Hanyu targets landmark jump

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea, Feb 18, (RTRS): For some skaters, winning back-to-back Olympic golds for the first time in more than half a century, especially while taking painkillers for a damaged ankle, would be achievement enough for a lifetime. But not for Yuzuru Hanyu.

Barely 24 hours after topping the podium in Pyeongchang just months after suffering an ankle injury so severe it threatened his career, the Japanese phenomenon has a new goal — to land a quadruple Axel, a jump no skater has yet achieved.

“Right now I have no intention to stop skating,” he told a news conference on Sunday, after winning gold a day earlier with a flawed yet nonetheless captivating free skate.

“I’ve already achieved all my dreams and I’ve really done plenty, I feel. But there are still things I want to do in skating. My whole life’s been dedicated to it and that’s been really good — but I want just a little more.”

At the top of that list is to land a quadruple Axel, which is believed to be technically possible but would require an extra half-turn in the air on top of the four already needed for any successful quad. Nobody’s achieved it.

“I want to do one, because nobody else has,” the 23-year-old said. “The jump that has never let me down is the triple Axel. I’ve probably put more time, practice and energy into it than to any other jump.

“One of my coaches has called the Axel ‘the king of jumps’ and while being grateful to the triple for all it’s given me, I’d like to aim for a quad.”

His immediate priority, however, is healing an ankle he damaged in November during a practice fall that forced him into an eleventh-hour withdrawal from the NHK Trophy and then an extended hiatus from competitive action.