After the tears, a gracious Kim is thankful for medal

After the tears, a gracious Kim is thankful for medal December 15, 2008

Kim Yu-na performs her free skating routine on Saturday at the Grand Prix Final figure skating in Goyang, Gyeonggi. With mistakes on her jumps, Kim finished second to Mao Asada of Japan. [NEWSIS] GOYANG, Gyeonggi - Sometimes, expectations only beget huge disappointments. At last weekend’s International Skating Union Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final, Kim Yu-na’s first international senior competition on home ice, it was difficult to overstate the pressure and expectations under which she performed. With all due respect to other competitors in other disciplines, the event was built up in such a fashion that it was Kim and then everyone else, world champions or former Grand Prix winners be damned. But Kim couldn’t quite deliver for the home fans, finishing second after a mistake-filled free skate on Saturday. She managed 120.41 points for a total of 186.35. Her archrival, Mao Asada of Japan, had a better free skate, scoring 123.17 points to finish at 188.55. Kim led Asada by 0.56 points after Friday’s short program but couldn’t hold on to the narrow advantage. Before her free skate, Kim looked unusually tense. And though she had a clean start, Kim managed only a single rotation on her triple lutz, normally her strong jump, for the second straight day and then fell on her triple salchow in the latter part of her program. Kim led the field in program component score, which assesses choreography and interpretation among others, but couldn’t overcome her miscues on the jumps. Blame it on the pressure, or the flu she said she’d picked up two days earlier - but the bottom line is Kim chose the worst time to have her worst performance of this Grand Prix season and Asada was the better skater. “I am disappointed that I made mistakes in my first event in Korea,” Kim said. “But this was also a great learning experience for me. I am happy that I won a medal at home.” Asada, second to last to skate before Kim, put pressure on the Korean by nailing the difficult triple axel (three and a half rotations in the air) twice early in her routine. She was the only female competitor to land two triple axels here. Asada later fell on another triple jump, but had a clean skate the rest of the way. “I am very happy that I was able to do two triple axels,” Asada said. “But after landing my second one, I was only concentrating on my next jumps. In the end, I had the feeling of accomplishment.” This was Asada’s first Grand Prix Final crown since 2005. In the past two finals, she had finished runner-up to Kim. “It’s wonderful to have a rival like Yu-na,” Asada said. “We motivate each other and I’d like to keep having this motivation of each other.” Kim failed in her bid to become only the second female skater to win three straight Grand Prix finals. She said she wasn’t thinking much about the three-peat, but explained it was the pressure of trying to win at home that affected her. “On Friday, the fans were a lot more raucous and passionate than I’d anticipated and that really surprised me,” Kim said. Kim cried in disappointment after Friday’s mediocre short program. But she was more ebullient on Saturday, smiling throughout her press conference. “On Friday, I was too wound up before my skate and when it was finished, tears just started flowing,” Kim explained. “But now, I am just relieved everything is over.” Fortunately for figure skating aficionados, there were other disciplines, too. In the men’s events, American Jeremy Abbott claimed his first Grand Prix Final with a flawless free skating performance on Saturday. Abbott successfully executed all of his jumps to score 159.46 points in the free skate and 237.72 overall. Abbott trailed Japanese skater Takahiko Kozuka by more than five points after the short program but Kozuka’s miscues in free skating gave him only 140.73 points for 224.63 total points. The excited Abbott said: “To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to win. I am blown away and very, very happy. I am proud of my overall performance.” American Johnny Weir was third with 215.50 points overall. In pairs, Pang Qing and Tong Jian of China leapfrogged two teams to win the title. They scored 125.25 points in the free skate and ended with 191.49 points overall. This is their first Grand Prix Final victory after two third-place finishes. “Korea is our lucky place,” Tong said. They had won the Four Continents Championship, also held here, in February this year. “We had great support from spectators here and I think we had our best program over the past year.” Their compatriots, Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, had 119.88 in the free skate and finished runners-up at 188.22. The overnight leaders and defending champions, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany, slipped to third after a mistake-laden free skating performance gave them only 114.95 points, for an overall score of 185.09. Ice dance world champions Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France picked up their first Grand Prix Final title with 156.10 points. They scored 95.75 points in Saturday’s free dance to edge out Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia, who scored 93.62 points in the free dance for a total of 152.95. “This was the best competition we’ve done so far,” Schoenfelder said. “It was hard today because Isabelle was sick all day [battling a stomach virus] and lost a bit of strength. But we tried to show more emotions.” American duo Meryl Davis and Charlie White were third with a total of 148.04 points.