At a press conference in Beijing on Aug. 11, Chinese Skating Association (CSA) officials announced that Boyang Jin had made the decision to continue training in China and would not be moving to Canada to work with Brian Orser and his team. CSA president, Xue Shen, said the federation had to respect Jin’s decision.
“Thank you everyone for your concern for Chinese figure skating and Boyang Jin,” Shen said. “Boyang has his own plans in place. He is more familiar with the training environment and methods in China, so in the near future he will not be going to train with Brian Orser. We will continue to support an exchange between our figure skaters and international teams.”
Orser said it was unfortunate Jin would not be joining the squad at the Toronto Cricket Club but also respected his decision.
He and Tracy Wilson were in China this past weekend to sign a contract with the federation to assist its skaters′ over the next four years in preparation for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. Shen said Orser and his team would be attending in China on a regular basis to help the federation develop its talent and coaching staff. “We are treating figure skating as an open doors project…we hope to work with Brian Orser and his team to find the potential in our skaters and introduce new and better training methods in China.” Full translation here.
“I will have the best knowledge as we move forward to the Olympics. The time is now for this. You know, three and half years is not a long time…it’s really a very short time. So the time is now to move and the timing is right,” Orser said in a subsequent press release.
Shen said the CSA, “hopes that Orser’s team can share their experiences with our coaches and athletes. We not only intend to cultivate our athletes, but also to train our home coaches. We also target the establishment of a platform for international communications to push interactions forward.”