Mone Chiba: “I’m practicing the quad toe loop, so I hope to work hard on stabilizing my performance and mastering it.”
Mone Chiba about her first senior season.
original source: jbpress.ismedia.jp dd. 4th July 2024 by Takaomi Matsubara
In the interview with JBpress, Mone Chiba talks about challenges of her first full senior season. Here’s a translation of her comment.
“I feel like it was a rich season where I could experience both happiness and regret,” Mone Chiba summed up the results of the 2023/2024 season where she won the 2024 Four Continents Championships and finished 7th at the World Championships.
“In the early season, I couldn’t quite get in shape and couldn’t get the results, so I had many competitions that were frustrating,” she explained about the regrets. The reason she couldn’t improve her condition was because she kept feeling breathless from springtime, and couldn’t practice as she had expected. “I’ve been feeling frustrated for a while, wondering why, but I’ve been practicing hard. The mental aspect that I couldn’t fully clarify within myself was a big part of it.”
The situation didn’t change, and she had a check-up after the GP in France. She was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. She started treatment and learned how to manage and breath properly to prevent her symptoms from getting worse. After her condition improved, she performed well from the Japanese Nationals onwards.
“It was my first year as a senior and the environment was changing a bit, and I might have been a bit flustered. But, I regret more that I could have looked at it more objectively and found the cause a bit earlier,” said Mone.
Another challenge was moving to train in ‘Kinoshita Academy’ in Kyoto from Sendai in the spring of her first year as a senior. “I’m not sure when I started thinking of it, but when I thought I wanted to participate in the Milan Olympics, I strongly felt that I needed to strengthen myself a bit more when I moved up to seniors, so I decided to transfer at that timing. Although I think it’s difficult to go to Milan with my current strength,’ she explained.
As for the Olympics as a goal, she said, “I started skating because I wanted to spin glamorously, dance, jump, and do fabulous things like I saw on TV. At first, I was imitating what I saw and having fun. It was around 5th or 6th grade in primary school. From the time I started participating in Novice at the Japanese National Championship, I thought I would focus on the competition. I’ve always wanted to participate in the Olympics. It was a dream and a goal, and it was still vague when I seriously started skating in 5th or 6th grade primary school.”
“The feeling that skating is fun has not changed since I started skating,” she admitted. “While the competition tasks and elements that I have to do have changed a bit from before I decided to concentrate on figure skating as an athlete, the fundamental feeling of ‘I love skating’ hasn’t changed.”
She also shared that she has a consistent mindset of believing in her ability to get better. “I think I’m the type to bring out the best when I have to push hard, and I have gradually understood this feeling over the past three years. Speaking from a subjective point of view, I think I am the type who can work hard when faced with a challenge. On the other hand, while I can work hard in a challenging situation, the downside is that I tend to slack off a bit when I’m not facing something challenging, so I want to always work hard.”
As for her goals for the next season, she said, “The first goal for this season is to compete in the Grand Prix Final with my best performance in the Grand Prix series. I want to deliver consistent performances throughout the entire season so that I can solidly perform satisfactory performances in the Japanese Nationals and competitions after the New Year, regardless of the first or second half of the season. Right now, I’m practicing the quadruple toe loop, so I hope to work hard on stabilizing my performance and mastering major techniques. If I were to phrase it? It’s difficult, but to not forget my strong feelings, I’ll go with “Ignite your heart.”
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