Cacophony of the outraged

Wrong words - and what they can cause

Figure skating is not an aggressive sport. Skaters compete against each other, but off the ice they are mostly friendly with each other. Rivals might sit together in the dining room and have lunch before they go out trying to better each other on the ice a few hours later. But sometimes their fans think they need to be at war with each other.

In the Men’s short program practice at the practice rink at the World Figure Skating Championships in Boston on Wednesday, March 30, Japan’s super star Yuzuru Hanyu and Kazakhstan’s Olympic bronze medalist Denis Ten got close to each other on the ice. This happens sometimes, skaters get too close to each other, maybe not paying enough attention as they are too absorbed in what they are doing. Several eye witnesses confirmed that Yuzuru was skating to his music while Denis was doing a spin. There was enough room around Denis, but Yuzuru almost ran into him. There was no physical contact, nobody was hurt. Apparently Yuzuru got upset and yelled at Denis.

It was a minor incident that usually quickly would have been forgotten. Unfortunately, when Yuzuru spoke to the press in the mixed zone that day, he accused Denis of trying to hurt him and intentionally being in his way. There was no reason for this kind of severe accusation, however, some media greedily picked it up and blew the whole incident out of proportion.

Who could seriously believe that one skater tried to hurt another skater? I’ve been covering figure skating for more than 20 years now. I’ve seen many near-collisions in practice and warm up and several actual collisions, but never ever one skater accused another skater of intentionally trying to do anything wrong. Yuzuru probably said this as he was under high stress and had the terrible accident on his mind when he collided with Han Yan in the warm up during Cup of China in 2014. So he kind of overreacted, but some journalists happily used it to create a scandal and even wrote about a “protest” or “complaint” that the Japanese Skating Federation planned to file.

As a result, some of Yuzuru’s fans also overreacted and started sending threats and hate mail to Denis. Authorities in Kazakhstan read the one-sided media reports and were not amused. There were also reasonable voices from journalists and fans, but they somehow were overheard in the cacophony of the outraged. Someone even went as far as posting a video from another warm up or practice session where Denis and Yuzuru came close to each other and used this as “proof”. Get a life. You can see many, many such situations between many different skaters. Interesting enough, the video of the practice session in Boston was not shown, although Fuji TV was there and taped the session. There should be footage from the incident, but they don’t release it.

Unfortunately, the Japanese Skating Federation apparently did not realize how the whole situation developed and did not intervene right away. Only on Saturday team leader Yoshiko Kobayashi told the press that the Federation doesn’t file any kind of protest and never intended to do so. The Japanese Skating Federation also confirmed this in a letter to the Kazakhstan authorities.

In the end, only both skaters suffered from these careless words in the mixed zone, because Yuzuru received also some criticism. Yuzuru approached Denis on Saturday, they talked to each other, they shook hands. They closed this chapter, but unfortunately some people (who think they are fans) still didn’t let go. Even when Denis published a photo of him and Yuzuru shaking hands, they wouldn’t stop arguing.

It is enough now.

And, by the way, in the free skating practice at the main rink on Friday, Yuzuru, who was skating to his music, got really close to Shoma Uno, who was doing a spin. Shoma just was able to get out of the way in the last second. Would anyone seriously believe that Shoma was intentionally in Yuzuru’s way or tried to hurt him?

Tatjana Flade