Eyes on Ice [EDITING]

EYES ON ICE - 17

XVII. Day 3 - The Thing About Rivals (Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy, ISU Challenger Series Part VI)

"Yuán Shui," Nicholai Dorokhov said outside the rink while his student stood in front of him inside. "You placed second from the short program. You should know yourself already. We're going to win this or at least meet that minimum technical score to qualify for the alternate list. Keep up your phase and go climb that podium."

A nod with a serious expression was what the Chinese skater responded as he skated on the sides to get to the center. His red costume that had hints of yellow and black color caught attention from the crowd through acclamations. "Second to the last skater on ice is Yuán Shui, representing China. His theme for this season is patriotism with the music 'Fanatico' by Edvin Marton," the commentator stated.

Nicholai couldn't keep his eyes off of Shui on ice. Of all his students, this skater was the one who paid a lot of attention and time at practice and obeyed him the most. He didn't have a hard time teaching him about the jumps and choreography. Shui had brought him honor ever since he trained with him, considering the twenty year old skater became a world champion, an Olympic qualifier, and a Grand Prix finalist at the past seasons. He couldn't be more proud of him.

The music started off with a strong, fast rhythm. It screamed suspense even if that wasn't the theme of the program. The thrill had been crawling up to the people's sleeves the moment Shui started skating. One could honestly say that the choreography is on a higher level.

"A perfect landing on the first jump. That had a great speed and height," the commentator said after Shui approached a forward direction at the inside edge of his blade, switching backwards at the right outside with a takeoff using the left toepick and a total of four rotations on air. The way he swung his free leg backwards at the landing looked beautiful and clean.

Nicholai's palms were sweating. It wouldn't hurt that much to admit that he is indeed anxious of how things would end up. He trusts Shui, to be honest. It's just that there's a chance he'd mess up, especially at the second half because he wasn't physically tough to start with. He doesn't have a lot of stamina unlike others and that's already a problem.

Shui went on with the flying sit spin as he garnered claps from a couple of people. Followed by certain steps and turns, he enters his first jump combination with a long backward glide on the left outside edge, as he jumped with assistance of the toe pick at three rotations on air. Landing at the right back outside edge, he takes off for the triple toe loop assisted by the toe pick again.

"Triple lutz, triple toe loop combination." Claps were heard across the crowd. "The best way to say he got it all covered."

"Come on. Keep it up," Nicholai whispered.

His performance went on. It wasn't that the audience got bored. There was simply something odd with Shui, especially when the second half of the program walked in. His jumps were completely okay, though. He nearly messed up the double axel but it's a good thing that he had controlled it. The quadruple salchow and triple flip was perfect. Both the triple axel - euler - double salchow sequence and quad toe loop - triple toe loop combination had wobbly landings but there appeared to be enough rotations.