Picture the scene: you're 19 years old, world number one, about to skate in the free program of the Olympic Games figure skating competition, and you've already won just about everything else there is to win except the Olympic crown. Now add to that the weight of an expectant nation's shoulders, as your biggest rival and competitor represents one of your country's greatest historical adversaries.
Despite all that, Yuna Kim — who faced this exact scenario at Vancouver — somehow put all that aside to skate the best routine of her life, setting a record score that would stand for seven years. She was no unknown; she had made her mark winning the South Korean senior national championships in aged just 12, and won both the Junior Grand Prix Final and World Junior Championships in Her senior career up to that point had been equally successful: she was a seven-time Grand Prix winner, three-time Grand Prix Final champion, and the reigning Four Continents and world champion.
In fact, Skate Canada was the only senior ISU event she had entered without winning having finished third at the event in her debut senior season in , Kim would not be assigned to that Grand Prix again. She was a serial winner. In Vancouver, Kim avoided the public eye, choosing to stay in a small hotel away from the Olympic Village. On the ice, it was a different story. With Japan's Asada Mao — the world champion — also hotly favoured to challenge for gold, Kim had the added pressure of bearing the weight of the Japanese-Korean historic rivalry.
While Asada made history of her own, landing the first triple Axel in a ladies' short program at the Olympic Games, Kim's score of Skating to George Gershwin's Concerto in F , she put together four minutes of pure perfection on the ice in the free program. It was an enchanting routine, capped at the end with Kim breaking down with emotion. While Asada landed two triple Axels, the Japanese made errors elsewhere in her routine and did not come close to Kim. The South Korean's free skate score of Her total score — Again, it was a record that would not be broken for years until Medvedeva did so in The win also made Kim the first skater in any discipline to win both junior and all four major senior international titles since the introduction of the Junior Grand Prix Final in The media whirlwind around the poster-girl-turned-national-hero was unrelenting; an acrimonious split between skater and coach later that summer after Kim had won silver at the Worlds behind Asada did nothing to keep her out of the headlines.
South Korea watched Kim's moves closely; her decision to pair up with her childhood coaches in was commented on, but it led to gold at the World Championships in London, Ontario, the following March — her last major title win. The stress of watching from there was enormous. I had to watch it later to really appreciate it, and then I marveled at what she was able to do. Kim was even better in the free, nailing six triple jumps, including triple Lutz-triple toe and double Axel-triple toe combinations and getting a score more than 16 points higher than the record she had set three months earlier a stunning 12 percent improvement.
It was a whirlwind of emotions. That Asada made more history by landing two triple Axels in the free became irrelevant. Even had she not made mistakes on lesser jumps, Asada would not have challenged Kim, who was happiest about having done clean programs to win the title. In South Korea, the stock market ground to a near halt when Kim skated time difference put it in the afternoon of the following day.
Eighteen hours later, they were on their way back to Toronto to prepare for the world championships in Turin, Italy. Kim, emotionally exhausted after the Olympics, staggered to seventh in the short program there before rallying to win the free skate and finish second to Asada.
For reasons neither she nor her management team at the time ever chose to make public, Kim split with Orser in August She posted comments on Twitter and her web site accusing Orser of lying about the way the decision to leave was handled after he had made it public.
Orser, Olympic silver medalist in and , had just begun his coaching career when Kim came to him, and he worried that her departure would make some people think the success with her was a one-off. Orser had been so respected in South Korea he was made an honorary citizen on Seoul in Kim would take the next season off before returning to competition in December with the next Olympics as her goal.
Working with her childhood coaches in South Korea, she delivered two exceptional performances to win Worlds by the largest margin The outcome in Sochi will forever be controversial.
Kim won the short program by a whisker over surprising Adelina Sotnikova of Russia, who had been ninth at the worlds. Sotnikova took gold by building a nearly six-point lead over Kim on technical scores in the free skate and giving back less than a tenth of a point on component scores. That one judge on the free skate panel was Alla Shekhovsteva , wife of the former president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, and another judge on that panel, Yuri Balkov of Ukraine, had been suspended for his role in prejudging an event led to Internet outrage.
It was magnified when a Korean TV station posted a screenshot of Shekhovtseva hugging Sotnikova backstage after the event.
Two months later, the Korean Skating Union filed complaints with the International Skating Union, citing the makeup of the judging panel and the hug. Both complaints were dismissed. Kim had declined to comment on the result at the press conference after the event. Asked in the recent email interview if she felt any disappointment or anger now over the result, she said her feelings had not changed.
I was just so happy to finish it. Six years later, 10 years after winning gold, Kim remains a revered — and highly paid — figure in South Korea.
She also remains very protective about her private life, with infrequent Instagram posts and nothing on Twitter since His medal still is attributed to Japan. Significant circumstances, indeed. The thousands of little girls skating in Korea now were two or three years old in This year, there were 32 plus 24 in juniors , with the first nine senior finishers all succeeding on the difficult triple Lutz-triple toe loop combination in the free skate.
The current national champion, year-old You Young , just did triple Axels while winning the silver medal at the Four Continents Championship, making her the first Korean to win a medal at an ISU championship since Kim in Kim would present her and the other medalists with stuffed animals during the awards ceremony. At 11, You won her first senior national title.
Kim was 12 when she won her first. At 13, You was first to carry the flame in South Korea during the torch relay leading to the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Games.
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