SPORTS
February 3, 2014
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 9
Asians in American sports w Asian Americans in world sports
Winter Olympics to feature
fast and graceful Asian skaters
AP Photo/Song Kyung-seok, Pool
500-meter World Cup races she
entered, setting a new world
record four times, three of those
over an eight-day span in Novem-
ber. Watch for Lee, Wang, and
Jing to battle it out on the
speed-skating track, with Lee as
the favorite.
If you’re looking for less chaotic
ice action, South Korea’s Yu-na
Kim is the defending Olympic
champion in figure skating. She
also won her second world
championship in 2013, after a
two-year hiatus from the sport.
Kim faced further adversity this
year after a metatarsal injury to
her right foot knocked her out for
six weeks, forcing her to miss the
entire Grand Prix season. But
she has rebounded strong,
winning the Golden Spin in
Croatia, her first event back from
the foot injury.
Kim is used to extreme pres-
sure — and making history. Her
2007 bronze medal at the world
championships was the first
medal for a South Korean at an
International Skating Union
(ISU) event; her 2009 champion-
ship gold medal was also her
country’s first gold. Kim contin-
ued her groundbreaking ways by
winning South Korea’s first gold
figure-skating medal at the 2010
Olympics, setting the highest
score ever awarded to a figure
skater. In Sochi, she is trying to
be the first back-to-back gold
medallist in women’s figure
skating since Katharina Witt
accomplished the feat in 1984
and 1988.
Her competition will be stiff,
however, coming in part from
Japanese skaters. Along with
AP Photo/Michael Sohn
Continued from page one
SENSATIONAL SKATERS. Sang-hwa Lee (left photo) of South Korea competes
during the women’s 1,000-meter race of the speed skating World Cup in Berlin, Germany
in December 2013 and Yu-na Kim (right photo) performs in the women’s short program
of the Korea National Figure Skating Championships in Goyang, South Korea last month.
Both athletes are competing in this month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Kim, Mao Asada, Akiko Suzuki,
and Kanako Murakami are
among the few women ever to
crack the 200-point threshold in
ISU competition. Suzuki placed
eighth overall in Vancouver and
finished third in the 2012 world
championships, two spots ahead
of Murakami, who placed fourth
in last year’s world champion-
ships.
The 23-year-old Asada has
announced that Sochi will be her
final Olympic competition, after
an excellent career that includes
two world championships plus a
silver and bronze. She adds to
this four Grand Prix Final wins
and two second-place finishes, as
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three victories) in six straight
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Asada came in second to Kim at
the Vancouver Olympics, and is
currently ranked second in the
world, also after Kim.
Japan’s men figure skaters
boast two of the top three skaters
in the world, according to the ISU
rankings. Ranked third, Daisuke
Takahashi placed eighth at the
Torino Olympics in 2006 before
winning Japan’s first men’s
Olympic figure skating medal, a
bronze, in Vancouver. He won the
world championship in 2010,
Japan’s first men’s gold medal in
that event, and he was the
runner-up in 2007 and 2012. His
victory in the 2013 Grand Prix
was also a first by a Japanese
man, and he won two Four
Continents championships in
2008 and 2011.
For all of Takahashi’s history,
top-ranked Yuzuru Hanyu may
be the one to beat in Sochi. Hanyu
burst onto the scene in 2010 with
a gold medal at the Junior World
Championship, following that
with third- and fourth-place
finishes at the World Champion-
ships in 2012 and 2013, respec-
tively. He won the Grand Prix
final this past year in dramatic
fashion, achieving a world record
with his short program to set up
an easy win over three-time
world champion Patrick Chan. At
barely 19 years old, Hanyu might
leave Sochi with a medal.
Whether they’re tearing up the
ice on the short track or carving it
up with a triple jump, Asian
skaters will be a focus for
spectators in Sochi. And Asian
sports fans will hope — not
without cause — that they come
home with gold.
To learn more, or to view re-
sults of competitions, visit <www.
sochi2014.com>.
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