Fearless, peerless
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Kim Yu-na holds the South Korean national flag after winning the the gold medal in the ladies competition at the World Figure Skating Championships in London, Ontario, Canada, Saturday. / AP-Yonhap
‘Queen Yu-na’ kills room for drama with dominant Worlds performance
By Kim Tong-hyung
In her first appearance at the World Figure Skating Championships in two years, Kim Yu-na showed the world that time hasn’t passed her by a microsecond.
Just as she did in her record-breaking campaign at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Kim blew her opponents out of the water with relative ease at Sunday’s finals in London, Ontario. Her overall score of 218.31 points was a whopping 20 points ahead of defending champion Carolina Kostner. Her rivalry with Japan’s Asada Mao, who finished miles away in third, continues to be a rumor.
Barring an injury or career-altering slump, Kim remains the favorite to defend her Olympic title next year. And this is a sentence sports writers have been cutting-and-pasting for the past three years. If Kim can be this good after a 19-month hiatus, would it even be fair to let other skaters lace up at Sochi?
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Kim Yu-na performs during the free skate program. / AP-Yonhap
Even a person born yesterday would have noticed that Kim simply works at a different level from her competitors. There is no other word than otherworldly to describe the speed and tightness of her spins, her timing, the balance and fluidity that allow her to glide on the ice and land like a feather after moments of controlled, airborne violence.
It’s rare that a skater so clinical in her execution of moves finds the room to exude such artistic flair and elegance. In skating to "Les Miserables’’ in the free program, Kim performed with an air of grace, sadness and sexiness that blended perfectly with the music.
Kostner had to be feeling miserable indeed. Kim opened with a triple lutz-triple toe combination and landed all six of her triple jumps flawlessly, killing any sense of drama about who would be atop the podium. According to the judges, it was a 148.34-point performance, just 1.72 points off the 150.06 she managed in Vancouver, which remains the world record.
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Kim’s good-but-not-great showing in the Friday’s short program, when she finished with 69.97 points, had been met with whispers whether she was rusty after her extended layoff. Her dominant performance in the free skating was more than enough to quiet them.
"I have been feeling more comfortable with my jumps this season. I am making fewer mistakes. The music requires me to be natural and fluid in my jumps and I think I have more confidence in my technique now,’’ Kim told reporters after the event.
"My free skating program was decided late (September), so there wasn’t much time to practice. But I loved the music and I loved the choreography so much, and that helped me digest the program very quickly. It was a fun experience as the people around me seemed to love it as well.’’
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Kim is increasingly looking like an athlete who has conquered her destiny. She has surmounted nearly every obstacle thrown in her path and set the bar to unprecedented levels.
The world in recent years has seen a slew of historically-talented athletes who redefined their games ― Lionel Messi in football, LeBron James in basketball and the pre-divorce version of Tiger Woods in golf. However, it’s difficult to find anyone who has been as dominating and peerless as Kim has been in her sport.
Kim, who says she idolized Michelle Kwan growing up, has safely surpassed the American figure skating great in achievements and poses a real shot at establishing herself as the best ever. Another Olympic gold medal in Sochi will make Kim the first two-time Olympic figure skating champion since the 1980s legend Katarina Witt, who excelled in an era when the women’s competition wasn’t as athletically demanding as it is now.
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Gold medalist Kim Yu-na, center, is flanked by silver medalist Carolina Kostner, left, of Italy, and bronze medalist Asada Mao of Japan as they display their medals following the ladies competition. / AP-Yonhap
It was Asada who was supposed to give Kim competition and bring out the best in her ― if it wasn’t already out. Coming into the Worlds, the Japanese skater had been generating massive buzz in the pre-Olympic season, nailing her biggest weapon, the triple axel, at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Osaka last month, on the way to winning the event with 205.45 points.
The problem with Asada is that she always leaves her best game in Japan. She is more athletically-gifted than Kim, being the only female skater in the world who lands triple axels with any level of regularity. Mentally, however, she isn’t wired like the unflappable Kim, who seems to have ice water running in her veins.
After a mistake-ridden short program, where she finished sixth, Asada recovered with a 134.37-point performance in her free program to manage a third-place finish. She opened with her trademark triple axel, but had to land on two feet to keep her balance.
"I wanted to execute everything I do in practice, but I couldn’t make the triple axel and the triple-triple jump combination. I really hated that I missed that,’’ Asada said through a translator.
World Championships results
1. Kim Yu-na, South Korea, 218.31.
2. Carolina Kostner, Italy, 197.89.
3. Mao Asada, Japan, 196.47.
4. Kanako Murakami, Japan, 189.73.
5. Ashley Wagner, Alexandria, Va., 187.34.
6. Gracie Gold, Springfield, Ill., 184.25.
7. Li Zijun, China, 183.85.
8. Kaetlyn Osmond, Canada, 176.82.
9. Adelina Sotnikova, Russia, 175.98.
10. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Russia, 174.24.
11. Mae Berenice Meite, France, 165.03.
12. Akiko Suzuki, Japan, 164.59.
13. Alena Leonova, Russia, 159.06.
14. Viktoria Helgesson, Sweden, 158.80.
15. Natalia Popova, Ukraine, 155.52.
16. Elena Glebova, Estonia, 152.49.
17. Monika Simancikova, Slovakia, 149.02.
18. Valentina Marchei, Italy, 147.23.
19. Nathalie Weinzierl, Germany, 142.48.
20. Jenna McCorkell, Britain, 142.27.
21. Brooklee Han, Australia, 141.88.
22. Sonia Lafuente, Spain, 139.66.
23. Zhang Kexin, China, 137.41.
24. Kerstin Frank, Austria, 127.98.
Free Skate
1. Kim, 148.34.
2. Asada, 134.37.
3. Kostner, 131.03.
4. Li, 127.54.
5. Gold, 125.40.
6. Wagner, 123.36.
7. Murakami, 123.09.
8. Tuktamysheva, 119.52.
9. Sotnikova, 116.36.
10. Osmond, 112.09.
11. Meite, 108.13.
12. Popova, 103.85.
13. Suzuki, 103.42.
14. Leonova, 102.76.
15. Helgesson, 100.44.
16. Glebova, 97.90.
17. Simancikova, 97.84.
18. Marchei, 96.82.
19. Weinzierl, 94.34.
20. Han, 91.26.
21. McCorkell, 91.04.
22. Zhang, 88.61.
23. Lafuente, 87.22.
24. Frank, 78.32.