Kim, Rochette skate and nation build
Last Updated: Sunday, February 28, 2010 | 10:17 PM ET
By Chris Iorfida, CBC Sports
The enduring image for figure skating fans around the world of the 2010 Olympic competition will be Kim Yu-Na blowing away the field. (Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images) They call ladies figure skating the marquee event of the Winter Olympics, and in Vancouver there was star power and poignancy.
One woman had a nation behind her, supporting her own incredible strength in the face of the worst kind of unforeseen circumstances, while another had a nation's expectations resting on her willowy shoulders.
Joannie Rochette earned the bronze medal just days after the sudden death of her mother from a massive heart attack. And earn it she did — you'd be hard-pressed to find a better short program performance in her career.
Rochette then showed her mettle by fighting for everything in her free skate on a night where her jumps weren't always flowing naturally. The competitors in fourth and fifth after the short program faltered, making Rochette's bronze more than just a pity prize.
Kim Yu-Na, encamped in Toronto the last few years, travelled west in her adopted land and stunned even her biggest supporters with nary a misstep. Kim was a beguiling Bond Girl in the short program — empashis on girl — and a portrait of elegance and skill in her free skate.
Back in her home country, many schools and businesses halted activity for Kim's 1 p.m. free skate. According to Korea Times, Kookmin Bank promised a 0.5 percentage point increase on interest rates for the approximately 135,000 people holding a "Figure Skating Queen Yuna Love" installment savings account.
You do the math, but it adds up to pressure like no other athlete in Vancouver faced.
The fact that the two biggest stories involved a Canadian and a South Korean illustrated that figure skating is more global than ever, and that there is no longer a conventional wisdom in the sport.
You can't assume anymore that a Russian will win the pairs or men's competition, or that an American woman will necessarily be in the thick of the gold hunt.
Joannie Rochette inspired Canadians with her performance during a difficult week. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press) Another example: If you told a figure skating fan not too long that one winning couple would have a combined age of 42 years and another 66, they would have logically assumed the older of the couples would be the ice dancing champs.
Not so in Vancouver. Canadians Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue, barely in their 20s, were mature beyond their years, combining technical excellence with movie star charisma.
Their biggest rival (also their training stablemates) were also of the vintage where not so long ago judges would have found some arbitrary and hidden way to dock them simply because they were young and North American.
Xen Shue and Zhao Hongbo, meanwhile, came out of retirement after winning two Olympic bronze medals in the pairs competition. Now married, they became the first pairs champs from China and put an end to 50 years of a Russian pairs entry being in the top spot on the podium (shared in 2002 with Canada's Jamie Sale and David Pelletier).
Perhaps no country's team reflected the new unpredictable nature of the sport more than the Americans. The U.S. had its first men's champion in 22 years in Evan Lysacek and put a couple on the ice dance podium in consecutive Olympics for the first time ever after never really factoring in the event for years, but suffered their worst pairs performance in history.
And after accounting for eight of the last 15 podium spots in the ladies event, the U.S. failed to put a skater in the top three for the first time in 1964. Admittedy, that may turn out to be a blip —Mirai Nagasu and Rachael Flatt highlighted a host of skaters not yet 18 who were in contention at the U.S. nationals.
Lysacek, meanwhile, was unwittingly put in the centre of a "controversy" that seemed wholly uncontroversial.
He was the first men's champion since 1994 to win the event without a quadruple jump, but that shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone who's actually watched the sport for the last four years. Under the current system, spins, footwork and quantity of jumps are valued, and a missed quad doesn't earn enough "E for effort" points to justify including it if you've got the whole package of attributes.
Lysacek does, although he hadn't demonstrated it on the biggest stage until last year's worlds..
Everyone from Brian Orser to Todd Eldredge to Patrick Chan thought Lysacek the clear winner over 2006 gold medallist Evgeny Plushenko and his immaculate quad-triple opening combo, as the American best tailored and performed a program that hit on all of the elements under the current system.
Among the critics: the increasingly embittered Elvis Stojko and a noted Toronto newspaper columnist — who as far as anyone can tell has never received accreditation as a judge — who just "knew" that Plushenko had prevailed.
One had to wonder if the columnist was also interested in taking away Canadian Jeffrey Buttle's 2008 world championship victory, as he too, won without a quad.
For all of Plushenko's talk about "dancing" taking over from athleticism, it was Lysacek who landed more jumps in the second half of the free skate, helping make for the winning margin.
Plushenko may have had a point if his long program's final two minutes had plenty of sizzle, but it didn't.
All the other competitors knew the system they were operating under, but Plushenko apparently thought possessing the single most superior element, along with an appeal to his status as past champion, should be enough.
No athlete tarnished his reputation in Vancouver more than the Russian, who has his charms. Sports fans understand if after the heat of competition a second-place finisher complains loudly about the verdict, but not for days afterward.
Speaking of class, two men who've given much to the sport finally got their chance to partake in Olympic gold.
Orser was a two-time silver medallist in the 1980s and never had designs on a serious coaching career until Kim stepped into his life. Orser was able to calm Kim's nerves and help her to an unbeaten streak that's lasted nearly a year-and-a-half.
Frank Carroll has watched a host of pupils fall just short on the Olympic stage, most notably Michelle Kwan, but the 70-year-old finally had his champion in Lysacek.
And no amount of complaining could take that away from him.
