Figure skating-Japan's Hanyu out to 'complete' himself with quad Axel jump

BEIJING : The weight on the shoulders of Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu must be immense.

With figure skating fans holding their breath to see if Hanyu will deliver a performance at the Beijing Olympics that could earn him a third consecutive gold – a first for the sport in almost a century – the stakes are higher than ever.

But perhaps the biggest pressure for the two-time world champion comes from within.

Over a long-spanning career, the 27-year-old has amassed a trove of medals but it is the childhood dream of landing the quadruple Axel that has kept him pushing ahead.

With a determination bordering on obsession, Hanyu has said he would sometimes spend all but 15 minutes of a two-hour practice session on the quad Axel, or "4A", a taxing regimen that would include dozens of falls on the hard ice, not to mention the risk of injury.

"I need to understand it," he has said of the jump that no skater has ever landed successfully in competition.

"I want to get to that place where I can confidently feel that this is the complete, perfectly formed version of Yuzuru Hanyu. And part of that is the 4A."

After missing the Grand Prix series with a sprained ankle this season, Hanyu, whom Chinese fans affectionately call "Youzi" - Mandarin for the yuzu citrus fruit - included the jump at the Japanese championships in December but it fell short of qualifying as a 4A.

HIGH-RISK, LOW-RETURN

For all of its difficulty, the 4A is a high-risk-low-reward jump. Its base value of 12.50 is the highest of the six figure skating jumps but just one point more than the quadruple Lutz.

Anything more than a quarter-revolution of under-rotation would earn a downgrade – as Hanyu did in December – to a triple Axel worth just 8.00 points. Grade of execution (GOE) points