Yesterday I wrote a text in reaction to what I had seen a few hours earlier. Like all texts in which I am very emotionally involved, I wrote in Italian, because English forces me to think about words, spelling, grammar, and the feelings disappear. A friend translated it for me.

Originally, only the title was in English, all the rest was in Italian. In my opinion some expressions have a more beautiful sound in English, or maybe it’s just the context in which my mind inserts them, and with Yuzu I am using English much more often. Even at that moment, immediately after the end of Roncapu, after seeing that score that I didn’t want to see. I decided that watching Shoma Uno’s program wasn’t the most important thing. I could watch that program later. At the moment, the most important matter was to take a picture of the three Winnie the Pooh who were keeping me company – and I still don’t understand where the fourth, the largest and most beautiful went – and post it with a simple sentence: No matter what, we are always with you.

No matter what. I used the plural, because I know that there are many who agree with me, and because at certain times it is good to remember exactly that: we are many, even if each of us reacts in his own way. I know that I got up in the middle of the night, hoping to experience the same magic of December, and that within seconds from the start of the music that magic disappeared, faded into a simple Salchow. But is it really gone?

I know figure skating, the scores, the skaters, the judges, well enough to know what that mistake meant in terms of the competition. To fully understand its scope I had to wait for the end of the program, see all the scores, the gaps, the rankings, but from the very first moment, when Yuzu was still flying, I knew that something was over. But what?

I was at home, sitting comfortably. I didn’t have to do anything, just watch. And I kept watching an otherwise extraordinary program. How do you react when things don’t go your way? I often freeze; I struggle to go further. How many skaters have we seen performing disastrous programs because they were unable to move forward after the initial mistake? In this case, as we discovered later, there was not even a mistake, just a lot of bad luck. In the replay you can clearly see the cloud of ice that rises just before the jump. Before the jump, and that says it all. That’s when his blade went into the hole. It could have been worse, Yuzu could have fallen, maybe even get hurt. His competition ended at that moment. Or maybe not.

The run-up to Olympic gold ended at that moment. At the third Olympic gold, because Yuzu has already won two, and this is something that nothing can erase. The third gold will not arrive, we may see a medal, but medals are not the most important thing. The goal, now, is the quadruple Axel. We’ve known this for years. Will he make it happen? I have no idea, I am convinced that, if it is humanly possible, and if he does not get hurt, he will succeed. Two really big “ifs”. Will he do it in Beijing? I have no idea; I can only wait, hope and watch. Anyway, the quadruple Axel is a goal, but not the whole. Yuzu takes figure skating too seriously, he has too much respect for the discipline he has dedicated his life to, to reduce it all to one jump. He never did. Even when he was a child, a jump had to be part of a program, a program that was a whole and not just a mix of technical elements. This past December he tried for the first time to perform a quadruple Axel in competition. That element made him lose points, and even before the start of the competition, he knew that it was probably going to be so. It could have been better, if the jump had been underrotated instead of downgraded, or if he had landed it on one foot and not two. It could have been worse if he fell on it. But he is chasing a dream, and if trying to land a quadruple Axel is what drives him to move forward, I will support his dream.

However, I support Yuzu because he is him. I support him because over the years he had to face an infinite number of difficulties and has always overcome them, with intelligence and determination, always taking responsibility for his choices, without getting a big head and showing considerable generosity and empathy. I support him because that day after having missed the quadruple Axel he performed an extraordinary program; because now, after the single Salchow due to an unfortunate event, he has not given up.

I had started checking those absurd scores, the combination 4T+3T without GOE +5, the incredibly low PCS’ scores, the judges (the one from Israel especially had apparently started with a low mark and capped the components from that moment on, even though there was no big mistakes: Yuzu didn’t fall or lose his connection to the music or ruin his choreography, he only popped a jump), or GOEs higher than +3 to small jumps of other skaters, then I gave up. I might come back to it, it’s a longtime that scores are plain non-sense and this competition is no exception, but… but today I rather not. Scores are absurd, the results at competitions are absurd, and I’m not saying here that Yuzu should be first. Not today, not with an invalidated element; the numbers we see, though, have nothing to do with reality. And reality tells us there’s a man who was unlucky, but didn’t stop.

How hard is it to go on when you face an endless series of obstacles? He suffers from asthma since his childhood, then there was the closing of his ice rink, the earthquake, moving into a new context, uninterrupted injuries, the pressure created by media and expectations, his federation supporting him only seldom. How hard is it to go on after winning everything? I could write down a list, and it would be quite longer than the one of a very praised étoile, but I won’t, because victories are not what counts most. It’s easy to root for someone when they win. It’s less easy to keep in mind what really counts in tough times.

How hard is it to go on practicing at night, alone, day after day, keeping on falling because you’re trying to do something that nobody has done before, that might be impossible to achieve? How hard is it to stick up for yourself, when everything seems against you? How hard is it to complete an extraordinary program, knowing that you’re not the master of your own fate, and that the usual vultures will say you’re finished?
Yuzu’s goal wasn’t the gold medal, not this time. Of course, since he competes he did mean to try with all his might and win: you don’t compete to show off, you compete to give your best. Always. And “always” means also completing an extraordinary program after an incident that put an end to almost any hope of victory. An athlete aims to victory. A man, when he’s more than an athlete, accepts defeat and goes on all the way.

A figure skating program is not only about a competition. When it’s beautifully built, well-rounded and perfectly interpreted, it is art. And art can’t be left out just because things are going awry. Yuzu didn’t hesitate, not even for a second. His blade bumped into a hole ruining the perfection of the ice. His brain processed the mistake, his body had instinctively the best reaction possible in order to protect itself and to avoid another injury. It took me hours to choose not to work on my file about scorings, not to fuel any argument (however worthy), although one day I’ll probably do it. I think that Yuzu put everything aside while he was still mid-air, before landing his single Salchow. That’s how his mind works: immediately. He’s been able to change the second part of a combination after landing the first one, he doesn’t need much time to analyze what’s just happened, what is still to come. The hole in the ice, the missed quadruple Salchow: while he was mid-air, they were in the past already. In the future, in the so near future, he still had a program to skate. 

In December, when he made a mistake in the quadruple Axel at the beginning of Ten to Chi to, Yuzu knew that he needed to be perfect, if he wanted to win. He was perfect. In Roncapu, he knew that nothing could help him. He was perfect. If we didn’t know the rules, if we didn’t know that a quadruple was supposed to be there, we wouldn’t notice anything. That jump is not as elegant as usual – of course: the blade was suddenly, unexpectedly diverted – but the rest of the program is a masterpiece. The fact alone that, after an incident that tore his hopes of victory to pieces, Yuzu could skate like he did, is so much more extraordinary than a world record set thanks to the judges, who sometimes choose to give scores in bulk.

The free program has still to be skated. Yuzu will try to jump the quadruple Axel. Will he succeed? I have no idea. But I know he will stick up for himself, and will fight until the very end. 
Fly, Yuzu. No matter what, I will always be with you.