CONGRATULATIONS TO
SOUTH KOREA!
The luminous Yu-Na Kim blew away the competition last night by a substantial margin, in the process setting a new world record for ladies' skating! Mao Asada won the silver and Joanie Rochette (who deserved, I think, silver) actually won the bronze!
The big surprise last night wasn't that Yu-Na Kim won - it was the SHEER SIZE of her win! The other surprise was the lively little 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu who placed a very, very respectable 4th place! Well done. Both American skaters were there to gain experience but in the process they accomplished a great deal more. Both Nagasu and Flatt, ages 16 and 17 respectively, showed the world what it's like to see two young women skate with joy and freedom! And, in the process, earning us additional skaters at the world championships some time in the future! That's a very big deal.
So that puts my percentage at 50% for my early predictions. Weathermen don't do as well so I guess I should be satisfied with that, eh?
I keep saying it over and over again - one jump does not a program make! Plushenko has learned that [hard] lesson and now Asada has done so as well! My final word to all the skaters is that they should follow the example of Lysacek and Kim and run through their programs several times daily in practice. Muscle memory can be a remarkable thing! And take you through some nervous moments and help you recover from an occasional butt-meets-ice moment!
And to finally answer a question everyone keeps asking - why do the women post lower scores than the men - it's pretty simple. Men have no HIPS and rotate in the air much faster and thus can do triple axels as if they were nothing (the forward takeoff is a real obstacle to success for many) and quads are much easier for them. That's why the first women doing triples - and eventually quads - will likely be girls of Asian heritage!
The Anchoress has more here.
I keep saying it over and over again - one jump does not a program make! Plushenko has learned that [hard] lesson and now Asada has done so as well! My final word to all the skaters is that they should follow the example of Lysacek and Kim and run through their programs several times daily in practice. Muscle memory can be a remarkable thing! And take you through some nervous moments and help you recover from an occasional butt-meets-ice moment!
And to finally answer a question everyone keeps asking - why do the women post lower scores than the men - it's pretty simple. Men have no HIPS and rotate in the air much faster and thus can do triple axels as if they were nothing (the forward takeoff is a real obstacle to success for many) and quads are much easier for them. That's why the first women doing triples - and eventually quads - will likely be girls of Asian heritage!
The Anchoress has more here.
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