Beauty on Ice

Once as a teenage, I have spent some of my leisure time at an ice-skating ring relaxing and migling with friends. Back then, I didn't pay serious attention in making an attempt to twist or jump as figure skaters should. Rather, I simply enjoyed the feeling of being on the blades, running around portraying as if I was a bird flying on the ice.

Not being able to make all the fancy moves, I always found figure skaters so amusing. Everytime I watch figure skaters compete in any competition, nothing could draw my attention away from the TV. I used to like men's skating more than that of ladies', only because I found their moves much more entertaining and powerful. I love pair-skating because of the passion the two skaters have when they perform together. But at this moment, I feel overwhelmed with ladies' skating, especially that of Japanese skaters.

Since Shizuka Arakawa took the Gold from the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, ealier last year, Japanese media has spared much more room to promote this kind of sport. This permits a chance for me to enjoy the beauty on ice more often.

Japanese skater who has drawn the most attention is unsurprisingly "Mao Asada", a high school girl who outperformed many older skaters during the past years. Being only 16 years old, she was only given permission to compete completely in a senior series this year. She rocked the media to take the title for NHK Trophy in early December with world-highest score record for lady skaters and spare herself a chance to defend her championship title at the Grand Prix Final which was held in St.Petersburg in mid-December last year. Despite her great achievement in the NHK Trophy, she could only won Silver medal at the Grand Prix after Yu-Na Kim, another talented Korean skater of the same age as Mao.

Mao moved to the US last year for figure skate training alongside her older sister, Mai. Her coach helps her improve much of her skills which we can see through her difficult jumps and moves during her short and free programs. One of the talk of the town moves is her triple axel in which she added a series of step movement right before the take off. Mao has been having difficulty fully get a grib of the jump even at the Grand Prix Final. The only time she landed her triple axel without falling or touching the ice was at the NHK Trophy, but she still lost her balance after landing.

With in two weeks from then, she competed again at the Japanese National Championship Competition and this time she finally landed her solid triple axel and took the top seat with her personal best score at 211.76 (since this competition is classified as a domestic event, the highest ISU-recognized point still remains 199.52 in which Mao received at the NHK Trophy.)

@Skate America, October 29, 2006, the first competition of the season when she still struggled through her jumps.

@Japan National Championship, Dec 27-31, 2006, when she delivered flawless performance. She makes all the jumps look so easy!

It's really overwhelming seeing her stunning performance at this age. It must be very interesting seeing how she can improve in the years to come. Meanwhile, let's enjoy the upcoming World Figure Skate Championship to be held in Tokyo this March. I'm sure she and her fellow skaters, the Japanese Miki Ando, the Korean Kim Yu-Na and the America Kimmie Meissner, will show us something worth the wait.