Mao and Yu-na
I’ve been travelling a bit today. And between work early this afternoon, the bus terminal, the bus, my motel room and the restaurant I dined in tonight, I must have seen Kim Yu-na’sperformances at the Olympics more than half a dozen times, along with the highlights of her main competition.
My take-away from most of it? I feel really bad for Mao Asada.
Her short program looked flawless. When they showed her triple axel in slow motion, you could see how excited she was - after a few performances where she botched it, she nailed her signature move again. You could tell she felt good about it, and then she winds up with the highest short-program score of her career. Her excited look has stayed with me. But then Kim goes and performers flawlessly as well, breaking her own world record in the process. Asada is down, but not out.
Cut to today. Kim stuns yet again. Was anybody prepared for the massive marks she earned? And after blowing the world record away, Asada has to follow her. How do you perform after seeing your rival get marks like that?
I haven’t watched too much figure skating, but it looked like Asada had two noticable hiccups in her free skate. Obviously, that’s not going to cut it, but she still wound up breaking her own personal best by quite a bit. Still, from the moment she finished, you could see it in her eyes: it wasn’t enough. She cast the same forlorn look on the podium an hour later when they draped silver around her neck. Even two of her very best performances wouldn’t be enough to beat her rival.
All that being said, once Kim finished her free skate overcome with emotion, it was hard not to feel the same way. My office is filled with Korean women in their 20s, and seeing each of their faces magically captivated by this new national hero was a pretty site. And lest I be deported, Kim was flawless and earned her victory. But my heart still goes out to Mao Asada, a victim of history.
2 years ago