Kim Seizes Lead; Then the Surprises Start
CHI,
Russia — Her choice of music for Wednesday’s short program, “Send In
the Clowns,” might have suggested departure and regret instead of
victory for Kim Yu-na of South Korea, the defending Olympic women’s
figure skating champion.
But
when two other favorites showed vulnerability and fell, Kim, 23,
narrowly took first place with a mature and elegant routine, even if it
did not equal her stirring performance four years ago at the Vancouver
Games.
Entering
Thursday’s long program with 74.92 points, Kim will try to become the
third woman to win consecutive gold medals in individual figure skating,
after Sonja Henie of Norway (1928, 1932 and 1936) and Katarina Witt of
the former East Germany (1984 and 1988).
Trailing Kim by less than a point was a Russian teenager, but not the one almost everyone expected.
Yulia
Lipnitskaya, 15, the European champion with the seemingly impossible
flexibility and blurring spins, fell on a triple flip and tumbled to
fifth place.
Her
teammate, Adelina Sotnikova, 17, a four-time Russian champion who won
her first title at 12, skated powerfully to “Carmen,” received a higher
technical score than Kim and surprisingly took second with 74.64 points.
“I’m very happy I managed to concentrate and show a good performance,” Sotnikova said.
In
third, also less than a point behind Kim, was Carolina Kostner, 27, the
2012 world champion from Italy. She struggled at the previous two
Olympics but was poised and graceful on Wednesday in a prayerlike
performance to “Ave Maria.”
While
Kim skated a more demanding technical program, Kostner cleverly
improvised her opening maneuver. Without alerting her coach, she
switched from a rudimentary triple toe loop, triple toe loop combination
to a more challenging triple flip, triple toe loop.
She
also received higher marks than Kim for performance, choreography,
musical interpretation, and transitions and linking footwork in
collecting 74.12 points.
After finishing 16th in Vancouver, Kostner considered retiring but decided against it.
“I just wanted to skate because I love it,” she said. “The hard times make you understand what you really want.”
Gracie
Gold, 18, the American champion, landed inexactly on three jumps but
managed to save them, a skill she learned in recent months under Coach
Frank Carroll. She held fourth place with 68.63 points.
Once
overcome by panic and fear about not making the Olympic team, Gold has
grown resilient. She said she had felt sick to her stomach before
Wednesday’s routine, but she rescued a shaky opening triple lutz to
complete a triple toe loop combination.
Gold
said she thought to herself: “ ‘Is this my Olympic moment? I’m going to
be on my butt?’ No. The Olympics is not the place to play it safe. I’m
going for it.”
The
biggest disappointment of the night was Mao Asada of Japan, the
reigning Olympic silver medalist, whose signature jump, the triple axel,
has grown unreliable, eroding her confidence.
Only
a few women have landed the difficult jump, which requires three and a
half revolutions. In Wednesday’s final performance, Asada, 23, fell on
the triple axel to open her program and had a disastrous skate,
finishing 16th with 55.51 points.
“I
lost the fight within me,” said Asada, who had also fallen on the
triple axel in the Olympic team competition. “It was all mental.”
At
the 2010 Vancouver Games, Kim gave one of the greatest Olympic
performances of any era. She conveyed sultriness and a hint of danger as
a James Bond girl, ending her short program with a pistol-pointing
smile, and won the gold medal with an airy, ethereal free skate to music
from Gershwin.
Kim
has become one of the most popular celebrities in South Korea, and a
year ago, she defied the convention that a skater must perform a
season’s worth of events on the Grand Prix circuit to remain at the
highest level. Having seldom competed, Kim arrived at the 2013 world
championships in London, Ontario, and won by more than 20 points.
This
Olympic season, though, has been disrupted and uncertain. Kim injured
her right foot several months ago and missed about six weeks of
training, along with the Grand Prix circuit. She arrived in Sochi having
competed only in a small event in Zagreb, Croatia, and at the South
Korean championships.
Because
her international standing had fallen, Kim skated much earlier than the
other favorites on Wednesday, which is generally considered a
disadvantage. But Kim said she had felt less pressure in an early group.
Wednesday’s
outcome demonstrated that Kim could still skate with precision
“whenever, wherever, whatever,” said Paul Wylie, the 1992 Olympic silver
medalist.
“She
finally smiled,” Wylie said. “I felt she was putting so much pressure
on herself. She’s the kind of person that is rare. She doesn’t need
other people around her to reach the level that is her standard.”
In
her warm-up, she appeared anxious. Kim said her legs felt stiff. Still,
she delivered a flowing if imperfect performance dressed in a sparkly
chartreuse costume, similar in color to one that Peggy Fleming wore in
1968.
The
judges rewarded Kim for her bounding and fluid triple lutz, triple toe
loop combination but found blemishes in her footwork sequence and
layback spin, which seemed somewhat slow and not wholly formed. Her
score, 74.92, was about 3.5 points lower than what Kim received four
years ago in Vancouver.
“In
warm-up, I was very nervous; I couldn’t jump at all,” Kim said. “But I
tried to believe in myself and believed in what I’ve done before. I felt
like I was dreaming. I had a lot of thoughts when I was giving my
performance.”
Afterward,
Kim put her hands to her head, perhaps in relief or in fear of a missed
opportunity. But she held first place. In Thursday’s long program, the
risk for Kim is that she will be judged by her 2010 performance, not by
her current merit, said Scott Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic champion.
“Now
it’s really tempting to judge her, not so much against the field, but
against herself,” Hamilton said. “If you feel like she maybe isn’t what
she was four years ago, maybe it’s because we’ve grown accustomed to
her. You’ve got to guard against that because it can create a level of
prejudice, where you are not allowing her to stand on her merit but on
the magic that was created four years ago.”
