By Timothy Yoo
Secretariat winning the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. Tiger Woods winning the 1997 Masters by 12 strokes. Roger Federer winning the 2007 Australian Open without dropping a set. Usain Bolt running 100m in 9.58 seconds at the 2009 Track and Field Championships. These are the most singularly dominant performances in the annals of sports history. Athletic feats so extraordinary that we’ve long forgotten everyone else who competed in the same arena. Rather, we choose to remember these performances in glorious isolation. History—and no mere mortal—is their foil.
Well, make room for Kim Yu-Na on this list.
Donning an appropriately regal blue dress, Kim unleashed a stunning barrage of jumps, spins, and combinations on her way to shattering her own world record and capturing the ladies figure skating gold medal in Vancouver with a performance for the ages. Some came into the night expecting an Olympic-sized showdown between Kim and her longtime Japanese rival, Mao Asada. But there was no competition—only a coronation.
Skating to Gershwin’s “Piano Concerto in F,” Kim unflappably executed her required elements, including a triple lutz-triple toe loop and a double axel-double toe loop-double loop combination, while simultaneously displaying the poise and artistry that has set her apart from the field. Indeed, the ethereal grace of her performance belied its incredible technical difficulty. When it was over, the face that launched a thousand Facebook status updates broke into tears of joy (or perhaps, relief). Her free skate score of 150.06 (78.30 for technical merit and 71.76 for presentation), as well as her combined score of 228.56 (a whopping 23.06 points better than silver medalist Asada’s score) set new world records.
But beyond the records, the medal, and the national pride, tonight was about the performance. Everything about it— the look, the presentation, the execution, her impeccable awareness of the Moment—was perfect, absolutely perfect. With the eyes of an entire nation on her, and the weight of the world on her shoulders, Kim delivered the greatest performance in her sport’s history. And you don’t have to be a figure skating fan, or even a sports fan, to appreciate it. There isn’t anyone among us who ever heard Mozart play the piano, saw Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel, or attended an Isaac Newton lecture, but tonight, we all saw something equally as special and unique: We saw the world’s best skate her magnum opus.
Indeed, her records will be broken someday, and the gold on her medal will eventually tarnish, but Kim Yu-Na’s performance tonight will live forever.
How did you feel while watching her last night?
Photo: Reuters
