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Excerpts from the YNKF Olympics discussion thread the night of the ladies free skate.

(Source)

Alexandra: Yeon-a! She will overtake Miki for sure

Lumiere16: They really need to stop bringing up the culture of Japan and Korea… Yu-Na's starting!!!

Alexandra: effortless double axel smile.gif

San_Fran: She has friggin done it

Alexandra: Vancouver is on its feet, and I am smiling widely. Yeon-a is gorgeous!

Jina: I'm so happy she delivered eferything!

Daniel5555: YUNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

San_Fran: I love that girl

gtwyvill: Awesome!!!

ME: SHE DELIVERED!!! I will be proud of her no matter what score they give her!!!

San_Fran: Look at Brian

Bam-Bam: I had three heart attacks there. Good Job Yuna!!!! rofl2.gif

Nadia: Yuna's clean. Oh my god, she's crying. So am I.

Jina: i'm crying i can't contain myself…she's so wonderful. i'm so [proud of her

Lumier16: Her score is going to be so high! Go Yu-Na!!!! heart.gif yahoo.gif

jimakros: they got to give it to her……………………

ME: Oh my god, she crying…

San_Fran: I will never know how she had the guts to do that

Alexandra: Brian makes me feel nervous. Nothing but good reviews from the BBC commentary <3

Alexandra: 150.06

Lumiere16: Holy ######…

San_Fran: Oh my God Am I dreaming

Moogoonghwa: OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 150!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jina: 228.56!!!!

jlam: ohhh yuna was crying at the end! that was the most perfect program she's ever done. 150 points. wow

jimakros: lets wait for Mao……….

Alexandra: If it wasn't so late here, I would be screaming & jumping. No way can Mao beat that.

rayearth87: YES!!!!!!!!

Magpie: WOW!!! She's amazing! And what a score!

San_Fran: That was so awesome I feel sorry for Mao

Daniel5555: Oh, I'm laughing! Yuna 228 points!!! The best skater in the world! The best skater in the history! Oh, I'm so happy!!

beautyuna: thank you Yuna thank you

And the reaction after she won her gold:

jimakros: YU-NA OLYMPIC CHAMPION 1st.gif

Alexandra: Mirai finished fourth. Yeon-a is amazing. Beautiful. Now that is what I call a gap in the scoring. 23 points…

Moogoonghwa: IT'S OFFICIAL!! YU-NA's the champion!! And Mirai deserved 4th beating Ando and Flatt (thank god.)

Michael Buckley, the host of Youtube show “What the Buck?”, comments on the Olympics.

This live blog was open to visitors to the Seattle Times website and moderated by writers Jerry Brewer and Stephanie Clary. The selection below are the unedited comments from when Yu-Na took the ice.

Full Live blog

8:20 Jerry Brewer: Yu-Na Kim is next. Can't wait to see this.

8:21 StephanieClary: Ando earns 124.10 tonight, bringing her total to 188.86, moving her to first place.

8:21 [Comment From floinor] I don't think Flatt is chunky. Her BMI would only be 20.8 with those stats.

8:21 [Comment From polycarp] go yuna

8:21 [Comment From amy] Yuna! Yuna!

8:21 [Comment From SC] Hope Yu-Na does well

8:21 [Comment From SAM] GO YUNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO HOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

8:21 [Comment From Janis] here she goes!

8:21 Jerry Brewer: Miki Ando is the new leader. Lepisto 2nd. Flatt 3rd. Don't think Flatt will be able to hold onto that.

8:21 [Comment From floinor] Her outfit was awesome…

8:22 StephanieClary: Yu-Na's collar is amazing. Love that electric blue.

8:22 [Comment From amy] She has the classiest outfit so far tonight.

8:22 [Comment From Jayne] TV can be deceiving for proportions, most of the skaters are tiny now. Dorothy Hamill towers over them. DH is about 5'f4” and 119 lbs to give you perspective.

8:22 [Comment From SC] can't imagine the pressure she's under from Korea

8:22 [Comment From floinor] Skating to Gershwin. And she is only 19.

8:22 Jerry Brewer: triple lutz, triple toe loop. She's captured everyone's imagination already

8:22 [Comment From Guest] I'm surprised flatt didn't get a higher score

8:22 [Comment From amy] YES!

8:23 Jerry Brewer: double axel, double toe, double loop.

8:23 [Comment From floinor] She makes it look easy…

8:23 [Comment From SAM] i can't breathe….. i want yuna to win soooo bad!!!!!!!!

8:23 [Comment From amy] I love it when her arm goes up at the end of that loop.

8:23 [Comment From amy] It adds such a classy flair to it.

8:23 [Comment From amy] akes it look so elegant and beautiful.

8:23 [Comment From znachki] Extra point for the ver the head arm

8:24 [Comment From Janis] OK, she's completely fascinatingly fantastic. simple.

8:24 [Comment From SC] music is wonderful for her skating…great compliment

8:24 Jerry Brewer: I can't even stand on one leg and brush my teeth in the morning. Wow.

8:24 [Comment From floinor] She uses her arms alot…very elegant.

8:24 [Comment From amy] I think Scott Hamilton ssaid she could fall on her butt twice

8:24 [Comment From amy] and stop skating 2 minutes in

8:24 [Comment From floinor] @Jerry

8:24 [Comment From amy] and still win

8:25 [Comment From polycarp] i can stand on my one toe

8:25 StephanieClary: There's an element of theatrics to her performance. She's captivating

8:25 [Comment From amy] her ice dancing is so lovely.

8:25 Jerry Brewer: That double axel was ridiculous

8:26 [Comment From floinor] Her arms are always moving…

8:26 StephanieClary: I like that aspect. It's like she's presenting each movement

8:26 tiffanycampbell: this place just erupted.

8:26 Jerry Brewer: Thunderous ovation, for sure

8:26 tiffanycampbell: Stuff flying like crazy onto the ice.

8:26 [Comment From amy] she FLOATS

8:26 [Comment From amy] omg!

8:26 [Comment From amy] OMG!

8:27 StephanieClary: All the flower collectors are out. She is loved

8:27 [Comment From znachki] She's got one thing that I don't think you can teach, and that's musicality - you're a person who can feel the music, or you can't - let it flow through you.

8:27 Jerry Brewer: I think this competition is over, folks. We have our gold medalist.

8:27 [Comment From amy] I don't know how Mao can make up the 5 point difference now.

8:28 StephanieClary: Yes, that was pretty flawless. She has the perfect balance of graceful dancing and effortless jumps

8:28 [Comment From polycarp] A contrast from 007 girl to this classical piece!!!!!

8:28 [Comment From amy] Even with a flawless perfect double triple axel performance…

8:28 [Comment From amy] She just doesn't have the points.

8:28 [Comment From Janis] yup, turn off the lights, the party's over

8:28 [Comment From SAM] crying with her now… sniff sniff…

8:28 StephanieClary: Yu-Na's scores: 150.06 points tonight

8:29 StephanieClary: This brings her total to 228.56 points

8:29 Jerry Brewer: Yu-Na Kim just shattered the world record

8:29 StephanieClary: She is, obviously, leading

8:29 Jerry Brewer: It' O-V-E-R.

8:29 [Comment From SAM] should have gotten that box of tissue…

8:29 [Comment From amy] new world record?

8:29 [Comment From Janis] OMG!

8:29 [Comment From SC] orser almost reminds me of tom hanks

8:29 [Comment From amy] holy cow.

8:29 [Comment From amy] her own world record. Broken. Again.

8:29 [Comment From SC] dancing in the korea streets

8:30 [Comment From Jayne] AWESOME! this isthe best part of the Olympics, when they perform at the peak!

8:30 Jerry Brewer: The world record, which she owned, was 133.95. Destroyed it!

( YNKF Translation, Source )

Notes from os168:

The following is a translated article (23.3.2010) from a famous Chinese blogger about Yuna and Mao during the Olympics. The original text can be found here: http://liarliar.blogbus.com/logs/61003281.html The blogger is a casual viewer, and not even a fan of the sport, and like many he felt enchanted enough to write up the following. Much of the feelings are already shared by the forum, but I thought it is a refreshing philosophical view to analyse the event, the performance, the sport and the competitors from an impartial casual viewer from China.

Today I want to describe everything. It started since the Winter Olympics.

Before the Olympics began, there were a documentary on the Chinese network television to review past Olympics, and outline potential highlights for the upcoming Olympics 2010. I am someone who doesn't do sport and naturally have no interest in sports, but since that that documentary that highlighted the Ladies Figure Skating, there was a competitor that caught my attention, that left me stunned and breathless. Her name is Kim Yuna, Korean, 19 years old. From my observation from past great ladies skaters, I have not see such an graceful, natural, expressive skater. From the moment she spun in the air to the moment she land… woww.. how should one even begin to describe? The word 'faultless' is not enough, as it implies using techniques expertly to skate, but she's beyond that. In enduring the long and hard working training, she seems to have surpassed everything and reached the heights where she forget herself. The ice has became a stage, she forgot her nationality or that she is participating in a event that doesn't allow mistakes. She remind me of the raw moments when you first became acquainted with certain classical master pieces for the very first time, where logic can not be used to describe your impressions and complex feelings. It opened my eyes, at those moment it surpasses from merely 'a sport' or the 'nature of competitive' sport, but the 'essence' of the sport.

During the actual Olympics, my wife and I observed her rivalry with the Japanese Mao Asada with interest, having read about their rivalry since age 16, being the same age, they were frequently exchanging worlds top 1 and 2. Compare to Yuna's ideal athletic figure proportions, open expressions and and confident demeanour; Maos's appearance is more delicate in comparison and her figure is more petite and fragile.

Her program was suppose to be the more technically difficult, and although I do not understand these technical terms, it was the impressions I gained from the broadcast. What make it it even more interesting is Yuna's coach is from Canada, while Mao's coach was from Moscow. Yuna's program is Gershwin's Concerto in F, while Asada's is Grandbell of Moscow.

Yuna's performance does not need further explanation, flawless, succinct, direct and simply delightful. When I heard Mao was to perform Moscow's grand bell, I became anxious for her, not only did she picked the most difficult elements, she decide to join it with such a profound tragic Russian type sorrowful music. What will happen? Unsurprisingly, I saw Mao Asada's petite stature seems crushed with the huge burden of the piece and her nerves were not able to withstand even though they gained valuable points. Behind her bravery, the majestic and powerful Moscow's Grand Bell rang the the most painful shattering heart in this competitive sport, and Mao Asada displays the type of despair that makes one trembles with hopelessness, the type of despair compels from the determined pursuit to exceed one's limitations, and she were not able to fully exhibit the artistic expressions needed with this Russian high art piece.

All this is too interesting. They work equally hard, similarly gifted, but Yuna's performance brought us the delight from competitive sport. Her smile and tears are simple and clear; Mao's performance brought us the nervous tensions and expectations to surpassing her limits. The type of 'No mistakes, I must win' attitude. Here are 2 types of methods, 2 types of attitudes, 2 types of cultures? What I saw was Mao upon completing the most complex element, she smiled are like sighs of relief, like a heavy burden has been lifted. Her talent deserves acclaim and was very moving. It made us to think 'This is too hard' with sympathy. With Yuna, she made us think 'This is too beautiful'.

Looking at these 2 competitor's performance, I had been trying to describe Yuna in the most simple accurate way from the far distance of a casual observer. How to describe what impression left us most satisfied; power, speed, beauty?

They seems at odds with each other, and the three seems have no correlations. While one can try to remain neutral but when it is trying to describe the extraordinary talent of a gifted sport artist then it became somewhat a hopeless cause. Perhaps the following 3 groups of words are more more apt, it is something we grew up with (Translator's note: this is a Chinese philosophy and principle to approach life)

Truth, Goodness, Beauty (真、善、美, http://baike.baidu.com/view/93855.htm)

So you ask why the final word is still Beauty and not something else? The whole point was to have separation of the group of words “Power, Speed, Beauty” and “ Truth, Goodness, Beauty” to provide a deeper understanding and realisation, so why is “Beauty” is still featured last?

What is Truth?

In my opinion, it incorporate everything within your real situation, including your birth, your talent, your environment, the time periods you experienced, basically everything nature provide you.

What is Goodness?

My long personal contemplation on this meaning has changed throughout a life time. When we were young, adult tell us, Goodness is being kind, you must have good conscious, good principles and intentions, have kind heart, be a good person. On its opposite is the extreme scary word: Evil/Badness. However now my view which had been drawn out over time, it is more to do with 'Goodness with', in other words, goodness is a type of method, the type that originate from the 'truth' which you understood best to face the world. It is a type of progress, a journey, that took sensibility, thoughts, and actions to find your own path. The path is yours to follow only, and nothing to do with anyone else. This pursuit is full of loneliness, pain, hurt, brilliance, colour, lightness, darkness, despair and nobility all counted towards the prospect of gaining goodness. So where does that take us?

Beauty.

Here, beauty is what we ultimately wish to strive for whether it is the lightest or the darkest path we follow. It is not easily achieved. To attain beauty or a state of grace, it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, win or loose, it is an independent sparkling spatial existence. It is the very ending as well as the very beginning, it exist as a type of euphoria, or a peace of mind that one attain happiness, comfort, joy. In this sport, it is solving the mysterious algorithm of 'strength/power' and 'speed' in total sum, calculated to the highest heavens that elevate one's life existence and pushes to edges of unbounded potentials. One realise the 'boundary' of limitations has no meaning, but its significance is something we are unable to restrain from asking. Frankly, when we discuss about 'beauty', one is unwilling to investigate it, it is something not easily touched, discussed, and sometimes it appears accidentally or purely by chance. It flows in our consciousness, the moment it happens, it dies and is unable to be captured again.

Is it eternal? Can Kim Yuna's state of beauty last in the sport? Can her youthful face be forever still? If her form is being sculpted, painted, made into movies, does that count as eternal? That is why it make us heart stricken when we realise these moments of attaining beauty, we find ourselves unknowingly tearing up asking ourself “Oh my oh my .. what is wrong with me?”

(…The author concludes at this point that he have lost his objectivity by this paragraph and he does't feel he can continue and bid his readers farewell.)

Comments left on his blog

When you look at Kim Yuna carefree forget herself performances, it is like watching she's loved by God. Watching Mao is like watching a dignified tragedy. Solemn and respectful that makes it hard to breathe.

Although both of their performances and expressions are very interesting. Yuna was so relaxed she looks like she is playing with toy, while Mao is completing a type of serious ceremony.

Beauty does bring us sadness. Why forever? It is only momentary.

Slate's DoubleX Gabfest on women's figure skating, Michelle Obama's childhood-obesity campaign, and Judith Warner's book We've Got Issues.

By Jessica Grose, Hanna Rosin, and Margaret Talbot (Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010, Source)

Hello and welcome to the doubleX gabfest for Thursday, February 25th. This is Hanna Rosin, the co-editor of doubleX. I am here with the lovely Margaret Talbot from the New Yorker in Washington DC and we have Jessica Grose, our managing editor of doubleX in New York with us.

Hello. Hello. Hi.

Rosin: Today, our subjects are going to be the women's figure skating, the drama of which is on this week, and we're also going to talk about Michelle Obama, [etc].

Rosin: let's start with the women's figure skating, which was so full of drama last night. I was really into the kind of Asian national showdown between Kim Yu-Na, who is the favored South Korean, and Mao Asada, who is another favorite from Japan. And then Kim Yu-Na, I was completely into the whole Bond girl thing. And I'll tell you guys why, but before I give you my spin, my long theory about why I love the Bond girl, maybe you guys can sort of jump in here and say what you thought about the blowing the gun and the wink and her routine. (laughs)

Woman 1: Well, it was memorable, and it was certainly better than the Russian ice dancers dressed as the Aborigines as a sort of cultural touchpoint. She's very, she's kind of sexy, and womanly as figure skaters go. I mean they both gave, you know, amazing performances, I thought. She, I guess, is a huge celebrity in Korea. (Other woman: Yes) And that's kind of interesting. She is on commercials for every product you can imagine and is literally mobbed in the streets of Seoul (Other woman: right)

Woman 2: I noticed that sort of womanly sexuality about her, and I was really into it, especially when you compared her with the American, Rachael Flatt, who is 5th, the highest ranking American, looks like a boppy teen girl, who is very spunky, she reminds of the gymnast Shawn Johnson, and it just was night and day looking at their performances and sort of their aura. I thought Kim Yu-Na's sort of “lady-ness” stood out in comparison.

Rosin: Yeah and the explicit “lady-ness.” I was writing last week about Lindsay Vonn and complaining about this kind of sexuality, this sort of teen sexuality of the figure skaters which reached its apex with Michelle Kwan dressing as Salome from the Bible and just really looking like a tart from a brothel like combined with sort of like a little girl dress up. I mean just the aesthetic, you know which I think, Mao Asada and the weird saloon outfit that she had on yesterday…you're supposed to kind of buy into the notion of innocence while you're looking at little girls who are dressed in these weirdly tarty outfits. And I think I spun this whole theory about Kim Yu-Na, that because in South Korea, the commercials she's on were like milk, they play into her innocence, on the other hand, she's seen the dark side, like she gets stalked, she has to have bodyguards…so I think there was something kind of true about that Bond girl. The Bond girl to me was at least a recognition of the kind of camp sexuality that figure skating embodies, and so I thought it was really a great match. You know. that's fine.

How old is she? Is she actually older than some of these other girls? She's taller, too.

Yeah, she's taller.

She looks taller, and she looks older. I don't actually know how old she is.

I think she's in her earlier twenties.

Is she?

So she is a little older, because Rachael Flatt is like 17.

Yeah, she's [Flatt] 17, they're 16 [referring to American Mirai] and 17. And actually I found this pretty interesting article from the New Jersey Star Ledger, where the sports writer argued that it was sort of disastrous for NBC that the two Americans had really poor narratives. They're just, you know, sort of run-of-the-mill teens, and there's sort of nothing interesting or compelling about them.

(laughter) Darn, it wasn't her mom who died two days before the [? competition?]…

Right, they take AP courses, or one of them does…to be the backstory for Rachael Flatt.

Yeah, and he worried this meant disaster for NBC's ratings, because there's no Sasha Cohen who's so beautiful, and sort of had this winner narrative. And these girls not only don't have particularly interesting backstories, they're also just, you know, cute teenagers, and they weren't real medal contenders which is sort of the other problem.

I mean I'm kind of happy, as I already wrote in this Lindsay Vonn piece, not to have a figure skater represent the American team. I mean I have to say I have deeply enjoyed these winter Olympics so much more than I thought I was, and a lot of it is because these kind of kickass girls, skiiers, you know, skicross, and snowcross.

I live for skicross now!

I love them! Because A, you understand what is going on, right? There are four competing at once. So you can see, oh, one is going faster than another. While in bobsled, the announcer will say, “Oh, that's going to cost her.” You have no idea what, what'd they do? So you kind of get it, A, and also, they are kickass, and it looks really fun. It's insane but it looks super fun. And, at the end of it all, I have noticed that as I watch this with my 10-year-old daughter, it's kind of neat because generally they'll come up and hug each other, congratulate each other, or high five each other, so I like the kind of camaraderie that you see which you don't see in the ice skating because everyone just goes off to the kiss & cry by themselves. And you know, ice skating is all about this national rivalry like one interesting thing about the South Korean and the Japanese, is that unlike the Chinese who are like, plucked away from their families, they've got this crazy narrative–those guys seem to exist in this kind of airless world, they train in Canada, they have an American…like, who are they, where's their family?

They live in Canada, and they all seem to have Canadian coaches, no matter where they're from.

Exactly. Whereas I think the story around these guys is…I always have in mind that Susan Orlean story, which is one of my favorite stories ever, about the surfer girls, they're just kind of a community onto their own. The snowboard girls, the skiing girls, like Lindsay Vonn and Julia Mancuso, they've known each other their whole lives, they have this kind of friendly rivalry, they hate each other, they love each other, they hug each other. It's just, you feel it's a whole community unto itself.

And they just, feel sort of more earthy; the figure skaters seem so self-possessed and on this other plane, where the skiing women seem like they'd be a lot more fun. Like I'd totally rather have a beer with a skiier.

You'd rather go out with them after a ski [than a skate?], in the chalet.

The other complaint I have about figure skating, which I did enjoy, there was a lot of drama like the national drama, and their stories are interesting, and I actually think Kim Yu-Na actually seemed sort of appealing, like she's got that rolling my eyes thing, I can't believe this is happening to me, genuine feel about her. They've changed the scoring such so it's a little bit they're trying to score against sort of objective categories instead of against each other, and I think it's created a lot of blather about where the skates land. It's like, and the woman is like demonstrating last night, “Ohhh, you see that quarter…inch!” And I'm like I do not. (laughter) [something something] [Other woman: “It's so boring!”] Right and here I am staring at sports Tuesday from the New York Times where they did a similar thing where they have to draw these elaborate things about if she falls…and I'm like, the poor girl, her whole life comes down to the quarter inch.

[back to skiiers]

Well, that was fantastic stuff. Kim Yu-na was great. She definitely rose to the occasion, especially after her main rival had such a great performance.

Kim had the bigger combination, the triple lutz-triple toe loop, than Asada did, so she obviously scored more points there. But her all-around performance was great. She skated with more personality, drew you in with her performance. And all of her elements were terrific, spins and spirals and footwork. That’s why she’s the world champion.

That she bounced back from a fall in practice shows what a competitor she is. It is skating. It is sports. Those things happen and it’s normal. She came back strong.

Her score is very high for the others that follow, but the thing with skating nowadays is that you really aren’t trying to “beat” another skater. You’re just trying to do your elements as best you can, and then it’s up to the technical specialist to decide on the level and the judges can mark you up or down for execution. Then there are the component scores, where they can elevate a skater or keep them where they think they need to be. It’s a lot more subjective. Of course, Kim had both scores. She had it all. –Todd Eldredge

Short Program

I can’t even imagine the pressure Kim Yu-na was under and that performance was amazing. Given the circumstances, given all the pressure, that was the best. She made everything look easy and effortless and solid. That was cool to watch.

She has all the moves, wonderful footwork and steps between the elements. She has it all. That is going to put so much pressure on Mao Asada and everyone after her. 150 points, that’s huge. I think I can tell you that’s your Olympic champion right there. It’s like a golf tournament and she finished 12 under par and everyone else has two holes to go and is 7 under par. You won’t catch her. – Todd Eldredge

Long Program

☞Click

The Olympics

Current mood:thoughtful

As I watched the figure skating last night I thought of a time when I skated with Peggy Fleming, who won the gold medal - yes! Well, I really didn't skate but I was the King of the Lake Placid Carnival and she was the Queen. We had to skate across the arena to our throne. I couldn't skate and Peggy said, “Just hold onto me.” And I did. I leaned on her and we skated across the rink without falling down.

I wonder if Yu-Na Kim will ask me to skate with her… 11:44 PM 26th Feb 2011

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