South Korea’s Kim Yuna takes gold after her triumphant return to the ice this past weekend.
Canada’s Patrick Chan takes home gold for the third consecutive year in a row at the World Figure Skating Championships.
A pair of 22-year olds took home the gold this past weekend at the ISU World Figure SKating Championships: Yuna Kim of South Korea and Patrick Chan of Canada. Kim, who took a year off from figure skating, made her return to the rink this past season and dominated in the Womens’ group, placing first in the final night of the championships (she scored 218.31 points, more than 20 points ahead from the silver medalist, Italy’s Carolina Kostner (197.89), who was the defending world champion). Chan defended his title and is now the first male skater in 13 years who have won the gold three years in a row. The Canadian also set a world record in his short program last Wednesday, with a score of 98.37.
Other Asians who also medaled in the competition were 19-year old Denis Ten of Kazakhstan (who is of Korean descent) and 22-year old Asada Mao of Japan, who both took Silver and Bronze respectively. For ten, it was the first time for a Kazakstan competitor to stand on a World podium. Ten nearly stole the show in his crowd-pleasing free skate performance set to music from “The Artist”. Check out clips from their performances below the cut!
So much drama, so much excitement. Tons of medals, disqualifications, trash talking, tragedy, victory. The Vancouver Olympics is practically the best thing on TV right now.
And both Asian Americans and Asians in general are making headlines left and right. Did you see figure skaters Yu-Na Kim, Mao Asada and American Mirai Nagasu do their short program the other day? Amazing.
Yu-Na Kim. Photo courtesy of Yonhap News Agency.
It’s that time again. The Winter Olympic Games are upon us, this time in Vancouver, starting February 12, 2010. The U.S. has got a lot of talent as usual, and we’re going to highlight some of the Asian American athletes who may be competing at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.
First up is 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu, who is hoping to make it on the U.S. figure skating team. (The team will be announced in a couple weeks.)
Mirai Nagasu. Photo courtesy of NBC/USOC.
