But the world must continue to turn and so to my blog, so I present this pic of the week.Actually this picture is 16 months ago when poor, poor Nobunari Oda apologized before the Japanese Press for his much publicized drunken moped incident.
But bad boys sometimes get a second chance, and after winning the Nebelhorn Trophy earlier this season, Oda is set to make his grand return to major ISU competition this weekend at the NHK Trophy.
And luckily for him he has decided to return now as this may be his best (last, only?) chance to reestablish himself as Japan's leading man. Takahashi has withdrawn from competition this season and Kozuka's stock is on the rise!
Nobunari enters this weeks competition with a mission, restore his pride before the people of Japan. And Nobunari...no more moped incidents, okay?
Here's a clip from this years Japanese Dreams on Ice
2 comments:
I find this post sad and disturbing. Did you really need to post that photo? Didn't the poor kid suffer enough?
I find it plain cruel when pomebody posts about that incident without sharing (or knowing) all the facts.
"No more moped incidents", you write, as if he was a careless kid who went to have fun with friends and had a ride around the city without caring about anything. In fact, Ive met him personally and there is no kid in the world who would care about rules more than him.
He made a mistake, yes, but it was caring about other people needs that got him in trouble. He wasn't having fun with friends, he was invited by his University superiors to discuss his schoolwork - and he came to meet them in spite of just arriving from the training camp in Italy and being jet-lagged. He fell asleep on the train home and missed his station. By the time he arrived to his home town he thought it was nearly dawn, and he didn't want to wake his mother up by calling and asking her to pick him up. And he wanted to get home as soon as possible, because he had practice early morning. He thought himself completely sober. At that hour, the road to his home was empty. He knew that the routine check was there and he could choose a different road if he had a shadow of doubt about his state of soberness. His BAC could be 3 times as big and it would be still legal in Canada, UK or some states of US.
He went through utter hell after that. Mental trauma, eating disorder, fear of appearing in public... And he just took all the abuse without a word of complaint. He just put more punishment on himself.
When I see him called a "bad boy", I feel my blood turning to liquid ice. Please, for the love of anything that is Holy, stop that. One thing that he might be accused of is the childlike naivette, but never "bad" attitude. He spend all his life being kind, helpful, hard-working, always toeing the line. But that doesn't make a first page material. People prefer to punish than praise or offer an reward. And that's too bad, I think...
Anonymous, I truly appreciate your comments and my reasoning for posting the picture was not to discredit Nobunari in anyway, but rather glimpse at the past and compare it (to what we know now is a victory at NHK) with what could be. This picture was about moving forward...
I don't know Nobuunari and can only go by what the press reports. If they haven't given the full story, that is unfortunate.
I can tell your a passionate supporter of Nobunari's...I'm very happy he has won NHK, and I hope he can put all of this behind.
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