WOUT VAN AERT & JONAS VINGEGAARD ‹ Tour De France: Unchained S2 ›  Episode 6: Domination

P5!! the dawg in him never left ‼️

the interview was weird?? and the things i prepared for did not come out 💀 cant believe i missed marc’s p2 sprint masterclass for this 👎

absolutely gutted that i’ll miss watching almost all of the sessions and the race live this weekend 🥲

they copywrite striked your wonderful hamilton marc video!! I loved it so much and rewatched it a bunch, if there's any way you could re-upload it or just put it. somewhere that people can see it again, download it... I'd be extremely grateful, that was a masterpiece

no way thank you so much for noticing 😭 i’ll reupload it here soon! also i have it crossposted on tiktok too under the same un 🫶🏻

Pecco demurely weeping in his helmet while Marc twerks on the air fence

(original ask by @highestside got lost so ive artfully recreated it, not that you would be able to tell by my phenomenal editing skills)

this is very much my “1 like and ill write an essay” topic so thank you for the excuse to yap!

this is all in the context of this batsplat post, which i cant really build on if im honest so will be referencing/drawing parallels as i go through rather than stealing from thanku pls go read that first

im writing with the knowledge that most ppl who follow me are motogp so wont necessarily know figure skating, so ill do a little introduction to yuzuru (probably yuzu from here on out) so u guys can all join in because i think youll love him. hes truly marc-levels bonkers insane mastermind babygirl.

if you know it already or just only care about the mind games/mental aspect of it feel free to skip past!!

so heres our guy! yuzuru hanyu (born december 1994, saggitarius, name means “a bowstring pulled tight”)

now retired from competitive figure skating in 2022 because he would “no longer seek those kinds of evaluations” (i.e he was sick of being underscored and everyone else overscored and it wasnt fun anymore so he was going to skate at a competitive level elsewhere like a maniac), yuzu is a 2-time olympic, 2-time world, 4-time consecutive grand prix final, 1-time four continents, and 6-time national champion. he is the only man to achieve what is known as a “super slam”, a grand slam in both the juniors and the senior divisions (athough he wouldve achieved it a lot faster if he hadnt been cursed to only ever achieve 2nd at 4cc, but thats another story). hes the second youngest man to win the singles olympic title (after dick button) and the first man to successfully defend his olympic title in 66 years (also after dick button, ironically).

he broke 19 world records, the most of any skater in singles since the introduction of the GOE scoring system in 2003 (dont ask what we used before that you dont want to know). he was the first to break the 100 point barrier for the short program, 200 points for the free program, and 300 overall, and he did at one point break all three of those records (which were all his) in one weekend, 2 weeks after hed set them. if you want to see what the crowd reaction to that one was like, take a look. the impact of those two weeks literally cannot be overstated, yuzu blew not just the field, but the entire sport so far out of the water that they replaced the scoring system because there was no way anyone could get close (its also probably the catalyst for the severe deterioration in scoring, but thats a whole different discussion)

now ive given a smidge of a background on yuzu (which is tldr he is largely considered the greatest mens singles skater of all time), ill give a bit of comparison between the two sports.

like motogp, fs is hugely a mind game for all of the athletes. while it doesnt exactly involve death, there is certainly a lot of the good ole body horror aspect (i have seen skaters dislocate their shoulders and then just pop them back in to complete their program), and there is comparatively less time to make sure you get things right while youre in competition. that seems ideal on paper, but unfortunately singles figure skating is not exactly known for its lack of errors! (yuzu notoriously won his first olympic title having fallen over twice in the fs) its pretty frequent to see a skater panic over a mistake early in the programme and then just snowball into a big mess thats cost them points.

unlike in motogp, there is nothing to assist in going faster or doing more other than your own body. and when all of your competition time is crammed into 2-4 minute slots, it becomes necessary to keep doing more in that short space of time in order to beat out your opponent. as a result we have ended up at what is referred to as the quad revolution, where the ever ramping up need for more technical complexity demanded more difficult jumps. in this case, jumps with 4 complete revolutions in air, rather than the 3 revolution jumps that were common for a long period of time. adding more revolutions to a jump requires a bigger jump, faster turning, and a larger g force on landing. currently this is thought to be about 13-14g, which doesnt sound like a lot in motorsport terms where going around a corner in an f1 car puts 6g on your neck, but a) the human body is much better as surviving high g forces that are horizontal as opposed to vertical/along the spine and b) they are landing on one foot (always the same foot!) in a inflexible ankle boot, on a piece of metal, on a sheet of ice, on a concrete floor. theres not exactly a lot to cushion the impact other than the grace of your own ankle and knee, and if you fuck that up youre going splat on the ice full body. so the repeated strain is there! and to add onto that, the error truly costs you as there is no cumulative points system across competitions. meaning the maximum 5 (6 if youre in an olympic year) major international competitions really count every time. you could win every major competition of the year up until worlds, but if you croak just enough there that someone outscores you, sorry but youre not world champion this year! so while theres not usually any death in figure skating, its high risk-high reward nonetheless.

never being on the ice competing at the same time as someone else also brings a weird dynamic to the table here. where you are in the running on the day can play a lot on the mental state of the skaters, so if theyre in a close competition with a rival and the rival has just skated a personal best, the pressure is on (more on this in a bit lol). this means theres not really any pressure you can put on a rival mentally during a programme the same way you can with a race. that pressure has to already be there before they step on the ice, or they have to create it themselves.

yuzu specifically largely reserves (or seems to at least from an outside perspective) his mind games for the press rather than his competitors. quite often his competitors do end up as collateral damage though, as they dont exactly know much that the press doesnt already. i think this is a important thing to keep in mind when thinking about quote unquote “mindgames”, as its easy to look at everything an athelete does in a high stress environment as being intentional. marc for example, and his classic towing so he can observe competitors. he benefits in that it may unsettle or stress out the competition, but it may just be for observation purposes in most cases if thats all he really wants to know/gain from it. batsplat mentioned poor rookie fabio getting the observation treatment, which sure could be intimidation tactics! it could also just be curiosity and strategy planning to account for a good rookie on a decent bike, though. once people have voiced an opinion on your actions that others have noticed it can catch on as the assumed intent, even if it wasnt the case at all. but if youre marc marquez and everyone assumes that you play mind games while towing in practice and is unsettled by it, you probably wont bother saying anything about it because it ended up benefitting you in the end.

figure skating and motogp (moto racing in general) are extremely different examples of spectator sports:

a sport that many people find entertaining to watch.

you’ve heard it all before so i almost dont have to say it, but valentino rossi is show, marc marquez is show. they’re such engaging and interesting figures to the spectators not just because theyre technically phenomenal, but also because they are aware of how to engage the spectator. yuzu is absolutely no different, just winning is no fun if its not fun to watch. if we think back to how common errors are in fs, you can imagine the drama of a situation like this (which is how he has described his ideal win):

“I'd like to be in the position where, no matter what happens - even if they skate their free skate clean - if I skate clean, I will win." from here

what yuzu has been after his whole career is undeniable dominance. and i compare it to this quote from marc which rings exactly the same:

“I’m a winner and my mentality will never change. These guys are not better than me” from there can be only one s2 ep3

on face value yuzus quote seems very different than marcs, much more passive in the way it conveys the same intent: that they are better than the rest. but heres where the mind games really come in. theres been a long running argument in figure skating as a result of the quad revolution between whether focusing on athleticism and technical skills was the future of the sport, over “artistry”. basically all of the mens singles skaters at the elite level now all focus on the former as its what gives them more points, with yuzuru being basically the last frontier of elite level “artistry” skaters. there was a lot of back and forth in the media about it, with most of the mens skaters arguing that athleticism was more important, and that the new generation was bringing that aspect to the sport (implying that yuzuru wasnt).

anyway, king of the very subtle but destructive media dig that he is, yuzu dropped this notorious quote:

“That so-called balance between [technical] difficulty and artistry, to me that doesn't actually exist. Artistry is founded upon absolute technical prowess, that's what I think.” from here

damning as that quote is on its own, the context was key in its own right. this was delivered at the official olympic press conference immediately after yuzuru had won his second olympic title, specifically (it seems) as a response to discussions about nathan chen in the media.

nathan had been a favourite to win the 2018 olympics in part due to his differing focus on jumps over,,,,,, well basically everything else in his programs, but also because yuzu was injured shortly before the olympics and hadnt been seen in 4 months. in the end he only came 5th, after landing himself in 17th after the short program after panicking.

remember what i said about a rival skating a personal best just before you had to skate? lets quickly have a look at what other skaters say its like to skate immediately after yuzu on a regular competition, or even look at him:

i swear on my life i have a distinct memory of another skater saying that not only does no one look at yuzu before skating, but that COACHES TELL THEM NOT TO FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. i couldnt find that source, so maybe i made that one up.

this isnt exlusive to skaters that dont know him either, roman sadovsky and nam nguyen were both training mates at toronto cricket club for years with him (and very friendly) and still said this:

its noticable to fans and press as well, this contrasting idea of someone who is completely normal backstage, but particularly a menace on the ice

“I have been watching Hanyu for a long time and have had the chance to chat with him on many occasions. There is a contrasting sweetness and innocence backstage in conversation to the “killer” who comes out to skate. I have often said, you can see it in Hanyu’s eyes when he takes his opening postion. It’s as if it’s a choice he makes in declaring “this one’s mine””

this distinct aura, if you want to call it that, is something we also see with marc, where he also unnerves opponents, in part because of this monstrous technical ability meaning you know youre at risk, but also because its just straight up scary. batsplats post did a really good job of dissecting how we know marc is probably intending that, but yuzus a little harder to pin down. hes much more subtle than marc in a lot of ways with potential affects on competitors, and theres less need to target specific people than with motogp because youll never come “head to head” with someone in figure skating and therefore need to know their specific strengths and weaknesses (although he definitely does, hes said that before, it just doesnt impact his skating unless they have something he wants to emulate, which became less and less common over time.).

but its still definitely intentional in my eyes, as david wilson, who choreographed for both him and yuna kim (largely considered the goat of the womens singles division) also speculates:

“When I worked with Yuzu, he told me that Yuna was his idol. He idolised her. And I don’t think it was just for her skating, I think it was the way she did it, the way she commanded those four years. You know? He wanted to be that kind of a force.” from here

and here we are back around to the concept of undeniable dominance!

its at this point that i want to discuss probably the most similar aspects of marc and yuzus mind games: being lying liars who lie when it comes to injury when it benefits them

its body horror time!

yuzu has a fantastic track record of not disclosing injuries anywhere outside of his immediate circle and competing anyway in ways that shouldnt really have been possible.

for one, this dudes asthmatic, like he literally used to turn blue in the face sometimes at the end of a program when he was a teenager. one time he just laid face down on the ice at the end. i have no idea why he picked this profession, hes literally said it hurts him. just another point to add to the “bonkers crazy insane” chart i have of him and marc in my mind.

he got silver during the 2016 world championships on a hidden lisfranc injury in his left foot, which is a type of mid-foot injury common in *checks notes* car accidents and contact sports. they werent sure at the time if he was ever going to be able to skate again because even walking was bad, but he still skated at the gala afterwards, which led to probably the most beautiful but also sopping wet sad performance ive ever seen, followed by him dropping the news he was really fucking injured and might never be able to skate again and then going completely radio silent for months over the summer break (end of season). id say that was a one off but he skated at the olympic 2022 gala knowing he was about to retire from competition and hadnt told anyone yet so clearly it wasnt (nico rosberg eat your heart out!) he just likes drama.

but hiding injuries isnt uncommon, and is definitely not that much of a media mind game if you really think about it! what is though, and is very reminiscent of marc and that goddamn arm, is the injury on the run up to the 2018 pyeongchang olympics (remember me mentioning that?)

if we rewind a bit to autumn 2017, yuzu has just won his second world title after delivering what is largely considered to be the greatest figure skate of all time (and a historical record). yuzuru is running a fever during practice at nhk trophy right at the start of the season, and ends up severely injuring his right ankle (his landing foot) doing the highest scoring jump anyone had actually landed at the time. the injury happened live so he couldnt really pretend he wasnt injured, and he goes into complete media blackout for the next 3 months, missing the entire season before announcing he’s competing at the olympics to defend his title. i would like to emphasise here: nobody had fucking seen him in 3 months, especially not on the ice. in the meantime, nathan chen had had a pretty good time scooping up wins and had made himself the projected favourite for the olympic title due to no one knowing fuck all about yuzurus condition.

the first time yuzu was seen on ice was the first of several practice sessions for the mens singles (nathan had already competed in the team competition but yuzu hadnt skated). these are a media frenzy due to yuzu at the best of times, not to mention him being at this point only about 4 months out from a ligament injury on the foot he was meant to be landing 13-14g on repeatedly.

“The real highlight of the skating day on Monday came not during the team event upstairs in the Gangneung Ice Arena, but downstairs in the evening at the practice rink long after the crowds had gone home. That's when defending Olympic and world champion Yuzuru Hanyu made his first appearance on Olympic ice.

Hanyu went through a light workout for 15 minutes that primarily involved strokes and just a couple of jumps, before departing. He attempted no quads during his time on the ice. He did not appear to be in any distress or favoring any part of his body.” from here

the media, who are absolutely ravenous for any information about his condition at this point, get basically nothing out of this practice session that might give away his chances at defending the title. the other skaters definitely didnt either, but that was fine! there was another practice session in a couple of days that might give the game up as to whether he is beatable!

except he uhhhhhh didnt give them anything there either

“After a fairly intensive practice in the main rink on Tuesday morning, Hanyu took a more cautious approach this time, focusing mostly on strokes and steps.

He attempted just a handful of jumps, including a quad salchow, quad toe loop and a triple axel.

When Hanyu's short program music to Chopin's Ballade No. 1 played, he went through a run-through of it without any jumps. The question now is if that was just a precautionary measure to avoid injury or if there was some other physical reason.

Hanyu departed following the training session without making any comments to the media other than “thank you” as he walked through the mixed zone.” from here

he basically just fucked about for a while, did exactly three (3) major jumps so the media got excited, and then left. which was hilarious to watch the media fallout of if hugely nerve wracking at the time.

so for the men who have a chance at the title and therefore want to know what state hes in, all they now know is that hes capable of some of the major jumps at the very least. so hes not completely out of the running, but the lack of intensity is making it look more like his chances are slim. one of the few things people do know is that hes on painkillers.

the lots for the short program running order is drawn and yuzuru is skating immediately before nathan chen, so nathan will know what state yuzuru is in before he even starts competing. while yuzu is poker facing it completely, nathans been hugely dominant this season while yuzus been off, and yuzu looks like hes playing it safe.

hes not.

so much of this is body language, crowd reaction and attitude, so id absolutely watch the performance at this point if you can, with the knowledge that his assumed closest competitor was going immediately afterwards and the media had been effectively calling his downfall for the entire season.

in summary, its a monster of a performance. at 111.68 points its just shy of 112.72, the world record hed set in september just before injury (among people who score recreationally as a hobby, its pretty consistent that people think this should have been just above, and therefore a new record) he literally flicks both wrists and drops the smile off his face after hes finished, and then comes off the ice saying “im back”, where nathan steps onto the ice while they spend the next SIX MINUTES clearing the rink. i mentioned earlier that in figure skating theres no way of affecting another skater mentally while performing, and that it has to be done before they start or done to themselves. by sheer chance of the program running draw, this was the equivalent of waiting until the last second to deliver the blow. yuzu leaves that day having given the impression that hes totally recovered and nathan ends up in 17th. in the end yuzu wins again and nathan climbs back to 5th. this would have been a pretty incredible mind game even without it seeming to very much throw nathan right off, but i guess it was a bonus in the end.

fundamentally, i think this worked SO well because it was a reminder of basically everything that made yuzu someone to fear, someone COMMANDING in the first place. yuzus radio silence had not only benefitted in that it took some of the pressure off him, but that he had (for the first time in quite a while) made himself an unknown quantity. everyone knows what hes capable of at full health, everyone knows hes intimidating and a show to watch! they hadnt seen him in months though, and there wasnt really a clear sign of the old yuzu during practice sessions though so the doubt crept in. despite him being only 23, hed injured both feet/ankles in the span of only 2 years, and the sport was very distinctly going through rapid changes at the time. it seemed possible to some that he just wasnt able to keep up at his level of repeated injury. he wanted a dramatic return and he got it.

marc and his various methods of reminding the grid what hes capable of so hes a constant presence in their mind is like a dripfeed version of this. yuzu has his own ways, usually more passive, of reminding everyone of this. his most obnoxious one is definitely talking about the quad axel though.

axels are the only jump with an additional half rotation, the takeoff faces forwards and they land backwards. this makes it the most difficult of the entire suite of jumps for each additional rotation. triple axels are a staple for the mens field as the highest ranking of the triple jumps, but a lot of them just are not good at it (everyone has better jumps and worse jumps, axels just seem to be a lot of peoples achilles heel)

yuzuru is obnoxiously good at them, his signature jump is the triple axel with an entry called a back counter, which changes direction and blade edge at the last second making it appear like the jump comes out of nowhere (this in itself is a showman thing) its the most difficult entry for a triple axel anyone does, and hes the only person who ever really bothered trying because even for the highest level skaters its ridiculously hard.

at the point in time of the 2018 olympics, every jump had been landed as a quad apart from the quad axel. and there was a reason for it: the predicted minimum scope needed for this jump was HUGE, at least 70cm high and about 4 metres long. vertical nba jumps are the same height. NO ONE EVEN WANTED TO TRY THIS FUCKING JUMP. there were discussions about just bypassing it and going straight for attempting quint (5 rotation jumps) instead THATS HOW BADLY THEY DIDNT WANT TO DO IT.

yuzuru, having now been forced to admit that a) he actually was still very injured (only 20-30% recovered) and was immediately going back into recovery having defended his olympic title and b) the painkillers didnt do shit so hed been in excruciating pain the whole time (although had gone completely painkiller loopy during gala practice at one point) decided that this was the opportunity to remind everyone that he was still very much the guy to beat despite the media talking otherwise, and announced that thats what hed decided he wanted to focus on next. just to put a little pressure on the field who thought the difficulty of their jumps gave them the edge. truly bonkers crazy, even nathan chen thought he was insane for that one.

hed mention it every so often, and did practice during public sessions on a couple of occasions, which was INSANE because he was very clearly getting closer and closer over time. this thing looked unreal to see, effectively because its bordering on the very limit of what the human body is actually able to do. the first quad jump was landed in 1988, the quad axel was landed (eventually) in 2022. thats how long it took to get there.

the effect this gave was a constant nipping threat on the heels of a field that was at this point pretty much all younger than yuzu (figure skaters retire EARLY). he had his own alien status well and truly secured, but the public reminders where you could tell he was getting closer were OMINOUS. you looked at that the same way you looked at marc when he does a save that doesnt look like it should be physically possible, no matter how good you are you will not be able to pull off whatever that is. it makes you nervous.

this is about marc and also literally from today but is a perfect explanation of the control they both have over the way they communicate.

“Amazing the control he has, not only on the ice but in his life. He controls his choreography, he controls his music. He is just a master at this game” from here

everything is thought out and considered, everything intentional. it means you pay even more attention to their comments even if they sound cryptic. you place more weight in them because you know they are valued and considered.

i’ll wrap it up here as this is ridiculously long! there is a whole other essay i could write about yuzus taste for the show, everything from music to costume to the off ice performance but perhaps another time lol.

Pecco patting marc ass??? (Marc marquez and pecco bagnaia of parc fame) cdeste

I need you to know every time I listen to 'vampire' now, I think of your fancam. every single time and I go a little crazy. thank you for your service

-- tumblr user marioandretti

glad to be of service to the rosquez community 🫡

i was actually inspired by this amazing brocedes edit on tiktok by @_lenasworlds who used the bridge portion. but i thought the first 2 verses suited their narrative better - to tell marc’s side of how he felt when everything went downhill

then while making the edit i went down the rabbit hole of insane vale quotes and i just had to include them in

on a side note im currently working on a vale pov! have planned most of it out but finding all the clips has been tough 🥲 so thank you so much letting me know that you enjoyed the vampire edit it has really motivated me to continue working on this! ❤️

the art of looking away 2/~ / assen 2017

JEREZ 2024: Happy hops from 2nd placed Marc Marquez