South Korea’s Kim rolls to Olympic gold in figure skating
VANCOUVER, British Columbia
They already called her “Queen Yuna” in South Korea.
And on Thursday night, Kim Yu-na’s reign over the women’s figure- skating world officially began.
Kim won the Olympic gold medal, soaring to a world-record 228.56 points and shattering her previous mark by more than 18 points. It was one of the greatest performances in figure-skating history and was sure to set off wild celebrations from Seoul to Pyongchang. It was South Korea’s first medal at the Winter Olympics in a sport other than speed skating.
“If this was track and field, we just watched an 8-second 100 meters,” said Jamie McGrigor, a skating analyst doing in-house radio commentary.
The judges thought so. They gave her a free-skate score of 150.06, which was an astonishing 13 percent higher than her previous world record of 133.95.
“I am really happy,” Kim said. “I still can’t believe the score I received. I’m really surprised. It’s almost as close as the men’s score.”
Longtime rival Mao Asada of Japan won the silver medal, but it was no contest — even when Asada landed both her triple axels, one in combination with a double toe loop.
Joannie Rochette, skating four days after the sudden death of her mother, won the bronze, giving Canada its first women’s medal since Liz Manley’s silver in 1988.
The Americans, meanwhile, went home without at least one medal for only the second time since 1952. American Mirai Nagasu did finish fourth. U.S. champion Rachael Flatt dropped to seventh.
Kim Yu-na
Kim came in bearing almost incomprehensible pressure. Not only was the reigning world champ the biggest favorite since Katarina Witt in 1988, but she also carried the weight of an entire nation on her slim shoulders.
The most popular athlete in South Korea, she’s been dubbed “Queen Yu-na” and she needs bodyguards whenever she returns home from her training base in Toronto. Anything she does creates a frenzy, and even a simple practice draws a rinkful of photographers.
Kim seemed to shrug it all off this week, saying after the short program that it felt like any other competition. But it was clear Thursday that it meant so much more.
There were simply no flaws in her performance, from her skating to her expressions to that cobalt blue dress.
When she finished, the audience could almost see the pressure fall away as she bent over and cried. The tears fell no matter how hard she tried to blink them back, and she held up her hands helplessly when she reached coach Brian Orser. So many stuffed toys and flowers littered the ice that the full complement of sweepers had to be deployed — not once, but twice.
It almost wasn’t fair that Asada, skating next, had to try to one-up that.
She couldn’t. Not even close.
Asada, who has swapped titles with Kim since their junior days, is one of the few women who even tries a points-packing triple axel, and she did two on this night. But she melted down later.
For Rochette, the medal was a culmination of “a lifelong project with my mom.” Therese Rochette, 55, had a massive heart attack just hours after arriving in Vancouver to watch her daughter skate.
Supported by her father, Normand, and longtime coach Manon Perron, Rochette decided to go ahead and compete.
source: www.kansascity.com
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