ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2007 Day Five
The 2007 World Figure Skating Championships concluded in
Tokyo, Japan, with the Ladies Free Skating. A total of 37,920
spectators had followed the competitions at the Tokyo Metropolitan
Gymnasium.
Ladies, Free Skating
The Ladies event concluded with an exciting Free Skating.
Miki Ando of Japan took the gold medal ahead of teammate Mao
Asada. Korea’s Yu-Na Kim earned the bronze medal. Asada
and Kim both competed in their first World Championships,
and Ando captured her first medal. Asian skaters swept the
World podium for the first time in history.
Overnight leader Kim skated second in the last warm-up group.
The 2006 World Junior Champion opened her performance to “The
Lark Ascending” by Ralph Vaughn Williams with a high
triple flip-triple toeloop combination followed by a double
Axel-triple toeloop, a double Axel, a beautiful layback spin
and a level-four camel spin. She seemed on her way to the
gold when she fell on a triple Lutz and shortly afterwards
on the second triple Lutz, but she finished the performance
without further mistakes. However, Kim’s triple Salchow-double
toeloop combination didn’t count as it was considered
to be a fourth combination after she had repeated the Lutz.
A repeated solo jump automatically counts as a jump sequence.
The Korean received 114.19 points (54.55 element score/61.64
program component score) and was ranked fourth in the Free
Skating. Overall she slipped to third at 186.14 points.
Next up was Mao Asada. The Grand Prix Final silver medalist
stood only in fifth place after she did a triple flip-single
loop for her combination in the Short Program. The 16-year-old
opened her routine to “Czardas” by Monti with
a triple Axel, but she two-footed it. She reeled off a triple
flip-triple loop combination, a triple Lutz, another triple
flip, a triple Lutz-double loop-double loop as well as a level-four
combination spin and a level four flying sit spin. The audience
cheered loudly for each element. She also went for a double
Axel-triple toeloop combination, but the second jump was underrotated
and downgraded to a double. Asada picked up 133.13 points
(69.64/63.49), improving her personal best by 3.11 points,
won the Free Skating portion and vaulted to second place with
194.45 points.
Then defending World Champion Kimmie Meissner (USA) took on
to the ice. She stumbled on her first triple Lutz, but recovered
to land four clean triples, but she cheated the landing of
the second jump of her triple flip-triple toeloop combo and
it was downgraded. Meissner scored 115.56 points and finished
second in the Free Skating, but remained in fourth place overall
at 180.23 points.
Ando had drawn to skate last and was greeted with a big applause
in the once again sold out Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. Performing
to Felix Mendelssohn’s “Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra in E-minor”, the powerful skater hit a triple
Lutz-triple loop combination right out of the gate and followed
up with a triple Salchow, triple flip, another triple Lutz,
a triple toe-double loop-double loop, a triple flip-double
loop. Two of her spins and the spiral sequence were graded
a level four by the Technical Panel. As she bowed and waved
to the cheering crowd, Ando knew that she had won a medal,
but she didn’t know yet if it would be enough for the
gold. Then the scores came up and the crowd reacted with a
big roar. The 19-year-old posted a new personal best of 127.11
points (67.66/59.45) and racked up a total score of 195.09
points. She was second in the Free Skating but edged out Asada
for the gold by 0.64 points. As soon as the final ranking
was shown on the screen, Ando burst out in tears of joy.
“I can’t find appropriate words to express my
feelings, but I’m just happy”, Ando commented.
“I heard the scores of Kim and Asada, and especially
Asada achieved her new personal best, and it made me very
nervous. But I tried to concentrate on my own performance.
After I finished my performance and found out I got a gold
medal, I was very happy. I did not expect at all that I would
win”, the athlete continued.
“As you can see here, there are many wonderful skaters
of the same generation in Asia. I would like us to continue
to push each other and to improve”, Asada said. “Before
the program, I was in the fifth place after the short program,
so I really wanted to win a medal of any color. After my performance,
I was very happy because I did not make any mistakes and I
achieved my personal best score”, she explained.
“I was not under pressure. It was more that I was not
in my best condition. I had very heavy legs. Because of this,
I didn’t feel confident and didn’t feel that I
could succeed. As a result I made two mistakes. I didn’t
expect to get a high score so I was very surprised and happy
when I got won the bronze medal”, Kim told the post-event
press conference. “I didn’t expect much this year,
since I have been troubled with my (back) injury all season.
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