A leading U.S. daily has praised high South Korean figure skater Kim Yu-na, comparing her to Sohn Kee-chung, who won the Olympic marathon in 1936 when Korea was under the Japanese colonial rule.
“A victory would make Kim perhaps the most visible Korean Olympic champion since the bittersweet success of Sohn Kee-chung in the 1936 Olympic marathon in Berlin,” The New York Times reported in Sunday edition.
The paper reported that she is heavily favored to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating at the Vancouver Games in February, something no Korean woman has done.
She has come nearer to the victory in the Winter Olympic Games which is slated for February.
“At this point, Kim may be the most popular athlete in South Korea, journalists said, more popular than even Park Ji-sung, the captain of the national soccer team and a wing for Manchester United,” the NYT said.
The link between Kim and Sohn is “national pride, though for different reasons,” the paper quoted the Olympic historian David Wallechinsky as saying.
Meanwhile, Kim earned 76.28, the highest mark in the short program of women’s singles, at the 2009-10 ISU senior Grand Prix series in Lack Placid in New York Saturday. The score breaks down to 44.00 in the total elements score (TES) and 32.28 in the program components score (PCS). The previous high was 76.12 that she herself gained at the World Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles last March.