It figures for Kim, Lysacek to take golden parachute

Ten things I know, and you should:

1. I hope I'm wrong, but my gut feeling is 2010 Olympic figure skating singles champions Kim Yuna of South Korea and Evan Lysacek of the United States are done with competitive skating.

2.  Both Kim, 20, and Lysacek, 25, always will be remembered for having given a career-defining performance to win the gold medal.  Not a bad way to go out, if that's what either decides.

3. Helene Elliott's column about Michelle Kwan in Wednesday's Times reinforced my conviction that while Kwan never won an Olympic gold medal, she rapidly is becoming one of the greatest Olympians ever -- a person of so many more dimensions than she showed us in her extraordinary skating career.

4. The U.S. Olympic Committee should step in if USA Track & Field's board decides to dump CEO Doug Logan after this weekend's meeting in Las Vegas. Logan deserves to get through at least the 2012 Olympics.  Blaming him for a poor showing in Beijing two years ago is ridiculous.  The guy was on the job about 12 minutes before the 2008 Summer Games.

5. Ice Wars: Kim Yuna (Pyeongchang) vs. Katarina Witt (Munich). The two Olympic champions are big names on their country's bid team rosters in the effort to bring home the 2018 Winter Games.  The winner of the International Olympic Committee's vote next year?  Kim and South Korea.

Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yuna considering L.A. as a training base

Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yuna has many reasons to love L.A., most notably because she won the 2009 World Championship at Staples Center while building up to her gold-medal performance at Vancouver in February.

The 20-year-old from South Korea likes it here so much that she has begun training at the East West Ice Palace in Artesia, a rink owned by Torrance native Michelle Kwan, a two-time Olympic medalist, five-time world champion and nine-time U.S. champion.

Kim will make the rink her base at least for the next month while she practices for the All That Skate LA show Oct. 2 and 3 at Staples Center, in which she and Kwan will be featured alongside a stellar collection of Olympic and world champions. If Kim likes the conditions enough she might stay even longer because of the availability of rinks and quality coaches here, said Koo Dong Hoi, an executive with the agency that represents her.

Kim was surrounded by Korean TV and print journalists Tuesday at Burbank's Pickwick arena during a news conference to promote next month's skating extravaganza. That's nothing new. "In Korea, she is much more than a movie star," Koo said.

That constant attention might lead Kim to take up residence here for a while.

"I was training for about four years in Canada," she said through a translator, her only reference to her departure from her previous training base in Toronto and breakup with Coach Brian Orser. "My coach and where I am going to be training is not decided definitely yet. But I’m here for the show and also find out the atmosphere and environment of training.

"L.A. has a large Korean American community and I also won a world championship here and trained a little bit when I was young here. So I’m going to make those decisions slowly, step by step. Since L.A. is a city that gave me great support for skating, I think I’m going to be very comfortable and enjoy the great energy in the city."

Training here, she said, "I'm going to have a comfortable environment and plan out what's next."

Check www.latimes.com/sports later for an update on Kwan's life after competitive figure skating and how she's preparing to make an impact in another field: international diplomacy.

-- Helene Elliott

 

 

No tears, but Nagasu still must get past fears

At least there was no big crying jag for Mirai Nagasu this time.

Nagasu has made substantial overall improvement since that episode at November's Cup of China, yet she still must learn to cope with what caused it: the pressure of being first after the short program at an international competition. Call it fear of flying high.

As Mao Asada of Japan won her second world title in three seasons, helped by a second straight badly flawed performance by reigning Olympic champion Kim Yuna of South Korea, short program winner Nagasu came undone in the free skate Saturday at Turin, Italy.

The 16-year-old from Arcadia, Calif., made three significant errors and plummeted to 7th overall with an 11th in the free skate. "Coming off the Olympics, where I was fourth, finishing seventh here is a really big blow," Nagasu said. "I feel really bad." Reigning U.S. champion Rachael Flatt was 9th, four places below her 2009 finish.

Nagasu's coach, Frank Carroll, had insisted she shed "no more tears'' after the China event, when she dropped to 5th after the free skate. Despite some snuffling in her voice, Nagasu kept a mostly stiff upper lip in an interview with Universal Sports after Saturday's poor performance.

Prior to Saturday, she had put together five straight strong performances -- three short programs, two free skates -- at major events: the U.S. Championships, Olympics and worlds. That was big step up from last season, when a growth spurt, a foot injury and teenage angst left her a very tearful fifth at nationals -- a year after her surprising U.S. title at age 14 -- and prompted the coaching change that brought her to Carroll. 

She always has been hard on herself, and Saturday was no exception. "I told myself last year that I wouldn't feel like this any more, so it's really a bummer to feel like this again," Nagasu said. "It took a lot to get me out of the pits last year, and I sort of feel like I'm there again now. I'm going to go home and try to get ready for next season and just take it one step at a time." 

Nagasu started badly in the free skate, with a stepout on her first triple lutz that kept her from doing a combination. Then she had a two-footed landing on her second triple lutz, which was downgraded to a double, and a fall on a double axel, which was called a single.  Her final planned triple, an easy toe loop, also was downgraded.

"Sorry," Nagasu said to Carroll after coming off the ice. An hour later, she was trying to talk a U.S. figure skating official into going for ice cream at a nearby mall. The only positive about the free skate came in the component (or artistry) scores, where Nagasu ranked a more presentable 6th. 

Kim's chances of retaining her 2009 world title disappeared when she botched two of her final three jumps. Kim's score, 130.49, was nearly 20 points below the record total (150.06) she amassed in her Olympic victory last month. It was good enough to win the free skate, but well short of overcoming the eight-point lead Asada had over Kim after the short program, when the South Korean made mistakes on three different elements.

Asada, the Olympic silver medalist, finished with 197.58 to 190.79 for Kim. Extremely generous scoring for a program filled with double jumps (eight doubles to just three triples) gave Laura Lepisto 178.62, allowing her to hang onto third by .8 over Japan's Miki Ando and become the first Finnish woman to win a world medal. Nagasu had 175.48, Flatt, 167.44.

Kim fell on a triple salchow and popped a double axel.  She also lacked spark throughout the 4-minute program. "My short program and the morning practice was not good, and I was worried," Kim said. "I am glad I was able to overcome the difficulties."

Kim's free skate score was still more than respectable. Only three other women (Asada, Joannie Rochette and Sasha Cohen) have scored higher. Kim, 19, said she would wait until after taking a break before deciding about competing next season. She was the first woman to skate at worlds in the same season she won the Olympic title since Kristi Yamaguchi of the U.S. in 1992.

Upon arriving in Turin, Kim said she had struggled with finding the motivation for worlds. "The Olympic Games were the biggest goal in my life," Kim said Saturday. "After winning the gold medal, I thought there was nothing more." 

Asada was second in 2007, first in 2008, then fourth last year, when Kim began to dominate the women's competition. "It has been a long time that I felt I had to work harder because of her (Kim)," Asada said. "Thanks to her, I grow as a skater, and I will be encouraged to work harder even from now on."

Asada, 19, gave every indication she will continue competing.  She is looking for a new coach after two seasons with Russia's Tatiana Tarasova.

-- Philip Hersh

Top photo: A dejected Mirai Nagasu, with coach Frank Carroll, after hearing her free skate scores. Credit: Clive Rose / Getty Images. Bottom photo: World champion Mao Asada of Japan congratulates silver medalist Kim Yuna of South Korea before the medal presentation Saturday. Credit: Damien Meyer / Getty Images

Kim loses world title to Asada; Nagasu falls to seventh

Kim Yuna's chances of retaining her world title disappeared when she botched two of her final three jumps in Saturday's free skate at Turin, Italy. Japan's Mao Asada took the title for the second time in three years.

And short program leader Mirai Nagasu of the U.S. came undone, dropping all the way to seventh in the final standings after a free skate with three major errors.

Nagasu was only 11th in the free skate.

Kim's free skate score, 130.49, was nearly 20 points below the record total (150.06) the South Korean amassed in her Olympic victory last month.

Asada overtook Kim in the overall score. Asada was lower in the free skate. Asada had a total score of 197.58 to 190.79 for Kim.  Laura Lepisto was third, becoming the first Finnish woman to win a medal at worlds.

Kim, 19, fell on a triple salchow and popped a double axel.  She also lacked spark throughout the 4-minute program.

As she came off the ice, her coach, Brian Orser, said, "You got through it.  Don't worry about it."

Kim's free skate score still was more than respectable.  She had only 111.70 at Skate America last fall, and only three other women (Asada, Joannie Rochette and Sasha Cohen) ever had scored higher than 130.49 going into Saturday's action.

But Kim had finished just seventh in the short program Friday with the third lowest score of her senior career, 10 points behind Nagasu and 8 behind Asada.  Kim botched a jump, a spin and a spiral in the short program.

"I'm sorry,'' Nagasu said to her coach, Frank Carroll, as she left the ice.

Nagasu started badly, with a stepout on her first triple lutz that kept her from doing a combination.  Then she had a two-footed landing on her second triple lutz and fell on a double axel.  She finished at 175.48.

U.S. champion Rachael Flatt was 9th, four places below her 2009 finish.

Kim is the first woman to compete at worlds in the same season she won the OIympic title since Kristi Yamaguchi of the U.S. in 1992.

Earlier this week, Kim said she had struggled with finding the motivation to compete at worlds.

-- Philip Hersh

Kim botches two jumps in free skate; leaders yet to take ice

Kim Yuna's chances of retaining her world title apparently disappeared when she botched two of her final three jumps in Saturday's free skate at Turin, Italy.

Her score, 130.49, was nearly 20 points below the record total (150.06) the South Korean amassed in her Olympic victory last month.

Kim, 19, fell on a triple salchow and popped a double axel. She also lacked spark throughout the four-minute program.

As she came off the ice, her coach, Brian Orser, said, "You got through it. Don't worry about it."

There were nine skaters remaining when Kim finished, including short program winner Mirai Nagasu of the United States and 2008 world champion Mao Asada of Japan.

Kim's free skate score still was more than respectable. She had only 111.70 at Skate America last fall, and only three other women (Asada, Joannie Rochette and Sasha Cohen) ever had scored higher than 130.49 going into Saturday's action. But Kim had finished just seventh in the short program Friday with the third lowest score of her senior career, 10 points behind Nagasu and 8 behind Asada. Kim botched a jump, a spin and a spiral in the short program.

-- Philip Hersh

U.S. skater Nagasu wins world short program; Olympic champ Kim 7th

A month ago, as the Winter Olympics ended, I wrote a blog saying the most enduring memory I would take from Vancouver was a vision of Mirai Nagasu as the next Olympic women's figure skating champion.

Friday, the 16-year-old from Arcadia, Calif., looked like just that.

With a stunning performance in the short program at the World Championships in Turin, Italy, Nagasu stands first with 70.40 points going into Saturday's free skate.

Even more stunningly, she took a 10-point lead over Olympic champion and reigning world champion Kim Yuna of South Korea, who had problems on three different types of skating elements and wound up 7th with 60.30 points, 18 fewer than her world-record score in Vancouver.

Given her recent level of excellence, it was undoubtedly the worst short program of Kim's career at the senior level, although she had lower scores twice before, at the 2008 worlds and 2007 Cup of China.

An aborted entry meant Kim got no credit for her layback spin. She was given level 1 - of a possible 4- for the spiral, with a negative grade of execution, and the triple flip was downgraded to a double. Kim, who has won her last six international events, said later she had never before missed an element other than a jump.

"I was a little scared to compete again," Kim said. "The Olympic Games were my goal, and I wasn't sure I could fight again for the World Championships. But tomorrow I will fight, because my motivation is still high. I have to forget about this."

Nagasu's score -- five points better than her 2-year-old personal best short program -- gave her a lead of 2.32 points over Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada of Japan.

"I'm trying not to think about (the free skate)," said Nagasu, a world meet rookie now in position to become the first U.S. woman to win a world medal since Kimmie Meissner took the title in 2006.

Showing the same confidence that carried her to 4th at the Olympics, Nagasu upped her technical ante with a triple-triple on the opening combination (the second jump was downgraded to a double). It was her third straight strong short program performance in a major event, following those at the U.S. Championships and the Olympics.

U.S. champion Rachael Flatt was 6th with 60.88. 

Asada lost at least five points when the triple axel in her combination was called a double.  That mistake accounted for the difference between the score Friday (68.08) and her 73.78  last month in Vancouver, where she became the first woman to land a triple axel in an Olympic short program.

"Of course, I'm very disappointed because of the downgraded axel, but I think I was able to perform relatively well," Asada said.

The top two in Friday's ice dance final repeated their Olympic finish, with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada taking gold and Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S. earning silver.

-- Philip Hersh

Photos, top to bottom: Mirai Nagasu points one finger as she reacts to seeing she is first in the short program. Credit: Damien Meyer / Getty Images. Kim Yuna has an expression and gesture of disbelief after her badly flawed performance. Credit: Paul Chiasson / Associated Press. Nagasu shows her grace and extension during a spiral sequence. Credit: Damien Meyer / Getty Images

U.S. skater Mirai Nagasu wins world short program; Olympic champ Kim Yuna finishes in seventh place [Updated]

A month ago, as the Olympics ended, I wrote a blog saying the most enduring memory I would take from Vancouver was a vision of Mirai Nagasu as the next Olympic champion.

On Friday, the 16-year-old from Arcadia, looked like just that. With a stunning performance in the short program at the World Championships in Turin, Italy, Nagasu finds herself in first place with 70.40 points going into Saturday's free skate.

Even more stunning, she took a 10-point lead over Olympic champion and reigning world champion Kim Yuna of South Korea, who had problems on a triple flip jump, totally botched part of her spiral sequence and wound up in seventh place with 60.30 points, 18 fewer than her world record score in Vancouver.

[Updated at 11:02 a.m.: It was undoubtedly the worst short program performance of Kim's career at the senior level, given her usual excellence, although she had lower scores twice before, at the 2008 worlds and 2007 Cup of China. Kim got no credit for one of her spins, and level 1-- of a possible 4 -- for the spiral with a negative grade of execution.]

Nagasu's score -- five points better than her 2-year-old personal-best short program -- gave her a lead of 2.32 points over Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada of Japan.

U.S. champion Rachael Flatt was sixth with 60.88 points, having done a triple-double for her opening combination instead of a planned triple-triple.

Asada lost nearly five potential points when her triple axel was downgraded to a double, meaning it was only a double axel-double toe combination. That mistake accounted for the difference between her score Friday (68.08) and the 73.78 she had scored last month in Vancouver, where she became the first woman to land a triple axel in an Olympic short program.

"I was a little bit tired, but tomorrow I will be stronger,'' Asada said. Her countrywoman, 2007 world champion Miki Ando, fared far worse, falling on the opening jump of her combination en route to an 11th-place performance.

Nagasu, fourth at the Olympics, upped the ante with a triple-triple on the opening combination of a third-straight strong short program performance, following those at the U.S. Championships and the Olympics.

-- Philip Hersh  

Film shows why South Korea's Kim is more than just an Olympic skating champion

It's a shame there are no plans yet to air in North America a fascinating Discovery Channel documentary on South Korean figure skating star Kim Yuna.

This week would have been a perfect time to show it, since Kim begins defense of her 2009 world title Friday in Turin, Italy.

The English-language film, "Hip Korea: Yu-Na Kim -- Seoul Spirit," which premiered on Discovery in South Korea last week, traces Kim's rise to the 2009 world title, but it is as much a sociological and cultural story as it is a biography of this young woman who won the 2010 Olympic gold medal.

Kim's story is told in the context of how she embodies the changes in women's stature in South Korea.

It is a country where, the film asserts, the empowerment of girls and women has accelerated dramatically in the decade during which Kim, 19, became not only her nation's first figure skating champion but also a national hero and a symbol of the new confidence with which South Korean women now seek expanded roles in society.

I wrote about what Kim means to South Korea, especially in terms of its complex and tortured history with Japan, in a lengthy profile of her published just before the Olympics and a story the night of the women's short program.  

The documentary adds new dimensions to our picture of Kim.

Discovery Channel calls the Seoul Metropolitan Government its partner in the documentary, which means that government would like the city presented as a gender-progressive place.  But the interviews don't sound scripted, and the background information on Kim (including views of an animated comic book that illustrates some of her past psychological crises and angst about skating) rings true with what I have come to know about her -- including the critical role her mother has played in the skater's career.

Producer Keiko Bang of Singapore-based Bang Productions told me by e-mail that the Seoul government's only involvement in the film, which cost some $300,000 to make, was as an advertiser on Discovery Channel.  Bang said the film is "an independent editorial documentary that is owned by IB Sports and Bang Singapore in association with Discovery Networks Asia."

Bang said neither IB Sports, the South Korean agency that represents Kim, nor the Seoul government had any editorial control over the content.

The entire film briefly had been available through a link to a video aggregator website, but that has removed for copyright reasons.

Bang said issues including International Skating Union ownership of footage from ISU events prevented allowing me to post the whole film, but he provided the five-minute trailer embedded below. (There is a commercial and a brief pause before it begins.) The still pictures above are of scenes from the film, with the top two of Kim during a cruise on Seoul's Han River.

A Discovery spokesperson said there are "no current plans to air the show on [Discovery Channel] in the U.S.''  I hope it has a change of heart, because this film gets to the heart of why this young woman is more than just a gifted, Olympic champion skater.

-- Philip Hersh

Skating math: Why Kim Yuna's gold medal glitters more, and post-Olympic worlds don't add up

As South Korea's Kim Yuna prepares to defend her world figure skating title this week in Turin, Italy, it's worth looking, by the numbers, at both her gold medal Olympic performance and the very idea of a post-Olympic world meet.

Fortunately for my math-challenged brain, a French television journalist, Paul Peret, has done all the heavy lifting and sent it to me in an e-mail over the weekend.

Let's start with Kim.

In a blog written during Skate America -- also prompted by a suggestion from Paul -- I noted that her score would have won the men's short program in an essentially apples-to-apples comparison. (Kim's raw score would have been second among the men, but after taking into account the difference in the way component scores are calculated for the men as opposed to the women, her score topped that of Skate America short program winner Evan Lysacek.)

The numbers for the Olympics are even more impressive.

1. Only eight men topped Kim's overall raw score.

2. In the short program, the men's component scores are factored by 1.0, the women's by .8. (The factoring is designed to account for both the generally higher difficulty of the men's jumps and, in the long program, the additional 30 seconds in the men's program.)

Recalculating to make the factor even, Kim's short program score goes from 78.50 to 86.95, which would have been fourth among the men.

3. In the long program, her raw score of 150.06 would have ranked ninth among the men. Here again, the men's component scores are factored by 25% more. Recalculating to even the factors, Kim winds up with 168 points -- ahead of Olympic men's free skate winner Lysacek (167.37). That is even more stunning given that the men get a chance for more technical points because they do 13 elements in the free skate, compared with 12 for the women.

4. Kim's recalculated total, 254.95, would have won the bronze medal in the men's event.

Maybe the International Skating Union should give Kim the additional medal, given how much her presence this week in Turin is worth to the sponsors and TV networks airing this essentially meaningless world meet.

That income is the only justification for having a worlds in the Olympic year, given that many of the Olympic medalists (five of 12, including two of the four gold medalists) are choosing to skip it.

Such medalist absences became customary soon after the end of compulsory figures (1990) meant the world meet would no longer be an automatic win for the recently crowned Olympic champion. Only following the next Olympics (1992) have all four gold medalists shown up to collect what had been preordained world golds.

Judging slowly became less predictable after 1992, and the implementation of the new judging system (first used at Olympics in 2006) made results even more uncertain. Many Olympic medalists have chosen not to risk tarnishing their new hardware with a less-than-shiny performance at worlds. 

Beginning with 1994, more than half the medalists (32 of 60) have not competed at the ensuing worlds. In 1998 and 2006, none of the gold medalists showed up. This season, four of the top six men from the Olympics will be missing.

That does not necessarily mean the worlds will have no good skating. In 2006, Kimmie Meissner of the United States won the women's title with a brilliant free skate -- but it came in the absence of 2006 Olympic gold medalist Shizuka Arakawa of Japan and bronze medalist Irina Slutskaya of Russia.

It just seems a little silly to have a world championships without half the skaters who had been among the world's best only a month earlier.

More numbers: Shame on the ISU for deleting some on the sly

That is how the international federation corrected the mind-boggling stupidity that allowed the Chinese to have a third pair at the recent World Junior Figure Skating Championships, even though the China had earned only two pairs spots.

In a telephone conversation last week, ISU director-general Fredi Schmid passed off as a "clerical error" the snafu that gave the Chinese three pairs.

I got an e-mail Saturday -- from a skating observer, not anyone in an official capacity -- that said the ISU simply had deleted the third Chinese pair from the results on the federation's website.

A quick check showed only two Chinese pairs still listed and this explanation at the bottom of the results:

Note: Due to a wrong entry the pair -- Xiaoyu Yu / Yang Jin -- from China, placed originally 8th in the final result, had to be deleted. In the corrected versions of each result of segment and Final each of the lower placed couples will move up accordingly. Due to the deletion of the pair Xiaoyu Yu / Yang Jin from China, which was originally qualified for the final Free Skating, only 15 pairs will be listed for the final result as having skated the Free Program.

So I fished around the rest of the ISU website, expecting to find an official statement about the change, which the federation did not announce by e-mail.

And I found nothing.

Which is worse than having made the mistake in the first place.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Kim Yuna carries the South Korean flag as her country's athletes arrive at Seoul's airport after the 2010 Olympics. Credit: Ahn Young-joon / Associated Press

For Lindsey Vonn and Shani Davis, a championship season continues apace

I know it's not an exact analogy, but imagine winning the World Series and then going back to make up some regular-season rainouts.

That's what Olympic champions like Lindsey Vonn and Shani Davis are doing.

And that's what makes the way they are doing it even more impressive.

World Cup seasons in several Olympic sports resumed a week after the torch went out in Vancouver, Canada.

Alpine skiing downhill gold medalist Vonn and speedskating 1,000-meter gold medalist Davis picked up right where each had left off.

Vonn won Saturday's World Cup downhill in Crans Montana, Switzerland, her 10th win on the circuit this winter, which set a U.S. single-season record and tied her with Bode Miller for most career victories (32) by a U.S. skier. She also finished second in Sunday's super-G.

(Julia Mancuso, surprise double medalist at the Olympics, was third in the super-G, the first podium finish in the last two seasons by a U.S. woman other than Vonn.)

Davis, meanwhile, won both 1,000-meter races at the World Cup in Erfurt, Germany. He is six for six at that distance this season.

Both Vonn and Davis have World Cup finals on tap this week.

A few other post-Olympic matters:

-- Barring a change of plans, Kim Yuna of South Korea will be the first newly minted women's figure skating gold medalist to compete at the ensuing world championships since Kristi Yamaguchi in 1992. 

And Kim's celebrity has reached even higher levels in South Korea, to the point that heads of major corporations are using her as the exemplar of success, according to the Korea Times.