It was a season that threatened to neutralize 23 years of hard work and 4 years of non-stop preparation since the previous Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

Everything that could have gone wrong in the last four years, did. Yuzuru skated with injuries to the head, injuries to both feet and legs. He delayed much-needed stomach surgery to skate, and then skated with infected stitches in his abdomen. He skated with the hunger and passion of someone who desperately wanted to become Olympic champion, except he already was. That he approached it all this way was nothing short of a testament to his incredible will to win and love of the sport, in a way that is hard to fathom, until you realize that since the last man won back-to-back titles in 1948 and 1952, only two men's Olympic champions have even shown up to defend their titles, and both skipped the preceding quadrennial. Neither was successful.

It goes to show how strong the pull of resting on the laurels of being an Olympic Champion must be. Yet Yuzuru showed up to every single competition, Challenger events and Grand Prix Series alike, won a record consecutive four Grand Prix Finals, became the World champion twice (and silver medalist two other times), and broke the world record score in the short, free, or combined programs a total of 12 times (8 times since Sochi).

Even though his 2+3 quad programs, which scored 219.48 at the 2015 Grand Prix Final, were seemingly unreachable even by younger jumpers with 7 or 8 quads, Yuzuru didn't feel content to rely on his deserved GOE and PCS advantages: in the 2016-2017 season, he added the quadruple Loop (becoming the first man ever to land one), and then he added the quadruple Lutz.

The quadruple Loop became a bit of a cherished superstition amongst fans: the last two men to win consecutive Olympic titles were Karl Schafer and Dick Button, who landed the first double and triple Loops respectively.

It was the quadruple Lutz that threatened to derail everything. He had a bad landing on one in practice while skating with a fever, and tore ligaments on both sides of his right ankle. He had to withdraw from the NHK Trophy, ending his bid to win five straight GPF titles, and then later successively withdrew from Nationals and the Olympic Team Event.

It was November 2017, so tantalizingly close to the Olympics, yet so far. Everything seemed to have finally fallen into place for Yuzuru: he regained his World title on the third try; he landed his first quadruple Lutz at the Rostelecom Cup; he broke the world record at his first competition; he was finally healthy, fit, and ready. He even felt healthy enough to skate all stops of Fantasy on Ice during the summer, a luxury that he has not had recently after long seasons of accumulating career-threatening injuries. And, last but not least, his biggest rivals weren't skating up to expectations by any means (the 2017 Grand Prix Final was the worst-skated Grand Prix Final of the last five years). It couldn't have been a more perfect opportunity, yet fate was ever so determined to make sure that Yuzuru's path to his dreams could not be easy.

Yuzuru Hanyu's injury drew hysterical despair from his fans (including yours truly), whose obsession with the skater was profiled in the Sunday sports section of the New York Times. The injury also drew haphazardly concealed optimism from Yuzuru's rivals — most notably, NBC Sports, who paid $12 billion dollars to broadcast the Olympics until 2032, a hefty investment they doubled down on by heavily promoting an inexperienced but talented hometown hero with a now extremely good chance of gold. Commercials (including a Super Bowl ad) were shoved down viewers' throats like cough medicine, and op-eds churned out American-centric propaganda that would have put the KGB to shame.

But the one man who never took his eyes off of gold was Yuzuru. Sitting at home in Toronto, unable to even put weight on his foot without crutches, Yuzuru spent entire days visualizing himself competing, reading research papers, and doing high-intensity off-ice exercises to ensure that he would stay competition ready. At one point, his doctor told him that there was nothing else he could do to heal his ankle faster, so Yuzuru started to take painkillers in order to skate again.

He’s used to trusting his training, what he had in the bank. But he had nothing in the bank. So it was trust his spirit, and it was a neat way to approach it at the end.” 

— Brian Orser
Hanyu’s path to 2nd Olympic gold was paved with patience, Washington Post

Yuzuru would later reveal that he skated on an injured ankle, a heavy cocktail of painkillers, and only 2 weeks of practice training quads. However, watching his performances, it was impossible to tell. He skated with the mind of an artist, the heart of a warrior, and the transcendent beauty and grace of an angel. And the inimitable strength of the one and only Yuzuru Hanyu.

His short program, Chopin Ballade No. 1, is absolutely the greatest choreographed program in history. Yet it looks so intrinsic that it almost doesn't feel performed at all. Yuzuru reaches deep inside to fuel his introverted style of expression, but as the program develops, we're given a window into his soul, and it is filled with the brightest dancing colors. Like any masterpiece of art, it is a program that reflects the viewer's soul and fills you with a feeling of understanding, like a fleeting glance during which everyone else in the 10,000-capacity arena ceased to exist.

Seimei, his long program, brought out a different skater. During the 6-minute warmup, he seemed undecided on his layout: He tried first a quadruple Loop and popped it into a single. Then he tried it again and succeeded. Then he came around short-side of the rink where I was sitting and tried the quadruple Salchow four times, landing one and barely losing the landing on the other three. The tension was clearly on, and the surprisingly relaxed Yuzuru was replaced with a familiar Yuzuru of murderous intensity.

His long program showed his incredible physical strength. He was able to land three perfect quads and hold on to a fourth, all on a battered ankle, with less than three weeks of training, and likely no full free skate run-through since November. But what the long program put on brilliant display, under the ultimate international spotlight, was his mental fortitude. Sure, his speed across the ice did not have the zip and bite that it usually has. He noticeably takes care to nurse his painful ankle, and his Loop and Lutz jumps (the jumps that hurt his ankle the most) were smaller and more hesitant than usual. But he landed all of his jumps, saved all of two mis-landings, and was finally able to defeat the demon that haunted him for all these years. He won against the loud media interests that tried to tear him down in the few months he couldn't defend himself, at the toughest Olympics in history, while holding on to an inch of his life. But most of all, he won against himself.

In that very brief moment, Yuzuru's adrenaline-filled, beaming face, his triumphant roar, and his emblem — both index fingers lifted in his trademark "I am Number One" sign — became the defining image of these Olympic Games. Because no one embodied the Olympic motto — "Faster, Higher, Stronger" — better than Yuzuru Hanyu.