Although the Russian and North American judges’ expertise is world-renowned, North America’s top ice dance athletes had retired, and the Russian ice dance scene hadn’t yet risen. There was no one to support the judges if they wanted to cause trouble, so for now, the best ice dance pair was still the “Dreams Come True” duo.

They had no real competitors and no serious injuries. With their amazing choreography and great performances, it was no surprise when they took first place in the first competition.

In comparison, the pairs skating event was much more suspenseful.

The two leading skaters in China’s pairs skating were not in good form. Huang Ying had blown up several balloons, and Guan Lin had injuries from long-term overtraining. Unfortunately, he couldn’t avoid this kind of training because if he lacked strength, Huang Ying, his female partner, would have a higher chance of injury.

Just when everyone was mentally preparing for their failure, these two athletes, who struggled with their jumps and throws during practice, somehow managed to bring their A-game and finished the short program cleanly.

Coach Ma, as their head coach, stood by the rink, watching their performance, almost in tears.

“Hey, they did it, they did it! Ying Ying’s single jumps during practice were never clean. I had prepared for them to downgrade the difficulty of their jumps, but they even nailed a 3S!”

Although Coach Ma was just under forty, the stress had already caused him to get quite a few gray hairs. He wiped his eyes with a tissue, then held their knife covers, coats, and towels, waiting at the side of the rink for his students to return, like a loving father.

Shen Liu smiled and sighed with Zhang Junbao: “Coach Ma’s mood right now is probably the same as when we watched Zhang Jue clean his free skate at the 2013 World Championships.” (Chapter 113)

Zhang Junbao nodded in agreement.

At that time, Zhang Jue had been dealing with growth issues, new skates, injuries, and other problems, requiring three rounds of injections in one season. His blood was thin, and when he finished his free skate at the World Championships, the kid cried on the ice. Zhang Junbao and Shen Liu’s eyes also turned red.

Everyone thought Zhang Jue might leave the ice, but luckily, he didn’t give up. He controlled his weight and met Coach Lu at a commercial rink, who helped him improve his skills. He went on to the Winter Olympics and eventually reached the peak again.

Though Huang Ying and Guan Lin had passed their growth stages, the injury phase was even tougher. Zhang Junbao and Shen Liu had watched these two kids grow up and were also hoping they could overcome this hurdle soon.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but in recent years, the domestic skating coaches who have produced excellent results all treated their students like children. They may not be good with official matters, and at the beginning, Zhang Junbao didn’t even discuss salary with his superiors. The work of socializing was mostly handled by Coach Sun and Coach Jiang, but they devoted all their energy to their athletes.

Whether it was Coach Ma, who had turned gray from worry, Zhang Junbao, who was sent to the hospital by Zhang Jue for liver protection medicine, Shen Liu, who secretly ate hair growth pills, or Coach Lu, who was still studying human anatomy at seventy-four to improve his professional skills, all of them were respected coaches.

Zhang Jue knew that without their presence, Chinese figure skating wouldn’t be flourishing like it was now.

Without them, the four events in figure skating would only have Huang Ying and Guan Lin barely holding on, Jiang Xiuling would have been defeated by injuries and growth, and in men’s singles, there would only be Jin Zixuan, whose performance was unstable, and Cha Hanbuhua wouldn’t be able to land a quadruple jump for years.

By the time of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou cycle, even women’s singles wouldn’t have stable 33-triple combinations, and the top female skater could only land a 32 at the World Championships.

Ice dance still had no name.

In the past, there were even fewer promising reserves in domestic figure skating. In men’s singles, Cha Hanbuhua was the only hope, and there were no decent skaters in other events to take over.

The path to becoming a professional athlete, especially in figure skating, was very difficult, with big investments but uncertain results. If a skater didn’t make it, the sunk cost was enormous. This was similar to how Ms. Zhang Qingyan always urged Zhang Jue to study, worried that if he got injured skating, he wouldn’t have a stable future after retiring.

If there were no iconic, successful athletes to show the benefits of success in skating, even families who could afford to support their children in training wouldn’t send them down that path. At most, they’d prefer their children to study, as that was more stable.

In other words, if Zhang Jue didn’t have his current fame and earnings, families of outstanding athletes like Min Shan, Jiang Yihong, Meng Xiaolei, Qin Meng, Lu Qiu, and Sai Peng/Sai Qiong wouldn’t have considered sending their kids to become professional athletes.

Looking at it this way, Zhang Jue could also claim to be a major contributor to the rise of domestic figure skating.

Though pairs skating still only had the duo of Jiang Xiuling and Luo Mi to watch, the situation was improving. One day, Huang Ying and Guan Lin wouldn’t have to suffer through injuries.

Zhang Jue believed that day would eventually come.

After the ice dance and pairs competitions ended, the women’s singles free skate began.

However, just when everyone thought Keiko would definitely take the gold and Min Shan would win silver in her first year in the senior category, an old saying in the figure skating world proved true once again.

In women’s singles, until the very end, no one knew how the story would unfold.

Perhaps due to pressure, Keiko skated very tensely in the first half of her free skate. Her first 3A landing was off, and she had to use her hands to stabilize herself, losing 3 points in GOE. Her second jump, a 3Lz-3T, also had a mistake. There were seven jumping sequences in the free skate, and she had three jumps with negative GOE.

Coach Hayato Teraoka watched this, frowning deeply: “She had a huge advantage from the short program, but if the others skate clean, Keiko might end up off the podium.”

Keiko was 17 years old. After the Sochi cycle, she had always been the dominant force in women’s singles. No one expected her to perform so poorly today.

Zhang Jue immediately noticed the problem: “She’s under a lot of pressure. The mistakes weren’t due to injury or anything physical, but psychological factors.”

However, mental state was hard to define, and Keiko herself was frustrated. Her body fat percentage was 14%, and her menstrual cycle was unstable. On the day of the free skate, her period started unexpectedly, causing abdominal pain and mood swings. Who could control something like that?

She couldn’t bring herself to explain this to others, so she just accepted that her mindset had collapsed during the performance.

Serena from Russia saw this and her eyes lit up. She had originally thought she might only make it to the podium, but now that Keiko was faltering, this was her chance.

The blonde beauty gritted her teeth, deciding to attempt her highest difficulty. She tried a 3F-3Lo combo, but fell badly and struggled through the rest of her program.

Her coach, Vasily, widened his eyes in disbelief: “What’s going on with her?”

“Why would she suddenly take such a huge risk when she could just skate steadily and get a medal?”

Serena grimaced as she left the rink, mumbling: “But when I watched Little Crocodile compete, whenever he saw his opponent make a mistake, he would take a risk with a big jump, and he always nailed it.”

Vasily sighed in exasperation: “How can you compare yourself to him? When we chatted during commercial performances, he told me that he only attempts jumps with a success rate over 60% in competitions. Even when he goes for big difficulty, he only does moves with a success rate above 50%. Your 3F-3Lo has a success rate of only 40%, and you don’t have his guts. How dare you try it?”

Zhang Jue’s technical reserves and mentality were unmatched by ordinary people. His coach, Shen Liu, even posted a short video online of Zhang Jue completing a 4lz3T3lo3T1lo3S3lo2lo combination jump. Although the caption was just a short line saying “Little Jue condition was good today,” it still demonstrated how strong Zhang Jue’s reserves were. As long as he wasn’t injured, that guy was like a spring-loaded leg.

If Serena could compare her technical reserves and mentality to Zhang Jue’s, she should have become the women’s single champion at the Sochi Winter Olympics two years ago, rather than seeing the former champion struggle through anorexia to compete.

Katerina was also confused when she saw her senior fall far from the podium. The young girl was only 16 years old and lacked the competition experience and mentality to handle such situations. She thought to herself: “If my senior can’t make it to the podium, I can’t continue to fail like this either.”

So the young girl made a firm decision to abandon the idea of taking a risk and going for a high-difficulty jump while her senior was already out of the running. Instead, she used a set of stable jumps she had prepared for unexpected injury situations.

High stability meant lower difficulty, so Katerina skated a clean program, with decent emotional expression, but her score was average.

Vasily was furious: “Why didn’t you tell me you were lowering the difficulty?”

What was going on with these two girls? Were they trying to make him angry today?

Athletes could only take matters into their own hands if such decisions helped them achieve better results. Take Zhang Jue for example; he could mess around without anyone caring because he had a brilliant track record. But if other athletes did the same, they’d only face their coach’s wrath.

Meanwhile, Min Shan, who was under the watchful eyes of Coach Lu, Zhang Junbao, and Shen Liu, had no idea about this.

After all, Zhang Junbao had already noticed that his student was easily influenced by her competitors’ performances, so he simply forbade her from watching other people’s competitions. She could check her score and ranking after she had finished her own performance.

They went so far as to prevent Min Shan from sneaking a peek at other skaters. They almost wanted to lock her in a stairwell to warm up, as skipping rope or stretching could be done anywhere, even in a narrow space. So, Min Shan really did her warm-up in the stairwell.

The young girl even asked her mother to curl her hair for the competition and applied light makeup. She wore a black costume adorned with gold and red dots in the style of Gryffindor’s school uniform.

Because her family had quite a bit of financial power, Min Shan’s costume was made from “heavenly girl’s feather clothes,” making it look incredibly elegant.

She was the type of person who remained petite even after development, with a beautiful and cute face. When standing next to the muscular Zhang Junbao, she looked especially adorable.

Yin Meijing and Liu Mengcheng sat next to Zhang Jue, and when they saw this, they sighed with him: “Every time I see Shan Shan, I think of you back in your youth.”

Liu Mengcheng joked: “I remember the Japanese calling the little crocodile the cutest goddess on ice. Shan Shan is the ice’s big cutie king. You both are very popular!”

Zhang Jue blushed: “No, no, I was cute when I was young, but calling me number one is an exaggeration.”

Liu Mengcheng: “You’re really not humble.”

At that moment, Min Shan completed a graceful 3A.

Many experienced athletes could tell a lot about the competitor’s performance from their first jump. For example, Keiko smiled helplessly when she saw Min Shan’s 3A.

It seemed that after leading Zhang Jue, the shining star of the men’s single from China, Coach Handsome-baby was now going to lead Min Shan to the top position in women’s singles.

Hayato chubby coach, sighed deeply: “Speaking of which, the last time China won the women’s singles world title was in 1995. That was exactly 20 years ago. Coach Zhang is going to make history again.”

This experienced coach saw clearly that Zhang Junbao’s status in the figure skating coaching industry was rapidly rising. Perhaps in the future, he might become the Chinese version of Boris.

Min Shan’s performance style was always quirky and cute. If she had to be compared to someone, she was like the supermodel Little Pumpkin who opened the PINK segment at the 2008 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

She was very good at expressing her character. When she completed the first part of her jumps and performed a “riding a broom” move, she was both cute and playful, making the audience laugh out loud.

At the same time, Min Shan also had excellent stability. Her jump errors were less than a tenth of Jin Zixuan’s, and her spins were good too. Like Serena, she could complete a “Bellman spin” while fully extending her free leg, meaning she could do a “candelabra Bellman” spin. Though her skating was not as smooth as Keiko’s, thanks to Coach Lu’s guidance, she had reached the average level for top female singles.

That evening, the 15-year-old Min Shan, in her first season competing in the senior division, won a shiny gold medal at the World Championships.

After finishing the free skate, Min Shan knew her ranking would be pretty good because she had skated clean, but she never expected to win the championship.

When she saw her rank, the young girl froze. She opened her mouth, pointed at herself, and turned to ask her coach.

“I won? I came first?”

Zhang Junbao, beaming with joy, replied: “Yes, Shan Shan, you won!”

Shen Liu joyfully added: “And your free skate and total score were just 3 points away from the world record!”

The 3-point gap mainly came from skating and performance, but that didn’t matter anymore. Everyone was overjoyed. Min Shan’s mother, especially, cried from the audience.

She held up her phone, filming, and shouted to the camera: “Baby, did you see? Our daughter won the championship!”

From the other side of the phone came even louder crying as Min Shan’s father, excited, responded: “I saw it! Honey, quickly send flowers to Coach Zhang, we have to thank him properly! When you all come back, we’ll invite the coaching team to dinner.”

Zhang Jue sat in his seat, clapping. Once the coaching team had finished speaking with Min Shan, he grabbed a bouquet of flowers, walked to the front row, and tossed them toward them.

Coach Lu swiftly caught the bouquet. Min Shan turned around and saw Zhang Jue waving at her.

Min Shan blinked and walked over, looking up at Zhang Jue.

She called out: “Senior.”

Zhang Jue responded: “Hmm?”

Min Shan flashed a big smile: “Thank you for teaching me how to do 3A.”

Zhang Jue squinted his eyes: “You’re welcome. Everything you’re receiving now is the result of your own hard work.”

On the other side, Xu Chao’s father hugged his daughter and comforted her, his eyes red: “Xiao Chao, you’ve been amazing. I never imagined my daughter could recover from so many setbacks and skate back into the top ten at the World Championships. You’re in the world’s top ten in women’s singles—so impressive!”

Xu Chao smiled through her tears, opening her arms wide to hug her father and Coach Ming Jia.

She said, her voice choked with emotion: “Thank you, Dad, Coach. I’ll keep working hard in the future!”

Perhaps her bone density wouldn’t be high enough to handle intense training and reach the top of individual competitions, but it was okay. She still wanted to participate in Pyeongchang, where she could compete for a team medal with her teammates.

As long as she could keep skating, as long as her dreams hadn’t ended, the future was full of possibilities.

 

 

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