I have asked myself many times, how obsessed has Yuzuru Hanyu become with the quad axel, the one impossible jump that no one has ever landed? How many dreams, and nightmares, has he seen about it? How many times a day does he think about it? Or does he ever stop thinking about it?
Now this is a jump that
pushes the boundaries of human physics. The skater lands with the force of five
to ten times their body weight. I find it so intriguing that having
practiced for years without results, Yuzuru decided to give the quad axel jump
a go, twice, in the 2022 Olympics, jeopardizing his chances to get a medal as
he lost points due to major mistakes, as expected from falling. This speaks so
much for him as a person, as a rare person! People ask: “Why did he do it”? At
the end of the day, it’s all about the incentives. Would Yuzuru have tried to land
the gravity-defying jump in competition, if he did not own already an Olympics gold?
I doubt it. It’s simply that for some people, owing one, or even two Olympics golds
is not history enough.
Owing already two Olympics
gold medals, I would think it’s quite clear that the obsession with leaving a
great legacy and making history is such that we can easily compare it to the
ancient Greek heroes. It’s about pursuing that eternal honour, fame, admiration
and respect, ensuring the name and legacy will carry on long after being gone
from this world, inspiring others, making humanity believe that something so
basic, like our own body, can achieve so much.
And I admire Yuzuru if he has
actually been pursuing what I’ve just described above. It may also be that he
just likes to win, and have a purely ego-centric will to succeed, not for the
legacy, as you know, everything ends when we leave this world! You never know
what is going on the head of one of such a human. I would actually love to know
which one of the two is the drive.
You really have to believe
you are that chosen one from the God (a.k.a winner in probability for the atheist reader) to
be able to accumulate within yourself such strength and motivation, to dedicate
a good chunk of your life to something that sounds to silly to the rest of us,
normal human, a jump!
So Yuzuru, after this
Olympics disappointing experience has asked: "Did I do something to be
disliked by the ice?" I’d be surprised if he is really looking for an answer,
rather than this being a rhetorical question.
I can immediately think of
the answer. There is an ancient advice, coming as an inscription on the
entrance of the ancient Delphi temple, a place that I believe, if Yuzuru had
lived 2500 years ago, would have sent his advisor to, for advice from the Oracle whether to
try to quad axel or not. And this place is no joke: It has shaped the history
of the world, as major battles and conquests took place just because of the prophecies
given there by the Oracle of Apollo.
At the entrance it was
written: “Nothing in excess” and “Know thyself”. In line with this, I think the
Oracle would have said ‘Do not try’. This
is also in line with the main message that comes from numerous texts and philosophies
from the ancient world: “Don’t try to become a God!”. This was said because it
was believed that trying to become a God, would make the Gods angry and jealous,
and you would have to pay for it. Although maybe they had the wrong explanation
(I would however not want to plunge into a discussion of issues that properly
pertain to that era and maybe even to the Gods, a very thing which I seek to
avoid), the message I believe is still relevant today. To me it seems that the ‘punishment’ from the
Ice God is not only not winning, but also the mental challenges and countless
sleepless nights Yuzuru must be going through, while he has obsessed himself
with becoming a super-human. I guess this
is the price to pay in the quest for eternal glory and some people, either brave
or crazy, choose it this way! So the answer to this question is not just about for this competition...
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