Hanyu not done after Olympic double

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea: Japan’s “Ice Prince” Yuzuru Hanyu has promised there’s plenty more to come after he became the first man to capture back-to-back Olympic figure skating gold in 66 years.

The 23-year-old broke the pain barrier in Pyeongchang after a brave free skate on Saturday that Hanyu revealed had required painkilling shots to help him land jumps on his crocked ankle.

“I’ve achieved my dream but I’ve got no plans to quit skating,” Hanyu told a news conference on Sunday.“Honestly, I feel refreshed, I feel satisfied — I feel like I’ve done what I came here to do. It was a tough assignment but if it had all been plain sailing maybe I wouldn’t have been able to win gold.”

Despite his slender frame and child-like fixation with Winnie the Pooh, Hanyu is a tough cookie, and one who is perhaps lucky to be alive.As a teenager he watched in horror as a massive 2011 earthquake caused the ice to crack beneath his skates as he practised in his hometown of Sendai in northern Japan.

Hanyu has already set his sights on his next goal — the quadruple axel, a jump so technically difficult, since it requires four and a half mid-air rotations, that no skater has yet managed to execute it.

“I couldn’t nail my jumps without painkillers and there were moments I thought about quitting,” he said of his sore ankle. Hanyu also gave a rare insight into the constant pressure he lives under as one of Japan’s biggest sporting celebrities.“If I’m being totally honest, I don’t want people to hate me,” said Hanyu. “The more people see you and the more you talk,” he added.