Meet your 2009 Japanese national figure skating champions, Daisuke Takahashi and Mao Asada!
That was the closest Dai-chan's come to landing a quad in competition since his knee surgery, but even though he had shaky landings on a couple of other jumps, his overall performance was good enough for the 1st major win of his comeback. Check out his reaction to his score at the very end of the clip: he was not sure he had beaten Nobunari Oda, and his surprise and relief was palpable.
Mao-chan, Mostly Harmless regulars will recall, had even her most devoted fans worried after a terrible start to the season. But after failing to qualify for the Grand Prix finals, she came roaring back in nationals:
Next up, 4 Continents, the Olympics, and then the worlds!
4 comments:
Mao's Triple axles were downgraded in both the short and the long. She's going to need that, and more if she wants to touch Yu-Na Kim in Vancouver, whom has a lot of love from the judges in this point system.
Gutted for Yukari Nakano, who will likely miss out on the Olys by less then .2 to Akiko Suzuki. Tough to get 3rd at nationals and not go I bet, but Ando deserves get spot despite finishing 4th. Ando's grand prix season was stellar.
I don't know if anyone can beat Yuna when she's on. The FMA thinks Akiko's free skate has what it takes, though, although she, too, feels bad for Yukari.
Yukari was the first of these level of Japanese skaters to get a Triple Axel ratified, way back in 2002 at Skate America. That competition was something as Nakano along with Ludmila Nelidina who skated after her became the first two woman to land the jump since Midori Ito in 1992!
Poor Yukari.
Poor Asada too, if she is unable to ever get a gold medal, she'll always wonder what would've happened if she was in Torino.
Holy cross-cultural swings, Batman! Check out who will be representing Japan in Ice Dancing in Vancouver:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_at_the_2010_Winter_Olympics
Kevin
Post a Comment