Gold, love and mint tea (Yuzuru Hanyu )

49 - Hippogriff

AN: Okay like last time pretend as if this is the NBC stream of the competition, whatever is written in italic is Tara's dialogue and what's not is Johnny's!

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"Now the part we've all been for: the final group of skaters in the ladies category of the 2017 NHK trophy are on the ice and warming up. Most notably skating fourth we'll see Darianka Savchuk, reigning world champion and three time national champ. After struggling for a few seasons she finally got the gold medal she'd been working for in Helsinki this past March. And let me tell you she caused quite an uproar there!

"That's right Johnny! She beat three world records but what really became gossip worthy was her appearance at the victory banquet: hand in hand with Yuzuru Hanyu, the reigning men's Olympic champion! This caused quite a bit of speculation amongst fans of both athletes and earned them quite a few press articles."

"Yes, unfortunately by far not all of them were positive, I happen to think that they would make a cute couple."

"I'd even say they'd make a power couple! Such a shame that Hanyu had to withdraw from this competition after injuring himself during practice two days ago. He apparently wanted to skate, even with his injury but in the end changed his mind!"

"Really such a shame... Now back to Darianka!"

"Yeah, she scored 75.11 points in the short program and that places her behind Medvedeva, who scored 79.99. Savchuk made a very unexpected mistake, overrotating and stepping out of her double axel which is what put her in second place and now she'll be playing catch up in the free skate. I think she also dropped a level on one of her spins unfortunately."

"That mistake was so uncharacteristic for her! Her axel is probably the best in the world right now so it's very surprising but I have my own theories about what happened there..."

"Care to share Johnny? I know you want to!"

"Well alright... I happen to think she's been practicing her triple axel and we might see it soon!"

"That would be interesting... To be honest I would like to know more about her plans and hopes for this season because she's been very secretive lately, dodged most questions at the press conference in China last week."

"Well I just think that she's been in hyper focus mode, having no time to relax after the Cup of China since she's been assigned to back to back Grand Prix events which is surely really stressful and tiring. Let's just hope for her that she can get close to the score she achieved in Helsinki! She needs a clean skate if she wants to surpass Medvedeva."

"In fact she is once again behind her old training mate since Medvedeva beat all of Savchuk's world records at the World Team trophy last year!"

"That's very true Tara, now keep in mind Darianka did not participate in that competition but yes Medvedeva beat the records she had established at Worlds. Medvedeva now holds the world records of the highest short program score which is 80.85, as well as the free skate score of 160.46 and the combined score of 241.31 which is all incredibly impressive!"

"It is very impressive! However, we've already seen Medvedeva compete in Moscow at the Rostelecom Cup and she did not get anywhere near those kind of scores, although she did win the event. Same thing goes for Savchuk, who won the Cup of China last weekend despite a number of small mistakes in her free skate so it'll be interesting to see what kind of scores she could get if she skates clean..."

"I'm very curious to see where her new free skate could take her because I think the music is absolutely gorgeous and the program has a lot of potential! And I'm looking forward to see how it'll do against Medvedeva's new free skate, which really showcases all her talents beautifully!"