Yamada in 26

[darthvaderlim]

Another 26 thread, but this time, it's about Yamada. So I heard somewhere that Yamada was quite confident about clearing Stage One and came back from retirement due to Takeda and Akiyama being absent.

Keep in mind, he's hasn't cleared for about 7 years and has failed the First Stage 11 consecutive tournaments. Was this a false sense of confidence just for show?

[zoran]

I think he thought 26 would continue the idea of the Kanzen renewal, that being bringing back older obstacles and using them in unison with Shin obstacles to create the toughest course. He would have been a lot more familiar with the older obstacles, 26 of course betrayed this vision.

His break from 25 also probably allowed him to get into a better mental state and train more. I think he also modified his wall by adding a higher bar to replicate the Shin wall so better training for that. In 23 and 24, he more than likely would have cleared if it weren't for the wall.

In the actual tournament I think there is a chance he could have cleared, his attempt on the jumping spider was pretty solid, better than Naganos, he didn't commit though. If he beat the escargot faster, committed on the jumping spider and got the wall in 1-3 attempts then I could see him clearing.

[dakohosu]

Jun 17, 2024 3:25:47 GMT -5 zoran said:

 If he beat the escargot faster, committed on the jumping spider and got the wall in 1-3 attempts then I could see him clearing.

The problem here is that all three of these happening in unison would be pretty unlikely for Yamada, as they weren't completely avoidable or unlike him. And even then I don't think he'd have enough time to clear. 

Re the Escargot, had Yamada gone any faster he would've slipped off, as he already had a couple of close calls/slips on it despite going pretty slowly on it. 

Yamada had already failed the Jumping Spider three times, including twice on easier versions than we got in 26, so him failing the hardened version made sense, especially as he didn't get enough distance into the walls, which was part of the buff to 26's version vs 24, so that clearly just threw him off, like it did Nagano, Yuuji, Sato, etc. It wasn't a freak accident or fail, rather either a misjudgment or an inability to get the required distance.

Then him getting the wall in 1-3 attempts would've been extremely rare. He's only beaten the Shin-Sasuke wall once, and even that required several attempts as he cleared with almost no time remaining.

I also rewatched his run and he attempted the Jumping Spider with about 70 seconds remaining, while Lee and Okuyama who both cleared in the nick of time attempted the same jump with 85+ seconds, and I'm incredibly doubtful Yamada would've been faster than either of them on the back half of the course. So even if he did get extremely lucky he'd probably time out.

[subtleagent]

Yeah no, he'd still time out. Even Paul Kasemir who barely cleared was a good 10 seconds ahead of Yamada, hell Daisuke Morikami was almost 15 ahead despite timing out by like a millisecond so yeah Yamada at best would've timed out.