“In his last season, he always said it was ‘for Stephane.’ He wanted to make Stephane happy. I think that was probably the biggest reason he continued skating.” Trainer Shinichi Demizu on Shoma Uno’s motivation in his las competitive season
Translation of the interview with Shoma Uno’s trainer Shinichi Demizu.
original source: jbpress.ismedia.jp dd. 27th June 2024 by Takaomi Matsubara
In the interview with JBpress, Shinichi Demizu talks about his last competitive seasons. Here’s a translation of his comments.
“I’ve probably spent more time with Shoma than with my family in the past few years,” he said with a laugh. From the 2017-2018 season, Shinichi Demizu was supporting Uno and accompanied him to numerous competitions.
“It doesn’t feel different,” he said, about things that has changed since Uno’s retirement. “Although it’s called retirement, my contract as a trainer isn’t over yet so it’s an extension of what was usual. It hasn’t changed much, but it does feel a bit strange not going to practice every week anymore. It feels like a chapter has ended ideally.”
“In the 2022 World Championships, he won for the first time. After that, when people he considered his rivals started to retire, he mentioned feeling ‘lonely,’ and I sensed a change in his emotional state might begin from there. When the World Championships ended and he took a break, I thought he might end it all. Since then, I guess he was constantly comparing his motivation to continue figure skating with the feeling of retiring. Motivation changes in various ways, and I think the last two years were quite tough,” said Shinichi Demizu about Shoma Uno’s motivation.
“Sure, people around were talking about winning the Olympic gold medal… But winning gold at the Olympics wasn’t his goal, so I think he struggled with the difference between what others said and his own thoughts. It wasn’t that he suffered because others told him to; rather, as he continued figure skating, it was tough figuring out where to find motivation, how to deal with it, and sorting out his feelings,” Shinichi Demizu told about the possible expectations for Uno to win at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics that might have been.
“Until the season he won in Saitama, his stance was to perform well-executed jumps, the jumps he aimed for, and then he started incorporating not just jumps but also expression and performance aspects,” he reflected on the motivation that Uno found for the 2023-2024 season.
He also pointed out another driving force, “In his last season, he always said it was ‘for Stephane.’ He wanted to make Stephane happy. He wanted to perform figure skating without regrets, for Stephane. I think that was probably the biggest reason he continued skating.”
“I don’t remember exactly, but it was around November or December, I think between the NHK Trophy and the Grand Prix Final. He told me he would talk to Stephane (Lambiel, his coach) about it later,” Izumi told about when he found out about Uno’s decision to retire from competitive sport. “There have been various changes in his emotional state since 2022, but because I was listening to his feelings along the way. Even within this last year, I’ve constantly heard him speaking about timing and what he wanted to do, and that he couldn’t make a final decision.”
He also recalled the preparation for Uno’s last competitions, 2024 Worlds, “It was amazing. Often it was late at night, but he was doing an unimaginable number of jumps during practice, about 133 in total, typically for about three hours. He’d skate for 45 minutes, take a 15-minute break, then skate another 45 minutes, completing three sets amounting to roughly 130 jumps, mostly triple axels to quadruple jumps.”
At the World Championships, Shoma Uno placed first in the short program. However, mistakes in jumps during the free skating led to him finishing fourth overall. “No matter the content of the competition, he had fully committed to it, so he decided to end with a smile. Stephane also had various thoughts, but naturally he also wanted to finish with a smile, ‘Let’s end with a smile.’ Everyone was implicitly smiling.”
Related topics: Shinichi Izumi, Shoma Uno, Stephane Lambiel
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