Winter Olympics 2022 has been ongoing for a few weeks now, and I’ve always admired the skills and bravery these participants have to compete against the best of the best. My favorite events to watch are figure skating, speed skating, and a new favorite, free-style skiing.
What captivated me to figure skating was the amount of grace, technique, and artistry the skaters must put in to impress the judges in order to gain a high score. Yuna Kim, a South Korean figure skater, won gold in the winter olympics in Vancouver of 2010 due to her magnificent short and long programs. A short program lasts two minutes and forty seconds and a long program or free skate lasts 4 minutes long including various tricks such as jumping and spinning. It is not enough to just deliver the jumps and the spins, but incorporating them into an artistic fashion enhanced by the music selection. Yuna Kim’s jaw-dropping performance in the Vancouver Olympics won her a gold medal because she delivered beautiful jumps and spins and incorporated artistry. Yuna Kim tried again for the gold medal in the Sochi 2014 olympics but her performance resulted in a silver medal and that was the end of her skating career. In addition to figure skating, this young athlete also does modeling and is in various advertisements.
Another sport that South Koreans do well in is short track speed skating. I discovered speed skating this year from scrolling through the Chinese social media app called Weixin or known as Wechat. Figure skating is beautiful to watch and with music in the background makes the sport even better. On the other hand, watching speed skating is like watching the climax of a horror movie. The moments towards the end of the race are nail-biting and my eyes are glued onto the screen. Like most races, whoever crosses the finish line will claim gold, so on the laps closer towards the end, the skaters move faster and quicker to try to grab the gold title. The best chance a speed skater has to be the fastest is to optimize their position by bending their knees and maneuvering sharp corners carefully. The roundings on the ice tracks are so sharp that the skaters have to put their hands on the ground when turning the corners to keep balance because they are going at high speeds during the straight parts of the ice track. Crashes and falls are very common as well if the athlete doesn’t control their speed well when turning corners since many of the skaters are back to back to each other.
In this winter olympics, athlete Hwang Dae-heon won gold in the men’s 1500 meter and olympic athlete Choi Min-jeong won the gold in the women’s 1500 meter. Impressively, Choi Min-jeong won the gold in the 1500 meter and 3000 meter relay in the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. Not only in these past two winter olympics, South Korea is the nation that dominates this sport in the olympics racking up 24 gold medals throughout winter olympic history.
https://olympics.com/en/news/south-korea-women-short-track-speed-skating-beijing-2022
Comments
Hey Anna, thanks for sharing! I love the Winter Olympics, so to read this and learn about the histories of speed skating, figure skating, amongst other things, was really cool. I think that figure skating is one of the coolest sports because of the precision each routine takes and how critical any little mistake can be. Thanks again this was great to read!
Hi Anna, I am also a huge fan of Kim Yuna. It is always so mesmerizing to see her on ice because all of her movements are so graceful and beautiful. I think her ice skating is like a performance because she is so detailed with everything from her hands to her facial expressions.