Rivalry on Ice: Kim Gold, Asada Silver

Written By: guyjin on February 27, 2010 No Comment

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If you live in Japan and watched even a moment of television over the last week, you have heard of Asada Mao. The nation’s media have been frantic in their hopes that surely, after two weeks of competition, somehow the Japanese team would win their first gold medal. And none in the team were better placed than 19 year old Mao to bring home the gold – or so the narrative went.

The pressure on Asada, and her long time rival Kim Yu-Na from South Korea has been intense in the run up to their Olympic performances over the last few days. Hundreds of media struggled for shots of them leaving their home country, entering the Olympic village, and practicing their routines. In Japan, after a series of disappointments which left them with just 3 medals in almost two weeks at Vancouver, the hopes of the nation (or at least of the media) rested on Asada to not only turn things around, but to claim Japan’s second Olympic figure skating gold medal in a row, after Arakawa Shizuka in Torino. Never mind that Arakawa herself had been (and still is) just the second Japanese woman to ever win a gold medal at a Winter Olympics, and just the second Japanese woman medalist in Olympic figure skating.

But there was a problem. And that problem was called Kim Yu-Na. If Asada was the hope of Japan, Kim was the sweatheart of South Korea, and had been growing in stature over the last few years as her long running rivalry with Asada has gained steam. The similarities between the two girls are striking. So much so that Kim refers to Asada as ‘another me’. They were both born in September 1990. They are virtually the same height and build (Kim is 1cm taller). They have both been skating and winning world titles since their junior years. And they both narrowly missed out on the Torino Olympics because they were still only 15, and didn’t meet the minimum age of 16. Over the last several years, they have been trading world titles, with Kim having won 6 and Asada 5 in head to head match-ups going in to Vancouver. It was all set up for a classic competition.

In the end, Kim was just too good. Even a relatively one-eyed fan like me, who wanted to see Japan, and Asada, succeed, couldn’t deny that Kim’s performances were outstanding – and better than Asada on the day. Indeed, after her free routine Kim ended up setting a new world record with her score of 228.56 points overall, a full 20 points higher than second placed Asada on 205.50. Asada was devastated, in spite of the fact that her own score would have been enough to give her a massive victory over compatriot Arakawa just four years earlier (in Torino Arakawa scored a combined 191.34 points for the gold medal).

There was no doubt, on the day, that Kim was the winner. But the performances of the Japanese contingent were impressive. Aside from Asada, 22 year old Ando Miki, in her second Olympics, finished in an impressive 5th place, and 24 year old Suzuki Akiko finished 8th. Japan were the only nation to have three skaters qualify for the Olympics, for both the mens and women’s competitions.