- Joined
- May 21, 2009
For Junior worldsChina has 2 Pairs spots this year (see Communication 2266).
pairs -2
men-1
lady-1
ice dance-1
For worlds
Pairs - 3 spots
Men - 2
Lady - 1
Ice dance - 1
For Junior worldsChina has 2 Pairs spots this year (see Communication 2266).
Wow, Yu Xiaoyu is on the website of the Ice Partner Search.
https://www.icepartnersearch.com/showbio.php?i=6729
Will Yu/Zhang get split or Yu change the nationality?
And what about Ashley Lin? She was supposed to be eligible for 4CC or Worlds... But her name didn't appeared on any lists.
And Emily Zhang?
And the ten other international skaters supposed to join the Chinese team for the Olympics?
And what about Ashley Lin? She was supposed to be eligible for 4CC or Worlds... But her name didn't appeared on any lists.
And Emily Zhang?
And the ten other international skaters supposed to join the Chinese team for the Olympics?
And Emily Zhang?
And the ten other international skaters supposed to join the Chinese team for the Olympics?
I think perhaps you are exaggerating the number and overestimating how competitive some of these international athletes are?
i believe there was some communication gap between zhang and yu.
zhang is still recovering from serious injuries, and couldn't train for the most important domestic competition, which was supposed to be in Feb.
yu maybe disappointed and just posted the partner search ad without communicating with zhang.
with the corona virus situation in china, the competition is postponed to the year end, hope yu/zhang can recover physically & mentally and back on ice together again soon.
honestly, with yu's height, its quite difficult to get a suitable partner in china, unless she can represent other country. anyway, good luck to the skaters, hope can see them all again soon.
Are there any updates regarding Xiaoyu?
Rewatching 2019 Worlds and I really enjoy Hongyi Chen's skating. She has an elegant yet powerful persona. Hope to see good things from her in the future.
A new article with Nini's (Xiangyi An's) mother came out and I am in absolute shock.
A reddit user translated some of the parts but only around 1/10 (as the article is extremly long) the rest can be put into Google translate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkat...vealing_interview_with_an_xiangyis_mother_in/
Here the original article
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LzQq035W35eOO3qLFwJRAg
According to the article Nini's mother controls Nini's whole life. Several mentions of physical as well as emotional abuse. Nini has never gone to school. She has no education, because she has to train all day. Nini is also not allowed to have friends.
One time Nini's mother forced Nini to jump a 3Lz+3T 300 times in a row until Nini's leg was injured and they had to go to a doctor. Nini is constantly injured due to overtraining... the article and all the horrible things in it are so long and extensive that I cannot even list them all here. I am in absolute shock..
Read it for yourself.
The article came out a week ago and has shocked the whole figure skating fandom in China.
How reliable is this article? It would be unacceptable if it were true, but my issue is that the level of abuse is almost ridiculous in its severity (like the sort of slanderous charges that are usually dismissed in court). Zhang Aijun's purported parenting style would be unlikely to produce a skater with the apparent success that we see from her daughter (at least for now). Also, if Xiangyi is part of the national team (whose training system is backed by sports science and have been reliable at least in producing consistent pairs), wouldn't they prevent her mum from interfering in training with unproductive/unscientific methods (e.g. unnecessary stress-fracture-inducing jump repetition)? Does anybody know of official records of Xiangyi missing competitions or parts of seasons due to injury, so we can corroborate?
My general impression of Weixin/Weibo is that a lot of sensational tabloid-style articles are common - there seems to be a lot of content designed to generate incredulity and outrage (and thus views). Given also that tiger mumming is both a bit of a fetish and a stereotype (without necessarily being a widespread reality), this article panders somewhat to people's confirmational biases. So, I'm wondering if either the article's reporting is unreliable, or if perhaps Xiangyi's mum is exaggerating her parenting approach for publicity (even if it's negative, some people still desire it).
I can believe that there is at least some truth to the interview (e.g. 50-100 jumps a day spread across two ice sessions would be a high but realistic training load for e.g. Russian girls) but maybe not the the extent that she is describing (it's almost like she's bragging to intimidate Xiangyi's competitors...) Also some hilarious details call into doubt factual accuracy e.g. Ms Zhang being an adult skater learning singles in her 30s and miscarrying due to training overload... I learned single jumps in adulthood and there is no imaginable way that this level of exertion would cause miscarriage. Or maybe the point was to illustrate her being obsessive enough to jump while in late pregnancy (...why not work on footwork instead?)
In no way do I want to minimize child abuse - if Xiangyi is indeed being abused then I hope the authorities intervene (it's in the interest of the Chinese skating federation too, since such an environment is unsustainable). However, I am inclined to think that that there is a strong element of narcissism/exaggeration mixed in with Ms Zhang's account of her own abusiveness. I've definitely seen aspects of her parenting approach in a milder form with some skaters' parents, and admit the tendency for some Asian parents to be pushy (though not my own), but this 'tiger parenting' subculture is as much about boasting of making one's child work hard (implicitly in comparison to others) as it is about the actual methods employed at home. Nobody just goes about being a tiger parent privately at home; rather, it's a proverbial dick-measuring contest where they feel the need to flex their 'parenting skills' to fellow parents.
Apologies for the long post - contemporary mainland Chinese media culture is still something I am slowly wrapping my head around, and this article raised some wider points that I felt the need to articulate.