By Andrew Jo
With a breathtaking combination of grace, beauty and sensuality, Kim Yu-Na, 19, heads to her first Olympic competition like few before her have. Hailed as a figure skating prodigy, the first such title bestowed upon a Korean figure skater, Kim will have lofty expectations as she takes the ice at Pacific Coliseum next month during the XXI Winter Olympic Games.
While pressure and spotlight are two things often associated with star athletes, judging upon her past performances, one could never imagine the two affecting Kim on the ice. With her almost effortless combination of spins, jumps and footwork, the skating phenom has dazzled crowds since her first international competition at the 2002 Triglav Trophy held in Jesenice, Slovenia, where at the age of 11, she took home gold in the novice competition. The following year, Kim would become the youngest South Korean Figure Skating Champion and a rising international star.
Born in 1990 in Bucheon, South Korea, Kim began skating at age 6. While honing her skill as a junior competitor, Kim finished first in 11 competitions, from 2001 to 2006, five of which occurred in the 2005-2006 season. It was also as a junior competitor that Kim formed a fierce yet friendly rivalry with fellow skater and peer Mao Asada of Japan. Finishing behind Asada in two of her three second place finishes in the 2004-2005 season, Kim, just 20 days Asada’s senior, has shared nearly the same course to Vancouver as her rival.
Following their promotion to senior competition, it was Asada that led the early medal count. Yet Kim, who in 2006 would begin training in Canada with Brian Orser, a two-time Olympic silver medalist, would finish with a flurry with seven first-place finishes from 2008 into the beginning of the 2009-2010 season.
Widely regarded as one of the top figure skaters of his generation, Orser won the silver medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, and again at the 1988 Games in Calgary. The 48-year old coach will now try to live an Olympic dream vicariously through his gifted pupil, as the Olympics return to Canada for the first time since Orser’s heartbreaking silver medal finish in Calgary.
“He really knows what I feel in the competitions because there was Brian-Brian and I am doing that now,” said Kim to The Associated Press, following her record-breaking performance at the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships. The quote was in reference to Orser’s involvement in the “Battle of the Brians” during the 1988 Olympics in which his adversary, American Brian Boitano, would win Olympic gold, and its similarity to her ongoing rivalry with Asada.
“Rivalry is good for the sport, but I like to keep it friendly because that’s how I was with Brian [Boitano],” Orser told The New York Times prior to the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships. “When a rivalry becomes bitter, it’s a problem, so I tell that to Yu-Na. She feels a huge responsibility to win, and that includes beating Mao. She is aware of what people expect of her.”
Kim, who, like her coach in 1988, will head to the Olympic rink as the reigning World Champion, has set the standard for ladies’ figure skating under the International Skating Union scoring system, earning 76.28 points through a short program (2009 Skate America), 133.95 through a free skate (2009 Trophée Eric Bompard), and a 210.03 combined total (2009 Trophée Eric Bompard). She remains the only female skater to surpass the 200-point total, doing so twice.
As of December 14, 2009, Kim is ranked the top international skater, according to the Ladies’ International Skating Union World Standings for Figure Skating and Ice Dance. Italy’s Carolina Kostner is ranked second, followed by Asada.
A national celebrity known as the overwhelming Olympic favorite, Kim is the first Korean to win a World Figure Skating Championship, and bears the hope of the nation in becoming its first Olympic gold medalist in her sport. With that national hope enters her coach’s dream.
“Yes, it would,” interrupts Orser in an interview with USA Today, when asked if a gold medal would make up for his past Olympic shortcomings. “Make up for Calgary? Sure. I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t.”
Kim, who has told KoreAm that her role model is American skater Michelle Kwan, also told The Korea Times that the “Olympics are the stage which not only figure skaters but also all athletes have dreamed of participating in. Since watching Michelle Kwan perform at the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, I have wanted to become a skater.”
And now, she added, “I am thrilled to compete in the event. I want to perform my best routine at the best stage.”
