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Sports column vol.2 – Sochi Olympic
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Today I introduce mainly one of the top figure skaters, Asada Mao who placed the sixth prize updating her highest score, 142.71 at the free skating in Sochi Olympics.
Female figure skaters with a focus on 浅田真央(Asada Mao)
Mao Asada was born in Aichi Prefecture, Nagoya city and has one elder sister who was also a figure skater. Mao idolized Midori Ito who was also from Nagoya city and won a silver medal in 1992 Albertville Olympics. Mao Asada won a silver medal at Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010. Since she made a debut at fourteen years old during 2004 – 2005, she has accomplished many highest results, gold medals in worldwide competitions such as Junior Grand Prix Final.
She studied classcial ballet from the age of three to nine and switched to figure skating in 1995 with her sister, Mai Asada who was two years older and finished 6th at the 2006 Four Continents Championships. People have called them “Bijin Shimai(美人姉妹)” – beautiful sisters. Their pet, a toy poodle, named “Aero” after a chocolate product manufactured by Nestlé became a cute star at commercials with Mao.
It would not be too much to say that Mao Asada completely attracted Japanese people to the beautiful figure skating.
In 2002, Miki Ando who was also from Nagoya(*1) became the first and only female skater to complete a quadruple jump successfully in the ISU Junior Grand Prix and has been a spotlight with Mao Asada. Shizuka Arakawa(※2) whom Miki Ando idolized won a gold medal at Torino in 2006 by her Ina Bauer(*3) while Mao Asada was not able to compete for her young age.(*4)
Mao Asada’s advanced skills and elegant performance to the classical music such as Chopin’s Nocturne or Rakhmaninov’s piano concerto have been always admirable. She has been good at the free skating with high and beautiful jumps. However, she wasn’t able to take full advantage of her strengths at the short program in the beginning of Sochi Olympics but later in the free skating, she regained the ability to attract people with her smile. Most people would think that she should be proud of herself by overcoming her mother’s death in 2011 and her spirit that she never gave up the shoe until the end.
*1 Nagoya has been a well-known mecca for producing many top figure-skaters.
*2 Tae Satoya, a freestyle skier has won a gold medal in the moguls event at the 1998 Winter Olympics. Shizuka Arakawa was the second Japanese woman who won the title following Tae Satoya.
*3 It is a “moves in the field” element in figure skating.
*4 ISU had decided the limitation of the age that the athletes should be at least 15 years old by July 1st, 2005, a year before the Olympic games.
Mingle Internationally Japanese Communication (MIJC) 