Learn from Japan’s rise in figure skating
The latest major international figure skating competition took place in Korea last week, serving as a test event for the Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang in February next year.
The Four Continents Championships (4CC) in Gangneung which took place on Feb. 16 to 19 can be summed by two key words — “quad machines” and Japan’s dominance.
There were three Japanese medalists at 4CC singles competitions — Yuzuru Hanyu, the 2014 Olympic champion who settled for silver; Shoma Uno, the bronze winner, and Mai Mihara, who won the women’s event. No Korean won a medal at this competition, and those who did compete did not have a noticeable impact either with jumps or artistry.
The strength of Japanese skaters before the Olympic season strongly indicates that Japan, unlike Korea, is in strong shape to win more medals in figure skating in PyeongChang.
The 4CC showed that Korea’s figure skating has a long way to go to catch up with the top of the field. It was apparent that the technical gap between the top men skaters and Korean athletes has become bigger than ever. The 4CC champion Nathan Chen of the U.S. delivered five quadruple jumps to win his first international event ahead of 2014 Olympic champion Hanyu, who also has multiple quads in his programs.
It was particularly alarming to see that men are now doing four revolutions out of the more difficult jumps like the lutz and flip. No Korean male skater is able to consistently land a quad even with easier jumps like the salchow or the toe loop.
With the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games less than a year away, there is not much excitement among Koreans toward the country’s first winter Olympics. One big reason is that this time there is no star athlete like Kim Yuna, who won gold in 2010 and silver in 2014 in the women’s figure skating.
Korea is yet to produce a figure skater of similar caliber after Kim’s retirement following the Sochi Winter Olympic Games. Kim’s long reign at the top of her profession did lead to an unprecedented figure skating boom among young girls and boys, some of whom have achieved intermittent success at the international junior level. But no senior Korean figure skater has won a medal at a major event since Kim stopped competing.
The situation is in contrast to the repeated international success of Japanese skaters in not just the women’s discipline, but also in the men’s.
The consistent excellence of Japanese skaters is evidenced by international records in the past decade. They have captured seven world titles and 12 other medals of varying color; two Olympic golds, in addition to two silver medals and one bronze, and five world junior titles. In the past decade, Korea has won three medals at the Worlds and two Olympic medals in figure skating, all won by the same person, Kim.
Figure skating is one of the most popular winter Olympic sports, so it is regrettable that Korea is far from having medal prospects at PyeongChang. But the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games are not that far away. To produce more Yunas and raise the overall competitiveness of the sport, Korea needs to benchmark Japan’s experience in rising to a powerhouse in figure skating with a long-term strategy that began before the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games. Unlike Korea, Japan has had a long tradition of figure skating. The Japanese Skating Federation (JSF) was founded in 1929 and the country started to make a mark on the international stage as far back as the 1960s. Nobuo Sato, father of the 1994 women’s world champion Yuka, won fourth place at the 1965 World Championships and coached many skaters to international success.
The most compelling inspiration for the growth of Japan’s figure skating was Midori Ito, who dazzled the world with her explosive triple axels and triple-triple combinations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The revolutionary technique of the 1992 Olympic silver medalist and Japan’s flag bearer for the 1998 Nagano games still leaves many awestruck because no female skater has matched her power and height.
It is noteworthy that Japan’s focus on figure skating did not fade with the retirement of star athletes like Ito.
In fact, the sport has only gained more popularity and national attention since her 1992 retirement. After Ito, the JSF started a program to invest heavily in training junior athletes. Those who have benefited from the program started to experience Ito’s success about a decade after her retirement, including multiple world champions Mao Asada, Miki Ando and 2006 Olympic champion Shizuka Arakawa in the women’s; and Daisuke Takahashi, the first Japanese male skater to win an Olympic medal in 2010 and the first Asian male to win a world title in 2010, who inspired Hanyu’s success at the 2014 Sochi games.
PyeongChang’s true legacy lies in serving as an impetus for the growth of winter sports like figure skating.
Japan, which is the only Asian country that hosted the winter Olympics twice, is a great model for other Asian nations with regard to a steady growth of figure skating. We need to learn particularly from its advanced training system that puts emphasis on basic aspects like stroking and physical endurance. Korean skaters also need to learn not just how to jump, but also how to perform and interpret the music.
It took more than 10 years after Ito’s retirement for Japan to emerge as a figure skating powerhouse.
Kim retired in 2014, so it has not been that long. On the occasion of PyeongChang, now is the time to start investing in figure skating and other winter sports and aim for long-term results at future Olympics.