Figure skating is my favorite Winter Olympic sport. Sadly, the figure skating world in the U.S. lately doesn’t have the Kristi Yamaguchis and Nancy Kerrigans I’ve loved in the past. But I will be watching this year’s women’s competition closely to support Kim Yu-Na who has become a star in Korea and in figure skating–the first star female figure skater in South Korea ever.
With a whole nation’s hopes and expectations on those slim shoulders, the current world champion Kim Yu-Na is favored heavily for the gold medal in this year’s figure skating Winter Olympics competition. Her technical abilities in landing those triple jump combos with ease is coupled with aesthetic beauty in brilliant footwork and artistry with an air of happiness and excitement on the ice. She is truly beautiful to watch. While she has had occasionally stumbles, she is quite a joy to watch, and I hope she wins this for Korea — a first for the small country.
What makes this more interesting is that her two latest rivals are Japanese skater Mao Asada, who landed her first triple axel at age 14 and landed two triple axels in 2008-2009 and seriously has the most beautiful triple axel I’ve ever seen. Miki Ando is also the serious contender to the gold medal in this year’s Olympics and a very strong athletic skater.
Besides the whole Japanese-Korean competition thing that just ups the excitement in watching the women’s figure skating competition this year — all three women are beautiful skaters who have the utmost highest athletic ability ever seen from Japan and Korea, so this will be a great event.
For upcoming figure skating champions — I’d put my money on Chinese-American U.S. figure skater Christina Gao, who skates beautifully at only age 15. I fully expect her to be at the next Olympics!
Who will you be routing for?
