I’m sorry this took so long – I was doing a bunch of spelunking and got lost in rabbit holes along the way. Besides the obvious Junior Grand Prix series, there are various international competitions for Juniors and even Novices. An easy way to find these is to go to a skater’s wikipedia bio and look at their competitive highlights or early history, then click on competitors and look at their early history. You can build a collection of competitions that way.
The International Challenge Cup and the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy(Asian Trophy) are two notable competitions that have been around for quite a while and which various Japanese skaters have competed at over the years. As a Junior, Yuuri (and you can extend this to Minami) may have competed in one of these even after entering the JGP circuit because it’s good experience. But if we’re talking about the first time he competed abroad as a 13-15 year old middle-schooler, he probably went to a smaller competition to get experience….
For Yuuri specifically, I would say the Mladost Trophy is a very likely competition he went to. Almost every big Japanese skater has gone to that competition in either Novice or Juniors. Daisuke Takahashi, Nobunari Oda, Yuzuru Hanyu, Takahito Mura, and Takahiko Kozuka. Since Yuuri’s character is partly a combination of all these big Japanese skating names, it’s kind of nice to have a competition that so many of them went to. It hasn’t been held in some years, but it was popular among Japanese skaters during the early-mid 2000s, which is when Yuuri would have been in middle school. You can always tweak dates to suit your fic too.
Another likely one would be the Triglav Trophywhich is usually the last ISU sanctioned event of the skating season. This means you could give Yuuri a redemption skate here! It’s also conveniently out of the way of JGP and GP competitions. Although virtually no Japanese Junior Men have skated here, plenty of Novice Men and quite a few Senior Men have competed: Daisuke Takahashi (as a Novice), Sota Yamamoto (as a Novice), Daisuke Murakami (Senior), Takahito Mura (Senior), Keiji Tanaka (Senior), and Tatsuki Machida (Senior). It’s also a great option for Yuuri if he wanted more competitive experience toward the end of his first Senior season. Other notable skaters include Stephane Lambiel and Johnny Weir when they were Novices.
Other international competitions for Juniors include:
Egna Spring Trophy – it was known as the Gardena Trophy for the longest time and that’s the name you should use in fics for Yuuri’s middle school years as a Junior. Tatsuki Machida is the only notable Japanese Junior to have competed and medaled (gold!). Which could make for a nice set-up in a story… A decent amount of Japanese skaters go to this trophy, but nowhere near the number of U.S. and Italian skaters who attend – and of the Japanese skaters who compete here, it’s largely in the Ladies division. Notable Senior Men’s medalists are Shoma Uno, Takahito Mura, Keiji Tanaka, and Takahiko Kozuka. The competition has been around since 1990 for Juniors, included advanced novices in 2006, and Seniors in 2011.
Coupe International de Nice (Nice Cup)– includes Novice, Junior, Senior levels. It’s not popular with Japanese skaters at all, but MANY Russian skaters have competed here, so this would be a good competition for a young Victor. It’s been around since the 90s.
Golden Bear of Zagreb – if the name sounds familiar, it might be because we see Yurio on the podium at the Golden Spin of Zagreb between his showing at the Cup of Russia and the GPF. The Golden Bear is the Junior/Novice version of the Golden Spin. It even includes skaters below the Novice level. As of 2012 it has a Senior division. It’s not popular with Japanese skaters, but it’s a long running competition – the Golden Bear has been around since the 80s and the Golden Spin since the 60s – so it’s pretty noteworthy.
Coppa di Merano (Merano Cup) – started in the 90s and includes all levels; not very popular with Japanese skaters in the Junior and Novice levels, but some Seniors have skated there.
NRW Trophy– started in 2007 it falls in late November/early December, so it’s a good time for Junior Yuuri if he didn’t make the JGPF. Although it’s not very popular with Japanese skaters either.
Coupe de Printemps(relatively new, started in 2012) – includes Novice, Junior, Senior levels. Many young Japanese skaters have competed here. Given the year it started, it would be a better choice for Minami than Yuuri unless you ignore dates completely.
Denkova-Staviski Cup (relatively new, started 2012) – not very popular for Japanese skaters. However, it’s a legit option for Yurio and makes a nice opportunity for where Minami might have competed with him.
Bavarian Open– Novice, Junior, Senior levels. It’s been around for a while but almost no Japanese skaters have competed here.
(and there are many more competitions, but that’s a decent list for now)
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Bonus:
If you need to make up some scores to fit that time period, this is a wonderful site which has all of the big competitions from 2003-2018 (Junior Grand Prix, Grand Prix, Challenger Series, some Senior B competitions, Worlds, etc.) along with who competed, their scores, and graphs to visually see it all: http://www.figureskate.me/competitions
First time in history that all currently-landed quads have been performed at one competition (2016 Grand Prix Final) *A non-comprehensive list – quad axel has not been landed yet.
So, we once did a gifset on jump identification, in slow-mo. But it’s time for an ambitious upgrade — now, identify jumps in real time, without slowing down or pausing.
All skaters land (clean) jumps in the same way: on the outside edge of one foot, gliding backwards. Skaters who rotate counterclockwise during their jump will land on their rightfoot while skaters who rotate clockwise will land on their left. All the examples below feature skaters who rotate counterclockwise.
Therefore, the first and most important thing in jump identification is to scrutinize the takeoff instead of anything else. Look carefully at what the skater does with their feet before they jump, anything else is not particularly relevant in naming a jump.
Toe Jumps
If the skater strikes the ice with their toe pick, it’s either a Toeloop, FliporLutz. These jumps are known as Toe Jumps because of the skater’s use of their toe pick.
The Flip
Skaters usually do a turn immediately before this jump. Notice how Zhenya swings her right foot while doing the turn; this is very characteristic of flip jumps. This is a very common entry into the flip, but it’s not a necessary one, skaters can opt to perform a flip with a different entry.
Zhenya rotatestowards the foot that is placed on the ice during her takeoff. Her own torso and leg are “blocking” the direction of her rotation, such that she is assuming a closed body position just before takeoff.
Take note of how the foot that is placed on the ice is on an inside edge. If a skater uses an outside edge instead, they will be penalized for incorrect technique.
The Toeloop
Skaters usually do a turn immediatelybefore this jump. Again, while this is a very common entry to the toeloop, skaters don’t necessarily have to do it.
Yuzuru rotates away from the foot that is placed on the ice during his takeoff. His torso and leg are not “blocking” the direction of his rotation, such that he is assuming an open body position just before takeoff.
The Lutz
Skaters don’t usually do any turn immediately before this jump. Instead, they do a long backwards glide. Notice how Yuna gradually deepens the outside edge on her gliding foot as she goes backwards; this is one distinct indication of a lutz jump. Once again, this is just a very common entry to the lutz but skaters can use other entries too.
Yuna rotatestowards the foot that is placed on the ice during her takeoff. Her own torso and leg are “blocking” the direction of her rotation, such that she is assuming a closed body position just before takeoff.
Take note of how the foot that is placed on the ice is on an outside edge. If a skater uses an inside edge instead, they will be penalized for incorrect technique. Skaters who make this mistake often switch to the inside edge at the very last second, just before takeoff.
Edge jumps
If the skater does not strike the ice with their toe pick, it’s either a Salchow, Loopor Axel. These jumps are known as Edge Jumps because the skater takes off from the edges of their blades.
The Salchow
The skater’s legs assume a “/ ” shape.
After that, the skater sweeps his right foot forward and takes off.
The Loop
The skater’s legs assume an “X” shape.
After that, the skater briefly “sits” down before launching into the jump.
The Axel
Skaters typically do a long glide backwards before this jump. This is common but not necessary.
After that, they turn their head and take off in aforward direction.
And that’s all you need to know! It also helps if you watch videos of many, many skaters, so you can practice identifying jumps with these common indicators from various camera angles. 🙂
As a challenge, try identifying all the jumps in these programs (x, x, x, x, x) and let us know if these tips were useful! (Not all the takeoffs in those videos are the typical ones, but we’re sure you’ll get the hang of it eventually if you watch enough skating). ^^;;;
• Javi’s serious face • not sleepy™ happy Shoma • happily smiling Alina and Zhenya • Zhenya is on ice! • dreamy Shoma skating aside when Patrick and Javi are talking to choreographer • always amazed Patrick
Plume de Lynx 