Figure skating: Can Mao Asada top Kim Yuna with her triple Axel?
| Vancouver, British Columbia
Kim Yu-Na has staked herself to a commanding 4.72 point lead heading into the figure skating free skate tonight. But second place Mao Asada has one weapon that Kim cannot match: the triple Axel.
Realistically, a triple Axel is the only thing in the Pacific Coliseum tonight that threatens Kim鈥檚 grip on gold, a historic feat that would thrill her countrymen. It is the women鈥檚 version of the quad, although in tonight鈥檚 scenario, it is the woman chasing the leader 鈥� and not the leader herself 鈥� who will attempt it.
Asada is the only woman who will try the jump, which is the highest-scoring in the women鈥檚 competition 鈥� and she plans to do it twice.
How Asada can win
In fact, on this same Pacific Colisuem ice almost exactly a year ago, Asada used her triple Axel to do what she needs to do tonight to win gold: beat Kim in the free skate.
Yet even then, in the 2009 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, she lost 鈥� Kim鈥檚 typically huge short-program staking her to a huge lead.
Tonight, she will need to go one better, and despite the result, last year鈥檚 Four Continents shows how it could conceivably be done. Asada will need help from Kim, who faltered in the Four Continents free skate final, and she will need to skate the program of her life, which she could not manage last February.
Still, with several mistakes, Asada made up 1.83 points on Kim. With a perfect performance tonight, 4.72 points is not out of the question 鈥� though nearly. Third-place Joannie Rochette could find it almost impossible to make up 7.14 points on Kim without a big-scoring trick like Asada鈥檚 triple Axel.
Gold medalist Evan Lysacek, by comparison, was only 0.55 points behind Evgeni Plushenko heading into the men鈥檚 free skate. (For how Lysacek was able to beat Plushenko's quads, read more here.)
Kim's perfection
The problem (from other skaters鈥� perspective) is that Kim is a craftsman, carving each jump and turn across the ice with unrivalled precision. Judges are allowed to add or deduct two points from any trick based on its grade of execution [GOE].
No one gets higher grades for her execution than Kim, who picked up 2.7 points on Asada in the short program on GOE alone 鈥� a stunning margin.
鈥淚n her triple-triple combination, she comes out with as much speed as she had going in,鈥� says Camie Doyle, a former competitor on the women鈥檚 national circuit who is now a coach. 鈥淜im makes jumps look incredibly easy.鈥�
That is not likely to change tonight. Where Asada must make up points is with her raw athleticism, and the triple Axel is central to that.
Japanese skaters 鈥渁re known as being a little less clean around the edges, but they鈥檙e very athletic and very strong skaters,鈥� Doyle says.
If Asada can land her two triple Axels and keep the rest of her free skate clean, says seven-time Austrian women鈥檚 figure skating champion Julia Lautowa, she should have 鈥渉uge scores.鈥�
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