Yuzuru Hanyu: The Yuzu Era in Points

It’s the end of the figure skating season and time to sit back and take a look at what has happened over the course of the last couple of seasons.

Significant changes in the direction of a sport usually evolve over time.  However, a new era in mens figure skating, the “quad mania era” has now evolved within a single four year Olympic cycle.  Yes, quads have been landed since 1988 (Kurt Browning) but since then the mens field has toyed with quads and having a single quad has over time (1990’s 2000’s), slowly progressed to being a baseline requirement for competitive mens skating.

Not too long ago in 2010, at the Vancouver Olympics, Evan Lysacek won the gold medal without a quad.  While Evgeny Plushenko was clearly disappointed and voiced his displeasure about this, by the time the 2014 Olympics in Sochi rolled around, the men were doing multiple types of quads consistently.  At a minimum, the 2014 podium men were doing a quad in their short programs and 2 or 3 quads in their long programs. Plushy was very happy about this.

Flash forward again to the upcoming 2018 Olympics and we expect that the eventual gold medal winner will have at least 7 planned quads over 2 programs.  Some call it progress and then there are those that are worried about the sport being changed into a pure jumping competition.  I’m not going to debate whether or not less or more quads is better because it is a personal preference.  Does the artistic side of skating lose when more quads are added?  Sure, and some skaters have openly voiced that same concern. But then you will also have those that complain that skating is not a true sport because of the artistic nature and the subjective judging.  These types of people might enjoy the move to a more pure jumping competition.  You can’t please everyone, so for me, I just enjoy skating the way that I do, and admire the skaters that I admire.

Yuzu is one of the few skaters that has the ability to excel in both areas (technical and artistically).  Yuzu has routinely and recently said that while he is increasing the technical difficultly of his programs, he wants to keep an eye on the artistic side and make sure that neither suffers.  Yuzu has great intentions and even while we suffer through his yearly early season struggles, when he cannot put together a clean program, there are those times when he gives us evidence of his pure brilliance and continues to break his own world records.  In those moments of jubilation, we forget about the blood, sweat and tears it took to get there.  Those moments leave sports commentators, the coaches, the judges, other skaters, and the fans stunned and speechless.

I must continue to give credit to Yuzu’s choreographers (Jeff and Shae-Lyne) because they have been the masterminds behind those world record breaking programs and understood Yuzu and his dreams and visions for his skating.  Both Jeff and Shae-Lyne have a special connection to Yuzu, and know how to incorporate and weave Yuzu’s desired technical content into an intricate story that Yuzu can show us through his expressions on the ice.  I pray to the skating gods that Yuzu stays with both of them for this upcoming Olympic seasons’ programs.

For this post, I wanted to summarize the current Yuzu Era in points; the 100 point, the 200 point, and the 300 point plateaus.

Since Yuzu broke these barriers, they are aptly named by me as the “Yuzu Point Eras“. These point barriers have stood for a long time, and are milestones that have taken a long time to overcome.  Now they serve more as goals for skaters and no longer appear to be unreachable.  Yuzu has changed the way we think about the point barriers.  We now think of them as not “if” they can be achieved/broken, but “when”.

All stats listed below are as of the end of 2016-2017 season.  The points I have included in my lists are from ISU sanctioned events only.

 

 

Yuzu: 100 Point Plateau

In only 2 short seasons, the Short Program record books have been re-written.  Here is a link to a post I wrote in April 2015 (at the end of 2014/2015 season) of the top 6 scores in the SP!!  At that time, Yuzu was the only skater to eclipse the 100 point mark.

https://sportymags.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/short-programs-top-6-highest-scoring-sps-of-all-time/

Now take a look at how many +100 point short programs have made the list in the last 2 seasons.  As of the end of the 2016-2017 season, here are the 100 point programs.  Even though there are a lot of scores in the +100 list now, it still remains a very special milestone for each skater that is able to achieve it.

Points	Skater	Event	World Record
110.95	Yuzuru Hanyu	2015 Grand Prix Final	WR
110.56	Yuzuru Hanyu	2016 World Championships
109.05	Javier Fernandez	2017 World Championships
106.53	Yuzuru Hanyu	2016 Grand Prix Final
106.33	Yuzuru Hanyu	2015 NHK Trophy	WR
105.74	Shoma Uno	2016 Team Challenge Cup
104.86	Shoma Uno	2017 World Championships
104.25	Javier Fernandez	2017 European Championships
103.89	Yuzuru Hanyu	2016 NHK Trophy
103.53	Shoma Uno	2017 World Team Trophy
103.12	Nathan Chen	2017 Four Continents Championships
102.54	Javier Fernandez	2016 European Championships
102.13	Patrick Chan	2017 World Championships
101.45	Yuzuru Hanyu	2014 Olympics	WR
100.28	Shoma Uno	2017 Four Continents Championships

 

Yuzu: 200 Point Plateau

When Yuzu became the first skater to brake the 200 point barrier at the 2015 NHK Trophy, he didn’t just hit the 200 mark, he destroyed it.  As soon as the “quad-mania” era started, the 200 barrier really didn’t stand a chance, although it is worth a mention that Yuzu broke this barrier prior to the start of this new quad mania.  Here is a look at all of the times that the 200 point barrier has been broken in the last 2 seasons.

Points	Skater	Event	World Record
223.20	Yuzuru Hanyu	2017 World Championships	WR
219.48	Yuzuru Hanyu	2015 Grand Prix Final	WR
216.41	Javier Fernandez	2016 World Championships
216.07	Yuzuru Hanyu	2015 NHK Trophy	WR
214.45	Shoma Uno	2017 World Championships
206.67	Yuzuru Hanyu	2017 Four Continents Championships
204.94	Boyang Jin	2017 World Championships
204.34	Nathan Chen	2017 Four Continents Championships
203.99	Patrick Chan	2016 Four Continents Championships
201.43	Javier Fernandez	2016 Rostelecom Cup
201.43	Javier Fernandez	2015 Grand Prix Final
200.49	Yuzuru Hanyu	2017 World Team Trophy
200.23	Javier Fernandez	2016 European Championships

 

 

Yuzu: 300 Point Plateau

 

Naturally, when the 100 and 200 point barriers were broken, we knew the 300 point barrier was going to fall pretty quickly.  Since the 200 point barrier was shattered by Yuzu, it stood to reason that the 300 point barrier wasn’t going to be just reached, it was annihilated (2015 NHK Trophy).

To grasp how far the sport has truly tilted since 2014, prior to the 2016/2017 season, could we ever have imagined a world in figure skating where a skater scores over 300 combined total points in an event and doesn’t even make the podium?  Well, it happened at the 2017 World Championships in Helsinki to Javier Fernandez.

What does this knowledge do to an upcoming young skater?  Cue the 12 and 13 year old quad jumping beans that are already trying and succeeding at landing multiple types of quads.  So, then the next question would be “how long is this sustainable”?  No one knows the answer to this question.

Points	Skater	Event	World Record
330.43	Yuzuru Hanyu	2015 Grand Prix Final	WR
322.40	Yuzuru Hanyu	2015 NHK Trophy	WR
321.59	Yuzuru Hanyu	2017 World Championships
319.31	Shoma Uno	2017 World Championships
314.93	Javi Fernandez	2016 World Championships
307.46	Nathan Chen	2017 Four Continents Championships
303.71	Yuzuru Hanyu	2017 Four Continents Championships
303.58	Boyang Jin	2017 World Championships
302.77	Javier Fernandez	2016 European Championships
301.47	Yuzuru Hanyu	2016 NHK Trophy
301.19	Javier Fernandez	2017 World Championships

 

 

We will soon be entering the Olympic season.  The 2017/2018 season will be a unique season, not only because it is an Olympic season but it is the last season before a couple of key rule changes come into effect.

Rule change #292: Starting in 2018-2019, reduce the number of both junior and senior men’s jumping passes in the free skate from 8 to 7

Rule change #278:  Starting in 2018-2019, increase GOE range from ± 1-3 to ± 1-5.

 

My dream is for Yuzu’s world records to stand forever.  With the new rule changes it is impossible to know how the scores will be affected.  Initially when I read that the number of jumping passes would be reduced, I thought that my dream of Yuzu’s records standing forever would come true.  But, then you factor in the change of GOE range from 3 to 5, and the way the judges hand out GOE bonuses like it’s free candy sometimes, it scares me to think of what type of inflated scores might come along in the future and challenge Yuzu’s records.  For this reason (and many others) I hope Yuzu continues to compete a couple more seasons after the Olympics to see how his scores would change with the new rules.

We won’t know what the true impact of removing a jumping pass will be until after the Olympic season.  Will skaters just start eliminating the lowest base value jumps in order to maximize points on the reduced number of jumping passes?  Will there be more emphasis on cleaner programs vs just maximizing point value layouts?  What kinds of strategies will we see from the skaters?  Do younger skaters start trying quad flips and lutzes first instead of quad toes and salchows because they are worth more in base value points?  So many potential questions, and so few answers.

One thing we do know for sure.  The upwards trajectory of the volume of quad jumps (and further into quad axel and quints) cannot possibly continue to rise forever and ever.  It’s only May 2017 and I’m nervous already.

 

 

Go Yuzu Go!!!  Doki Doki!!

 

Sources of data:

http://www.isu.org/en/single-and-pair-skating-and-ice-dance/statistics-and-world-standings/statistics-including-personal-bestseason-best-information

Wikipedia and ISU protocal sheets for all skaters listed above.