For two-time defending men’s Olympic figure skating champion Yuzuru Hanyu, success at the Beijing Games will be about achieving the unprecedented and becoming the first to successfully land the sport’s most difficult jump, the quad axel, under the brightest lights.
Hanyu is trying to become only the second to win three straight men’s Olympic figure skating gold medals, joining Swede Gillis Grafstrom who did it 94 years ago. That effort is now inextricably linked to the jump the Japanese star has dreamed of since childhood.
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