VANCOUVER WINTER OLYMPICS CONTD.
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Olympics Blog | Figure Skating | Los Angeles Times
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/figure_skating/
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/photo/2010-02/20/c_13181295.htm
VANCOUVER, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) — Teenage diva Kim Yu-Na set an unprecedented bar for successors here on Thursday, winning South Korea’s first figure skating gold medal with record scores at the Vancouver Winter Games.
Skating flawlessly and infectiously to George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, the 19-year-old prodigy earned 150.06 points for free skating, breaking the previous world record of her own for more than 16 points.
The long program score, adding to her sublime short program on Tuesday, gave Kim a combined score of 228.56, a full 18.53 points more than her previous world best.
Trailing by 4.72 points after short program, the Japanese sensation Mao Asada, also 19 years old, sustained the second place on podium with 28 points down from the leader.
Figure skating trumps ‘American Idol’, and NBC’s Scott Hamilton cries
Figure skating trumps ‘American Idol’, and NBC’s Scott Hamilton cries
February 26, 2010 | 1:55 pm
For the second time in two weeks, the previously untouchable “American Idol” television show on Fox was beaten by NBC’s Olympic coverage Thursday night. That coverage included Americans Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane going 1-2 in a Nordic combined event, the men’s aerials and, most importantly, the long program for the ladies in figure skating.
During the 8-9 p.m. hour, when the Olympics went head-to-head with “Idol,” NBC averaged 19.2 million viewers to Idol’s 17.8, according to the Nielsen ratings. NBC averaged 22.9 million viewers on the night. The top group of six skaters featuring eventual gold medalists Kim Yuna as well as silver medalist Mao Asada; Canada’s Joannie Rochette, who won bronze only five days after her mother died of a heart attack in a Vancouver, Canada, hotel room; and 16-year-old American Mirai Nagasu, who skated the best long program of her life to move from sixth to fourth.
BBC Sport – Vancouver 2010 – Chinese pair win figure skating gold in Vancouver
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic_games/vancouver_2010/figure_skating/8517380.stm
Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo won an emotional pairs figure skating final to secure China’s first gold of the 2010 Vancouver Games.
The married duo and three-time world champions were coaxed out of retirement by the lure of Olympic gold.
Compatriots Pang Qing and Tong Jian won silver and Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy took the bronze.
British pair David King and Stacey Kemp finished 16th with an overall tally of 139.94 points.
Shen and Zhao had settled for third in both Salt Lake City in 2002 and Torino in 2006 and had quit the sport for two years before this triumphant return.
An overjoyed Zhao said: “It’s been so many years, to finally get this gold is so exciting. So many years have been devoted to this dream.”
BEIJING, Feb. 21 — Here’s some background on the Chinese gold medalist of the women’s 1500 meters short track speed skating.
This is Zhou Yang’s first winter Olympic experience.
Born in 1991, she is the youngest member of the Chinese women’s 1500 meters short track speed skating team. Despite her young age, the teenager is already a world record holder in this distance.
Zhou Yang made her mark on the international stage in recent years, winning the silver and bronze medals in the 2008 and 2009 world championships respectively.
In the past two seasons, she has held the top seat in world rankings for the women’s 1500 short track.
The sport demands great physical strength, one of Zhou Yang’s best traits which has allowed her to use powerful bursts of speed to dominate the short track.
Zhou Yang wins women’s short track 1500m final
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/video/2010-02/21/c_13182313.htm
BEIJING, Feb. 21 — Here’s some background on the Chinese gold medalist of the women’s 1500 meters short track speed skating.
This is Zhou Yang’s first winter Olympic experience.
Born in 1991, she is the youngest member of the Chinese women’s 1500 meters short track speed skating team. Despite her young age, the teenager is already a world record holder in this distance.
Zhou Yang made her mark on the international stage in recent years, winning the silver and bronze medals in the 2008 and 2009 world championships respectively.
In the past two seasons, she has held the top seat in world rankings for the women’s 1500 short track.
The sport demands great physical strength, one of Zhou Yang’s best traits which has allowed her to use powerful bursts of speed to dominate the short track.
Wang Meng defends 500m short track gold
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/video/2010-02/18/c_13178865.htm
BEIJING, Feb. 18 — China’s Wang Meng won the Olympic gold medal in the women’s 500 meters short track speed skating competition at the Winter Games. Wang Meng led all the way after surviving a restart and a false start in the four-woman final Wednesday night.
She defended the title she won four years ago at the Turin Games by crossing first with a time of 43.048 seconds. It’s China’s second gold medal in the Vancouver Winter Games. Marianne St-Gelais of Canada won the silver medal, and Italy’s Arianna Fontana took the bronze.
Photo from AP Photo – News, photos, topics, and quotes
http://oneclick.indiatimes.com/photo/0bGA2XM7vaePF
Shen/Zhao makes history for China on ice, Didier Defago meets Swiss hope on snow
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sports/2010-02/16/c_13176941.htm
Zhou Yang wins women’s short track 1500m final
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sports/2010-02/21/c_13181800_3.htm
Chinese super women break South Koreans’ monopoly in short track skating
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sports/2010-02/27/c_13190839.htm
2 comments
PareByoke
March 1, 2010 at 1:33 am
China makes historic breakthrough in winter sports at Vancouver Olympics
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sports/2010-03/01/c_13191987_2.htm

Chinese super women break South Koreans’ monopoly in short track skating
VANCOUVER, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) — When four Chinese skaters assumed a theatrical pose of Hollywood movie “Superman” on the top of the podium, they declared a new age has come to the short track speed skating at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.
South Koreans’ domination on this sport had been shattered here as China took all the four gold medals on offer in the women’s events, only leaving the men’s reign to their Asian neighbor.
“Four years ago, it was too hard to catch up with South Korean skaters, but we improve a lot during these years. Before we came here, we’re very confident,” said team leader Yang Zhanwu.
PareByoke
March 3, 2010 at 9:28 pm
South Korean Yu-Na Kim wins handily
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/26/SPUM1C7BKL.DTL
(02-26) 04:00 PST Vancouver, British Columbia — Sassy and spirited one day, elegant and assured two days later, South Korea’s Yu-Na Kim is a skater for the moment.
That moment arrived Thursday night when she took a figurative detonator and blew away the competition to win the gold medal in women’s figure skating with a world record total of 228.56 points based on her short program of 78.50 and her long routine of 150.06.
It was South Korea’s first Winter Olympic figure skating medal, and it was never really in doubt.
“I still can’t believe my performance,” Kim said. “I predicted that my score would probably be 140. I still can’t believe the score that I received. I’m really surprised. It’s almost as close as the men’s score.”
Cutting an elegant figure on the ice in a blue outfit with silver sequins, Kim wowed the crowd at Pacific Coliseum with her confident, assured routine and later impressed herself when her eye-popping scores were announced. She lives and trains in Canada. Though Korean is her native language, she could be seen mouthing “My God!” when her score was posted.
Speaking on an internal radio broadcast available only at the Coliseum, one announcer remarked, “That is unbeatable tonight. I think she just beat Evan” Lysacek, the men’s champion.
Added the second announcer, “If this was track and field, we just watched an eight-second 100 meters.”
Skating to Concerto in F by George Gershwin, Kim owned the ice for her four minutes as she glided to six triple jumps and a three-jump combination – double Axel-double loop-double loop – toward the end of her program that earned a 10-percent bonus for being executed in the second half of the routine.
Canada’s Joannie Rochette, skating through her grief from her mother’s death Sunday, arrived to the roar of a wildly supportive crowd. Though her long program had its imperfections, namely a stumble coming out of a triple flip, it earned her 131.28 points for a total of 202.64 and put her on the podium with the bronze medal.
Unless or until Canada’s men win the hockey gold medal, this could be the home country’s most popular medal of the Games.
“I feel proud and the result did not matter,” Rochette said. “I’m happy to be on the podium. It was a lifetime project for me and my mom, and we achieved that.”
To those who wondered how Rochette would hold up a second time under intense scrutiny, the answer was, “Heroically well.” Sorrow was put on hold for another day.
The silver medal went to Japan’s Mao Asada, who had the unenviable task of skating directly after Kim, whose flawless routine dropped the gauntlet. Asada was not equal to the supreme challenge, although she skated nicely and earned 131.17 points for a two-program sum of 205.50.
A rivalry doesn’t get much more keen than the one between Kim and Asada, both 19 and in their skating prime. Kim is the 2009 world champion. Asada won the honor in 2008.
“I was able to do what I came here to do,” Kim said.
It was the first time American women were shut out of a Winter Olympic figure-skating medal since 1964 at Innsbruck, Austria.
Young Californians Mirai Nagasu, 16, and Rachel Flatt, 17, put together programs of which the U.S. could be proud, although it did not land them on the podium.
Nagasu, whose 126.39 program points announced her as a skater to be reckoned with in the years to come, finished just out of the medals in fourth with a total score of 190.15.
Stanford-bound Flatt finished seventh with 182.49 points after her long program was scored 117.85.
“Yu-Na Kim is a little under 20,” Nagasu said. “I think it’s the prime age because, you know, at 16 you don’t have the experience and the maturity that they skate with. Hopefully by that time I’ll be able to get that. I think I learned a lot here at my first international competition.”