to fifty-two skaters who have won only one medal and who knows how many world medalists who have never been on the Olympic podium. Plushenko didn’t win the second gold for few points, and I’m not too convinced that he didn’t deserve that gold. He could also have won more, if he had not been stopped by a suspension linked to his participation in some show not authorized by the Russian federation. His career was very long, between 1998, the year of his first European silver and the World bronze, and 2012, the year of the last European gold, there are 15 seasons. In four of these seasons he hasn’t competed, but how many skaters can stay at a high level, and find motivation, for so long?

Technically he was the first man to perform a Biellman, and he was the first to perform several combinations that others think are pure science fiction, things like quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop-triple loop, or combinations with more than three jumps, which is now prohibited by the rules. Yet, no matter how strong technically he was, no matter how much he dominated for a while – between the 2004 World Championship and the 2006 Olympics he won all the competitions he took part in – his domination was only technical. His skating has not the same completeness as Hanyu’s skating. Hanyu himself, who in Plushenko sees one of his idols, admired Plushenko for his power, control over jumps, dominance on the ice, but he admired Johnny Weir for his elegance and expressive abilities. Plushenko was extraordinary, but something was missing.

We don’t have many images of Dick Button, but Button was not just the strongest on one element, he was the best of his time in all aspects of skating. Button’s musicality was remarkable, he also could  play the piano. Hanyu can’t play any instrument but his musical sensitivity is not inferior. As for spins, Button was the inventor of the Fly Camel spin, called the Flying Button by commentators until he himself became a commentator and felt embarrassed to call the spin with his name.

If Plushenko was the first man to perform a Biellman, Hanyu is one of the few men capable of doing it, and he can also perform doughnut spins. Looking at the skaters on the podium at the World Championship in the last years I struggle to remember someone as good in spins. I have to go back to Stephane Lambiel, who I loved a lot, but who wasn’t exactly the best jumper. And to be the best you have to be complete in all aspects.

It’s  possible to make several comparisons between Dick Button and Yuzuru Hanyu. They are the only ones after World War II to have won two Olympic gold medals, and we have seen that it is very difficult. Button was the first skater able to perform the double Axel in a competition (1948 Olympics) and a triple jump, the loop (1952 Olympics), Hanyu, who has the best triple Axel ever, was the first skater to perform the quadruple loop.

Let’s see, as far as is known, who introduced for the first time the single jumps in men’s and women’s competitions :

1T	Bruces Mapes	1920	?	?
1S	Ulrich Salchow	1909	Theresa Weld	1920
1Lo	Werner Rittberger	1910	?	?
1F	?	?	?	?
1Lz	Alois Lutz	1913	?	?
1A	Axel Paulsen	1882	Sonja Heine	1920
2T	?	?	?	?
2S	?	?	Cecilia Colledge	1930
2Lo	?	?	?	?
2F	?	?	?	?
2Lz	?	?	Alena Vrzanova	1949
2A	Dick Button	1948	Carol Heiss	1953
3T	Thomas Litz	1964	?	?
3S	Ronnie Robertson	1955	Petra Burka	1962
3Lo	Dick Button	1952	Gabrielle Seyfert	1968
3F	?	?	Katarina Witt e Manuela Ruben	1981
3Lz	Donald Jackson	1962	Denise Biellman	1978
3A	Vern Taylor	1978	Midori Ito	1988
4T	Kurt Browning	1988	Alexandra Trusova	2018
4S	Timothy Goebel	1998	Miki Ando	2002
4Lo	Yuzuru Hanyu	2016	———————–	——-
4F	Shoma Uno	2016	Alexandra Trusova	2019
4Lz	Brandon Mroz	2011	Alexandra Trusova	2018
4A	———————–	—–	——————–	——

For many singles and doubles we have no information, moreover there are not many Olympic gold winners who appear on this list, just Salchow, Button and Hanyu among men, Heine and Witt among women. The list I copied also lacks information about who was the first to perform a particular type of combination, although being the first to perform a particular combination is not something that marks the discipline in the same way as being the first to perform a certain jump. For Button, I rely on Figure Skating’s Greatest Stars by Steve Milton:

“He was constantly adding rare double-jump combinations to his repertoire and, at the 1948 Europeans, he landed five combinations of either two double jumps or a double jump with a spin.” (pag. 14)

According to Milton, the only one crazy enough to try the same jump-spin combination was the American John Lettengarver, one who participated in the World Championship and the Olympics only once, in 1948, getting two fourth places.  Only Button and another American, James Grogan (Olympic bronze in 1952 and World silver for four consecutive seasons between 1951 and 1954), performed steps as part of their choreography. It makes me think of someone crazy enough to do a triple Axel-double toe loop combination (even with raised arms) as a preparatory move for a triple loop. Who wouldn’t be able to do such a thing? However Hanyu, just to please, was the first to perform the quadruple toe loop-euler-triple flip combination and continues to be the only one to have performed the quadruple toe loop-triple Axel sequence, and also the first to do a program with no double jumps but only triple and quadruple jumps (plus an inevitable euler) at the 2018 Helsinki Grand Prix.

Button dominated for five seasons. After winning World silver in 1947, in the year of the resumption of competitions after World War II, he won all he participated in, two Olympics, five world championships, two (or maybe three, I have no idea whether the 1947 edition was held before or after the World Championship) North American Championship and a European Championship. Yes, it is not a mistake, until 1948 all skaters could partecipate in the European Championship, regardless their nationality. Before 1948 the European skaters always won, then in 1948 the American Dick Button won among Men and the Canadian Barbara Ann Scott among Ladies. Promptly the rules were changed to exclude non-European skaters. Button (along with Scott) made a rule change, and when the rule changes for something a skater did, his influence on skating is much greater than in his competitive period.

How many skaters, even if unintentionally, have pushed the ISU to change the rules? Let’s see the ones I know.

Canadians Frances Defoe/Norris Bowden won Olympic silver in 1956, two world golds in 1954 and 1955, two world silver medals in 1953 and 1956. They are the inventors of the lasso lift (or at least one of its first versions) and throw jumps. Yet on their international debut

“…they were criticized for being too athletic” (Milton, pag. 129)

Their programs were considered more suitable for the circus than to competitions, but after their retirement many of the elements they created were incorporated into competitions. The rules were changed to give more space to the athletic aspect.

The importance of compulsory figures was gradually diminished both because it took a long time to perform them and because they were not suitable for a television broadcast. Too technical, they were boring to look at. The television did not broadcast them at all and what the spectators often saw were very good skaters in the free program that sometimes ended the competitions in backward positions because they had been delayed by mediocre compulsory figures. Having no way of understanding the reason for that, the public began to wonder if it wasn’t all combined to make one athlete win rather than another, regardless of their abilities. Probably the most important competition in this sense was the Ladies’ one at the 1970 World Championship. The Austrian Beatrix Schuba, very good in figures, won the first segment of the competition and, despite a not excellent free skate, the seventh, she won the silver. American Janet Lynn performed the second free skate, but due to the eighth place in the figures she only managed to climb up to sixth place. What effect could it have for viewers to see the very good Lynn sixth, and the mediocre (for what was broadcast) Schuba second? At the following congress, the ISU decided that from the following Olympic four-year period the competitions would consist of three segments, with the addition of the short program.

In 1982, the American Elaine Zayak became world champion by performing six triple jumps, four toe loops and two Salchows in the free program. With most of her opponents showing no more than two triples, Zayak outperformed them in quantity, even though her performance lacked variety. Due to her program we have now the Zayak rule.

Jane Torvill/Christopher Dean’s impact in dance is enormous. After their retirement, the ISU changed the rules to prevent other couples from following their path.

“When Torvill and Dean turned pro, the ISU acknowledged, by formally tightening the regulations and insisting that all programs be danceable on a ballrom floor, that some of their moves had indeed been beyond the boundaries.” (Milton, pag. 195)

As for the triple or quadruple jump (what was once the jump preceded by steps) in the short program, in 1990 Kurt Browning included in his short program a triple Axel-double toe loop combination, the double Axel (at that time it was mandatory that it was double, there was no choice between double or triple) and… the triple Axel. He hated the Lutz, he got hurt several times by executing it, but the Axel almost always came well, so why not do it three times? Needless to say, ISU changed the rules, the triple jump not in combination had to be different from the Axel.

The Zagitova rule is quite recent, only the last jump element in the short program, and the last three in the free skate, can receive a bonus, provided they are performed in the second half of the program. This is because at the 2018 Olympics Alina Zagitova placed all of her jumping elements, three in the short program, seven in the free skate, in a position to receive the bonus. I am not sure if a program structured in that way could be called a well balanced program, just as it is not a program in which all the jump elements are placed at the beginning so that a skater can perform them when he isn’t tired. However, after Zagitova won the Olympic gold with her programs structured in that way (and she skated well), ISU changed the rule.

As for Hanyu, although there are no official statements, I suspect that the rules have been changed in three respects precisely in reaction to what he did. The macroscopic change is the transition from the judgment system +3/-3 to +5/-5. According to the official version, in this way the skaters who perform the elements with the highest quality are more rewarded but, from what we have seen, if this was the intention, it has been completely disregarded. What dominates now is the subjectivity of judgment, something that should instead be reduced as much as possible. A jump was also eliminated. The rules came into force in the 2018-2019 season, but  ISU started talking about them in the 2015-2016 season, after the famous NHK Trophy in which Hanyu destroyed the scoring code of points. ISU could solve the problem, balancing the imbalanced, changing the factorization values ​​of the components, but obviously it was too trivial a solution, so they opted for a total change which makes it difficult (but not impossible) to compare how the judges assign the marks and which, in fact, makes their judgment much more important. With honest and qualified judges it would not be a problem, but the conditional is a must. And in 2015-2016 season there were few skaters who could do the same number of quads and triples as Hanyu, with his quality and even in the second half of the program, certainly not in historically strong skating nations, so perhaps it was better to trim his weapons a little by eliminating a jump.

A rather recent change is that it is now no longer possible to repeat more than one quadruple jump. Isn’t it a rule born from the fact that to win at PyeongChang Hanyu did a program containing four quadruples, but they were of only two types, Salchow and toe loop, both performed twice? The last change we probably owe to Hanyu is the oldest. Remember the 2014 Cup of China? In that free skate Hanyu fell five times. Being in poor physical condition due to the clash with Han Yan, he knew that he almost certainly would not be able to complete the jumps, but he also knew that, if he completed the rotations, in terms of points it would be better for him to jump and fall rather than to give up. He was crazy. He has all my admiration for what he managed to do, but if there is a competition for which I am happy not to have been his fan at that time, this is it, because if I had followed him live I would have been sick. Now we know he was extraordinary, but at the time? How did ISU react after this program? From the following season for the third and fourth fall the deduction points are no longer 1.00 but 2.00, from the fifth onward they are 3.00. In 2014 Hanyu had 5.00 deduction points, the following year he would have had 9.00. Moreover, from the following season for a quadruple with GOE -3 the score would have been lowered by 4.00 points, not 3.00. With 6.00 points less, Hanyu’s would have become the fifth free skate, not the second, even if he would still have finished  in second position (also Han Yan, third after the short program, skated badly because after the clash he was very bad too, the others were too far off) and he would have qualified for the Grand Prix final anyway because he passed Jason Brown by 22 points to 20, and the score of the individual competitions was not decisive.

The rules changed in relation to what Hanyu did (and certainly not to help him), so his influence on skating is greater than just the competitions, or only the competitive seasons, in which he participates.

I left Button to talk about the rule changes, I go back to him to talk about the competitions he won. At the time, the Four Continents Championship did not exist. Button had only taken part in one European Championship, and of course he won it, and three North American Championships, and he won those too. In fact, the only international competition he did not win was the 1947 World Championship, the debut one, where he settled for silver, then there were all the other medals, including two Olympic golds and five world championships. The North American Championship was a two-year competition between Canadian and American skaters at the time considered to be of the first level. It was not the equivalent of the current Four Continents Championship, this last competition is attended by skaters from four continents, if it had been a solo Asian competition Hanyu would have won gold both in 2013, when he finished second behind Canadian Kevin Reynolds, and in 2017, when he got another second place behind American Nathan Chen. The Four Continents Championship is a little bit more difficult than the North American Championship was. Button literally dominated for five seasons, Hanyu, even in the best seasons, sometimes had to settle for silver. That said, in Button’s time, compulsory figures were still very important, they made results much more regular, and the risk of injury was much lower. If anything, skaters had to fight with economic problems, since they could not earn anything from skating, under penalty of exclusion from competitions. Even though Hanyu has given up on only one World Championship and two Grand Prix finals, we know that in several competitions, including the second Olympics, his physical condition was far from optimal. Despite a list of injury that would have been enough for three or four skaters, in the last six years he’s never finished a competition in a position lower than second.

Perhaps it’ll be interesting also to see when he was injured. The injuries per se doesn’t talk about the strenght of an athlete, but when an athlete is capable to win so much despite the injures…

Button was the first non-European to win the Olympic and World gold, Hanyu the first Asian to win the Olympic gold and more than one world gold, and being the first of a whole continent is never easy, it means you open new perspectives, which you make many people understand that, even for those who have never obtained certain results before, it is possible to obtain them. This is one of the reasons why Button and Hanyu’s golds are more important than Plushenko’s medals. Plushenko was the fifth Russian/Soviet to win an Olympic gold after Viktor Petrenko (1992, Petrenko is Ukrainian, but in Albertville he competed under the generic flag of the Unified Team because the world was still trying to figure out how to deal with the breakup of the Soviet Union in numerous nations, and previously competed for the Soviet Union), Alexei Urmanov (1994), Ilia Kulik (1998) and Alexei Yagudin (2002). So everyone knew that Russian skaters were strong, but an American in 1948 or a Japanese in 2014?

Button actually had an advantage over Hanyu. The last Olympics before the war took place in 1936, the first after the war in 1948. The last World Championships before the war took place in 1939, the first after the war in 1947. When Button won, all skaters were almost all beginners, very few had competed before and, inevitably, they were no longer very young. To find a place in the Japanese team, Hanyu had to deal with skaters who were several years older than him and with much more experience. Not skaters too advanced in years and therefore no longer competitive on a technical level, Hanyu simply passed among the seniors very young, at 15 years, therefore skaters who were five or six years, or even nine, older than him were in full physical shape and had much more experience. Among his opponents there were skaters like Daisuke Takahashi (at the time of the Japanese Championship of the 2010-2011 season he had already participated in two Olympics, winning a bronze a few months earlier, and in five World Championships, winning a gold and a silver, to limit myself to the main results), Takahiko Kozuka (he had already participated in an Olympics and three World Championships, and at the end of that season he would have won world silver) and Nobunari Oda (one participation in the Olympics, four in World Championship, with a fourth place as best result, two at the Four Continents, and on one of these occasions he had won gold). And, once he won the place, Hanyu also faced Patrick Chan (in 2012, the year of Hanyu’s debut at the World Championship, Chan won his second gold. In Sochi, his second Olympics, Chan showed up with six participation at the World Championship, with two silvers and three consecutive golds around his neck).

In 2012 there were also Brian Joubert in Nice (on the occasion he finished fourth, just behind Hanyu, and we are talking about a skater who had already participated in three Olympics and ten World Championships, winning one gold, three silver and two bronzes) and Denis Ten (already an Olympic participation and three world championships, with the first world medal, a silver, won in 2013), but all were older than Hanyu and practically everyone was more experienced. Same story with the Olympics: Hanyu outperformed skaters more experienced than him. Button was the strongest with skaters who had the same experience, and who may have had more difficulty in training. There had been war in Europe, most of the rinks had been destroyed and many coaches had moved overseas, there is a reason if before the war figure skating had been dominated by Europeans and immediately after the war it was the North Americans who dominated. Winning in the debut Olympics is very difficult, you need experience to be able to face the competition in the best possible way. The only ones who won in their debut Olympics after the war were Dick Button (but it was the debut for everyone), Ilia Kulik (at 20 years and 9 months, he was a bit older than Hanyu at 19 years and two months) and Hanyu.

And when Button’s competed, the World of figure skating was much smaller. I colored in yellow the nations that had sent a skater in the Men’s competitions at the World Championship or at the Olympic Games from 1947 to 1952, in the years of which Button competed. This is the result:

I did the same thing for the years from 2012 to 2019, during Hanyu’s career. This is the result:

Perhaps now to become a strong skater is more difficult, because there are much more adversaries.

Hanyu’s successes are hardly comparable to Button’s, certainly they are superior to those of the skaters who came later. Hanyu is the only man to have completed the Super Slam, i.e. to have won all the major competitions both in the junior category (World Championship and Grand Prix final) and in the senior category (Olympics, World Championship, Grand Final Prix, continental championship, in his case Four Continents Championship). It is not a small result, it implies a consistency of remarkable performances. It wasn’t possible for everyone, Alexey Yagudin and Evgeni Plushenko won everything they could, five of these competitions, but when they were juniors the junior Grand Prix final didn’t exist.

Looking at all categories, very few have completed the Super Slam:

Two Ladies, Yuna Kim and Alina Zagitova, two skaters in Pairs, but with different partners, Maxim Trankov (with Maria Murkhortova and Tatiana Volosozhar) and Aljona Savchenko (with Stanislav Morozov, Robin Szolkowy and Bruno Massot), an Ice Dance couple, Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir, and one man, Yuzuru Hanyu. And in the Men’s field (in the Pairs Sui/Han need only the Olympic gold, thanks to Nymphea for pointing to me their names, among women it is possible for two skaters, even if one of the skater could win the World Championship only after an eventual Olympic success, and them need also to win the Grand Prix Final and the European Championship) at the next Olympics it is highly unlikely that anyone else will be added. Now all the Americans, the Russians, the only Chinese and almost all the Japanese who could aim to win this title are missing at least one of the two youth medals, and it is a medal that they will no longer be able to win. The only exception is Shoma Uno, who has won both youth titles but who, in addition to Olympic gold, also lacks gold in the Grand Prix final and in the World Championship. Even if he wins gold in China his path would still be difficult.

Last chapter of a very long text: world records. Before 2004-2005 season they did not exist because the scoring code was different, you can only check who had scored the most 6.0. The record belongs, I think, to Jane Torvill/Christopher Dean in Ice Dance, and, among the Men, to Evgeni Plushenko. Let’s see how many world records have been achieved and by whom since we switched to the ISU Judging System. I do not consider the records set by someone at the time of the introduction of the new scoring code if he has not won at least one medal at the World Championship. Too easy to set the world record if you are the first to skate. Let’s not do like Ted Burton who, commenting on Kana Muramoto/Daisuke Takahashi’s performance at the NHK Trophy, said “Wow! A personal best! “. It was their first competition together, they necessarily set the personal best. Burton could have said if that score was high or not in relation to the strongest pairs, or even shut up, he would have done a better figure. I only look at men:

20

19        Yuzuru Hanyu

18

17

16

15

14

13        Evgeni Plushenko

12

11

10

9

8

7          Patrick Chan

6          Nathan Chen

5

4          Takeshi Honda, Shoma Uno

3          Jeffrey Buttle, Daisuke Takahashi

2          Michael Weiss

1          Takahiko Kozuka, Mikhail Kolyada

Maybe there is someone who has set a few more records than the others. If we want to make comparisons between Hanyu and any other skater we can do them, but if we stay in the post-war period and the skater is not called Dick Button (and in my opinion what Hanyu did is a little more difficult), there is no doubt who is the strongest. Hanyu is still in business, but everything he will do now, everything he did after PyeongChang, is something more.

He is the GOAT, regardless of the result of the next Olympics Games.

Edit: I added some more considerations here: https://sportlandiamartina.link/2021/02/19/again-on-the-goat/.