A catch up with Kazuki Tomono to talk about this season and the upcoming one after he competed his last competition of the season at the Four Continents Championships in Seoul! He finished 4th overall at the event with a score of 242.08.
Special thank you to Mei (@_kaocubed_ on Twitter) for Japanese transcription and translation. Photo by Gabb (@gabietab).
How are you feeling?
I think I got the norovirus that was going around. I don’t have a fever now but after the competition yesterday it was like hell. It’s the first time that an illness hit my stomach. So, I’m not feeling my best right now (laughs). Quite the unexpected end to my season yesterday.
You really suffered through a lot this season.
Yeah. It was tough until the very end.
How was it yesterday during the competition?
I was fine. I did have a bit of an uneasy stomach, my stomach felt tight the whole day, but I was running on adrenaline so I didn’t really think about it too much. Looking back now I didn’t feel like my usual self. It was the first time I felt like this heading into a competition. I felt a bit nervous, and my conditioning was good, but I just wasn’t feeling my total best. I went into my skate feeling like this for the first time. But it all hit me afterwards. I felt awful in my room. It was the first time that it hit me in the stomach, so. It’s a bit gross but I threw up an unbelievable amount (laughs). It was truly awful. But my stomach felt a bit better when I woke up, so it was like, you’re kidding, right. Maybe I just got it all out of my system yesterday.
This season you stepped away from Misha (choreo), and you challenged yourself with new programs in both the short and the free. How was it?
This season I was able to really challenge myself with a lot of new things, and I think my failures were because I had these challenges. With my free especially, I changed up my elements and my skating course, but both programs were really difficult. But it was a good experience for me to be able to skate through these programs this past year. In this year before the Olympics, I was able to experience difficulties I hadn’t yet experienced. Including conditioning my body whilst having an injury. So it may have been a blessing in disguise there. To be honest it was something I was a bit worried about. I hadn’t had an injury during the season yet, I hadn’t yet experienced that. So I was a bit scared that it would happen during the Olympic season. I guess it was just meant to be for this season, but I was able to experience it all, including the things I was a bit worried about. I got to know my weaknesses, so I can improve on them. And I was able to work on my choreography and my basic skating, I really learned a lot. It’s less than a year until the Olympics, and I’ve felt this bit of tension ever since Nationals, it’s the first time I’ve felt like this. I think I was able to learn that final piece that I needed here. Of course I have some frustration that I could have done more. For the first time in my life I had a season where I struggled this much. I scored my lowest since I turned senior, but I’m glad I was able to experience all this. I think without this, things could have really taken a negative turn. Next season, I want to be glad that I was able to break out of my shell this season, so starting today I want to change my mindset. You know, now that I’m sick I was kind of able to laugh it off, I was able to switch my mindset in a good way. It was a tough year, but you know.
What kind of style, or what kind of year do you want next season to be?
It’ll be a really important year. Or I guess, I’m not really sure, but for now I’m sure that it will be the most fulfilling time of my life. I’m already spending that kind of time skating now, but. For me personally, I’m really excited to see what kind of person I’ll be, and it’ll be a season where you can see things like that. I want to go back to Milan one last time. My skating life began in Milan, that World Championship was really a turning point for me. And the Olympics are next. It’d be really great if I could go back to Milan. It’d be quite the story if I could go back, so I hope to push ahead whilst holding that feeling. I’ve just gotta do it. That’s all there really is. A season where I just go for it until the Olympics. Yeah. I hope I can do that.
I’m sure that there’s a lot, that there’s an unbelievable amount of pressure, but what do you think is lacking in yourself in order to get good results at important competitions? What do you want to build on?
It’s hard, right? Like what is it? I probably have to do even harder things and be able to do a lot more. Hmmm. I think it’s just pushing forward without any doubts. I think things begin to fall apart when you have hesitation. Whoever pulls through in the end is going to win. This season was a year where I really thought about a lot of things. So I don’t need to think anymore. I’ll be able to use my experience from this year and keep pushing for another year. Or I guess for a little more than half a year. I hope I can just keep pushing next season. I think that’s all I need to do. If we’re getting more specific we can talk about how I carry myself into my jumps, and other details. I think there’s a lot I need to do on many different fronts, so I think it’s important to just keep pushing.
There are a lot of athletes who fall into a slump, or overthink things when they make mistakes, but why are you able to be so optimistic?
Hmmm, I think it’s a bit of a mystery, but I was kind of like this last Pre-Olympic season. I wasn’t injured, but I ended the season feeling a bit unfulfilled. But then I was able to come back the next season. So there’s a part of me that’s like, it’s probably the same cycle? Feeling like that isn’t necessarily a good thing, but I spent this year thinking ‘this is what I needed this year’. It’s a bit strange if I say that I wanted to experience all this, but. To be honest, this season started with an injury and there was a part of me that thought, I guess that’s what this season is going to be like. It was a season where I’d be tested on how well I can manage despite all that. I haven’t had a bad Olympic season, I wasn’t always on the team, there were times where I was the alternate that ended up on the team, but it was always a season where something changed. West Side Story the first time, and the next time when I won a medal here. So next time I’ll have even better results. I’ve been able to think like that, that this is the cycle I have going on. So to be honest when I got injured, like I said earlier, I was a bit relieved since I’d never been injured like that. It was really really tough. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve seen a lot of skaters who weren’t doing as well because they were in pain or had a bad injury. And I didn’t really know how difficult it was. For the first time I felt what it was like to not be able to train to my satisfaction. Everyone learns through these circumstances, and then they get stronger and make a comeback. I feel like these skaters are always really strong the year they come back, so I was like, well at least I finally experienced it. I think the injury happened because I was trying to overcome something, because I was trying to push my limits. I was trying to do something. So I guess, it’s not really being positive, but starting to think that right now, this is the part of the story I’m at. Weirdly enough that’s how I feel. But this season was really tough. I think I’ll finally be able to train with a changed mindset. I hardly ever feel this way, but to be honest I really just wanted this season to end. I kind of just snapped out of it. In the weeks leading up to 4CC I’ve finally been able to freely train because of that. I hope to continue this rhythm and continue challenging new things.
Next season will be your third Olympic season, and the skaters in the mix have changed quite a bit since your first, what kind of fight do you expect this time with the other Japanese men?
It’s always the case, but I think we all have a shot at making it. I feel like the ones who make it in the end are always the ones who put their entire heart into it. I watched Machida-kun train in front of me, Keiji-kun as well. And their eyes, or I guess the looks on their face at the time, I haven’t been able to forget. Yuma-kun, and Kao-chan as well, but the skaters who make it to the Olympics, they just have a different look on their face. I guess it really shows. I hope to be able to see myself like that, although I’ll probably be too caught up in it all to notice. But I think something about me will probably change when I gain something, so I hope the look on my face resembles those that I’ve seen so far. I want to see myself like that. I think we’ll all be putting our lives on the line, so it’ll be quite a tense year. But I think I’m really lucky to be in an environment where I can want to train for the Olympics, the fact that it’s even a possibility. Up until now it’s always been ‘well, it’ll be difficult’, so I’m really happy that I can be part of the mix now, so I hope to make it. I think that’s how we all feel.