Ice Princess Is Born: Kim Yu-na Wins Figure Skating Championship

The figure skating move rewarded with the highest points when Kim Yu-na won the World Junior Figure Skating Championship yesterday is called a “triple-triple”: the consecutive execution of three-revolution jumps. Kim cleanly executed a triple flip-triple toe loop and scored a high point in the championship final.

While this jump made Kim Yu-na what she is today, it was also this move that almost ended her career in figure skating.

Kim started figure skating at the age of seven. Practice was her life, until she got to the sixth grade. Then a moment of doubt came when she could take no more of the harsh training required to master the triple jump.

Kim’s mother Park Mi-hee convinced her daughter to postpone the retirement until a winter sports festival. Kim performed magnificently in the winter sports festival and became a champion figure skater; and more importantly, she regained her confidence. After that, she became a practice junkie.

She normally practices twice a day for eight hours total, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. The remaining goal for Kim is to master the triple axel. Considered the most difficult women’s figure skating technique, a triple axel is a move that involves 3.5 revolutions in the air.

There are only five or six figure skaters in the world that are capable of executing a triple axel perfectly. “From now until the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, it will be a battle between Kim Yu-na and Asada Mao for the top spot in world figure skating,” Korea Skating Union vice president Shin Geon-jo said.

Jae-Yun Jung jaeyuna@donga.com