Yu-na: From Prodigy to Greatness

By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

Kim Yu-na is one person South Korea cannot do without. People here watch, dissect and discuss her every move on the ice, buy the mobile phone she talks on, drink the milk she drinks, wear her jewelry, and then expect her to break every world record she sets.

And things were this way even before she shattered her own world best and assured that the country's first Olympic medal in figure skating would be gold. So one could expect an immense amount of airwave time, ink and electrons to be spent in the next few months to describe her ``greatness'' from every possible angle.

Kim, a 19-year-old native of Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, first laced up her skates at the age of seven and garnered media attention in 2002 when she won the gold medal in the novice competition at the Triglav Trophy event in Slovenia, her first international appearance.

In the following year, Kim became the youngest woman ever to win the senior title at the Korean Figure Skating Championships, and went on to win her second international competition at Croatia's Golden Bear of Zagreb.

As a junior skater, Kim competed at the International Skating Union (ISU) Junior Grand Prix during the 2004-2005 season and won a silver medal in China, then a gold in Hungary. She won the silver at the Junior Grand Prix Final, behind Japan's Mao Asada, marking the start of the fiercest rivalries in winter sports.

Kim went on to dominate the junior competition in the 2005-2006 season, winning both of her Grand Prix competitions in Bulgaria and Slovakia before topping the Grand Prix Final. Kim had her revenge against Asada when she won the 2006 World Junior Figure Skating Championships, edging her rival by a margin of 24.19 points.

Kim made her senior international debut during the 2006-2007 season, and won a bronze at 2006 Skate Canada. She won the 2006 Trophy Eric Bompard, edging Japan's Miki Ando, which qualified her for the Grand Prix Final for the first time.

She ended up winning the event in St. Petersburg, Russia, with a score of 184.2 points, 11.68 ahead of silver medalist Asada. This marked the start of one of the most dominating runs the senior competition had ever seen.

In the 16 senior events Kim participated in prior to the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, she won 12 of them and never finished lower than third, leaving a pile of broken records along the way.

Kim set her first world record at the 2007 World Championships in Tokyo with a 71.95-point score in the short program, although a subpar free skate had her finishing third.

She set a then-world best mark of 133.7 points in the free skate during the 2007 Cup of Russia, an event she won, executing a dazzling array of jumps, spins, and spiral and step sequences that now define her game.

Kim set a new world record of 72.24 points in the short program at the 2009 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships. It took her only a month to break the mark by getting 76.12 points in the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles, an event she won with a record 207.71 points after the free skate, becoming the first woman to pass 200 points.

This season, Kim had set a new world mark of 133.7 points in the free skate and an overall score of 210.03 points. She then broke her short program record with 76.28 points at Skate America.

Her outrageous score of 228.56 points in Vancouver, following 78.5 points in the short program and a staggering 150.06 points in the free skate, is proof that she had managed to save her best for the biggest moment.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr

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