OSAKA, Japan – Addressing a group of reporters at a press conference held prior to the upcoming Grand Prix of Figure Skating event, the 2017 NHK Trophy, Yuzuru Hanyu told reporters that he “just wants to have a chill time” during the current 2017-2018 figure skating season.
Wearing a baseball cap turned backwards and languidly gesturing with a half-empty can of beer, the Sendai-born figure skater shrugged and said, “life’s short, dude. No point in stressing about stuff that’s going to happen in the future.”
Sources confirmed that prior to arriving in Osaka for the NHK Trophy, Hanyu was spotted at various Toronto bars at odd hours of the night, loitering around pool tables and occasionally partaking from what appeared to be a large, Winnie the Pooh-shaped bong.
When asked about the state of his preparations for the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the 2014 Olympic champion chuckled lightly and replied that he was just planning to “go with the flow” and do what he felt was the most comfortable and relaxing for him.
“What will be, will be,” Hanyu said. “The Olympics are just another competition. There’s no need to go crazy preparing for Pyeongchang, like by adding another new quad to my programs or something.”
Since arriving in Osaka, Hanyu said that he has skipped “quite a few” practice sessions and instead has enjoyed passing the time by “checking out the local dating scene” while attending pub crawls and visiting the city’s karaoke bars.
After answering a few more questions about the Olympics, Hanyu politely asked reporters to leave, saying he “wanted to finish his beer in peace” before attending an impromptu costume fitting later in the day for his new long program costume, which Hanyu described as “just something really casual me and Brian [Orser] threw together during a smoke break last night–you know, like a plain black t-shirt over some pants.”