Yuzuru Hanyu talks about "Jump". Trying hard make him happy. (4ページ目)

Hanyu, however, recovered from the difficult situation in the latter stage of the free skate with his "most confident" quadruple toe loop and triple Axel, adding a triple toe loop following the toe loop he couldn't complete for the quadruple Salchow, making it a sequence. He also inserted a double toe loop while raising both hands after a triple Axel, gaining 1.86 GOE points. He successfully executed the last triple Axel as well, and two spins earned level four marks. Eight judges out of nine awarded full GOE points for his choreography sequence.

Hanyu's free skate earned 195.92 points. But the winner was Nathan Chen of the United States, who successfully performed four quadruple jumps including a Lutz, gaining 293.79 points in total. Hanyu finished 3.02 points behind Chen to come second, but was the best in the free skate.

"Now I feel that including a Lutz is very hard," he said. "All in all, I feel I didn't train enough for this composition. As for the free skate, I popped two quadruples and performed only two combinations, those were big mistakes. Nevertheless, I could come first in the free skate because I included a quadruple Lutz. Many errors in the short programme caused this result, which is a shame."

Hanyu said the short programme made him frustrated because the composition was almost the same as that of the previous season, with him only moving sequence jumps from a quadruple from the first half to the latter.

On the other hand, the free skate including a quadruple Lutz still seemed hard for him, and he struggled with balance, concentration, and mindset. When asked about this, Hanyu replied with a smile that, "This is Hanyu, sorry". He then continued with determination, "I need much more training."

His relentless challenge resulted in a huge injury at the next NHK trophy, making him vulnerable for the Pyeongchang Olympics. But if Hanyu didn't try a quadruple Lutz at that time he would have been frustrated after the Olympics - even if he did achieve consecutive golds. Because, "Trying to be the best at any point" is the motto of Yuzuru Hanyu.