By I would be very surprised if Kim Yu-na retires considering the amount of money she can potentially make over the coming years by continuing her skating career:
Olympic gold medalist Kim Yu-na left for Toronto on Wednesday with her coach Brian Orser after a two-day trip to Korea. Kim joined a farewell event for the national Olympic team in Taeneung Training Center on Wednesday morning and then went to Cheong Wa Dae with other athletes for lunch with President Lee Myung-bak.
In a press conference at Incheon International Airport just before her departure, Kim said, “Since my junior years, I often thought my career as an athlete would be over after the Vancouver Olympics. But as my career progressed, I also thought about continuing to compete. I’m going to think about it more once I come back to Korea after the World Championships.”
Kim denied she has any plans to go into show business. [Chosun Ilbo]
I also think that right now Kim has a pretty strong claim to the best figure skater ever, however I would think that if she can keep a high level of excellence over a longer period of time this would make her claim much stronger. One person probably hoping she would retire is Mao Asada:
But while Kim seems relaxed, Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada already has her eye on the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. “The Vancouver Olympics was a step towards Sochi. I feel that four years go by so quickly. I will put my silver medal in a place where I can always see,” Asada said. She confessed to thinking about her jumps combination. “Even if Kim retires, the record remains, so I would like to try hard to beat her record as soon as possible,” she said.
Good luck with that because judging by the Oympics Mao has a long ways to go to be as good Kim Yu-na much less better.
It is the sad reality. No mistake...
9:24 pm on March 4th, 2010 1
[DELETED BY ADMIN - Please take your sex fantasies elsewhere]
11:45 pm on March 4th, 2010 2
Although I'm sure there would be an uproar in Korea because it would lose it's brightest star in the world ~ I wouldn't blame Yuna one bit if she hung up her skates.
She's already made several million dollars in endorsements – so financially she is set for life. And to pad her already sizable bank account, even if she were to retire from skating, she could continue to make several more million in the next several months.
If she retires, she is still young enough to enjoy many of the things she's missed out on these past several years while practicing for several hours a day.
She could go to college…get a boyfriend…and enjoy the few remaining years she has before she becomes a full-grown adult.
12:22 am on March 5th, 2010 3
She's not going anywhere. Orser is already planning on getting Yu-na to master the triple axle.
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=20…
Money aside, she loves the sport and the world loves watching her. She'll be around for 2014 for sure.
12:24 am on March 5th, 2010 4
I've noticed Korean celebrities seem much more inclined than their American counterparts to retire or put their careers on hold to pursue other projects. Good example is The Wonder Girls' Sunmi leaving the group to finish her education. I've known of a couple female singers who quit to get married. The last similar example in the US I can think of is Jodie Foster leaving the acting business to get a college degree. That was over 20 years ago! If Miss Kim actually does retire or take a leve of absense, I wouldn't be completely surprised.
One matter I find interesting is what if she quits competing and goes into coaching? Would she stay within the Korean sphere or go international like so many other skaters do?
12:29 am on March 5th, 2010 5
I probably shouldn't respond, but I can't help it! I wonder if we'll now start seeing Asian Skater Porn? If we do, I'm certain it will come out of Japan
!
3:26 am on March 5th, 2010 6
I don't think Asada is as far behind Kim as everybody seems to be saying. Kim is the better performer, no doubt, but the score in Vancouver would have been much closer if not for two uncharacteristically shaky jumps from Asada. It's likely to be a closer call in Sochi.
3:38 am on March 5th, 2010 7
She made $8 million just last year, and probably a few million before that and, even if she quits, a few million after this.
If she quits now, she quits with an amazing story — one appearance, smashes the record and gets the one gold she was trying for, with a perfect performance — and she retires as a legend who never failed.
Then she moves on to college (something Koreans not only aspire to, even if they've succeeded in something else, but feel is terribly lacking if they don't do, a constant niggling that you aren't truly a success), and has a normal and comfortable life, skating when she wants to.
Orser may see his gravy train deciding to call it quits, but she might see it as the best move ever.
5:02 am on March 5th, 2010 8
Thanks admin for sparing us the annoyance.
5:17 am on March 5th, 2010 9
One thing that Yu-na beats Asada in, besides the skating, is having nerve of steel.
In the short program the crowd was clearly going wild after Asada performed. Yu-na had to perform right after that and considering how much Yu-na knew she had do to better THAN Asada (you know beat Japan thing), she could've lost her concentration due to nervousness. But Yu-na didn't lose concentration or show any sign of nervousness.
I keep remembering the face of Mirai Nagasu as she was preparing to perform after Asada and Yu-na skated in the Long program. As the US coach was telling her last few things, camera zoomed in Mirai and she just looked SCARED. She did pretty well though.
5:35 am on March 5th, 2010 10
Uncharacteristically? R U sure about that? The triple axle is the only impressive jump Mao does. And I believe Vancouver was only the 2nd competition in which she successfully executed the jump. Anyway the knock on Mao is that she devoted too much of her time on the triple axle during training at the expense of her other jumps and techniques. (Clearly team Mao felt they could not beat Yuna without the triple axle!) I believe she consistently faltered on her double and triple lutz and flips, all season. She does not do a triple, triple combination because when she does, she falls, consistently. In Vancouver, I believe she tried a triple triple combination but played it conservative and doubled the second jump in the combination. Smart move on her part because she has proven all season that she cannot make that jump! Even with her 2 mistakes plus a downgrade on 1 of her 3 attempted triple axles, Vancouver was the best performance that Mao has put out in a long time. It only illustrates how far ahead Yuna was ahead of the competition in Vancouver. Yuna cleanly and beautifully executed all of her triple triple combinations, triple flips and triple lutzes as planned in her program. She had cushion enough to play it safe double at least one of her triples,but she still did all of her triples. There have been complaints about the scoring being too high for Yuna, but I think the scoring was universally too high for all competitors. The top 4 all had personal best scores.
In the end, I think the scoring was an accurate representation of how Yuna went for all of her planned jumps and executed them cleanly. And looked better doing it then all her competitors. She won going away and she should have. Mao maybe a great skater, but not this year.
9:48 am on March 5th, 2010 11
And it looks like Team Asada is still under the impression that big jumps equate to victory as she's planning on a quad.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010…
Perhaps they should ask Plushenko how that worked out.
10:32 am on March 5th, 2010 12
She probably needs to win a few more World Championships before you can call her a legend.
11:04 am on March 5th, 2010 13
She probably needs to win a few more World Championships before you can call her a legend.
Well, that's one way to define a legend. But I would call the team that was part of the Miracle on Ice in 1980 "legends," even though that group never won the gold again. Even if the US had not won gold in 1960 or 1998, the 1980 team would still be legends.
Anyway, she's already won a few world championships (including the Olympics), so I'm not so sure about that.
10:12 pm on March 5th, 2010 14
The 1980 US Olympic team is only legends in the US, so I guess by your criteria, she is a legend.
If you want to talk about true legends of Cold War era hockey, then the Canadian and Russian teams who participated in the 1972 Summit Series are it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWwN9kHnsKI
12:23 am on March 6th, 2010 15
She didn't just break the scoring record in her Olympic performance – she destroyed it (improving on the previous record that she also held by 18 points).
That's legendary.
2:09 am on March 6th, 2010 16
You are aware that this new scoring system has been in use for just a few years?
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?…
4:26 am on March 6th, 2010 17
She is already a legend. I don't think you know about figure skating better than Scott Hamilton or Kurt Browning who called her a legend.
4:46 am on March 6th, 2010 18
Check out this link:
http://www.iceskatingintnl.com/archive/results_va…
Many figure skating fans, including me, were surprised Mao's Triple Axel wasn't downgraded. Her score was actually very generous. Yu-Na gets +2.0 GOE in addition to base value for her jumps because of their high quality.
6:47 pm on March 26th, 2010 19
It looks like she left it all on the ice at the Olympics.
"Kim Yu-na finishes 7th in short program at World Championship"
11:58 am on June 14th, 2010 20
on her way to Toronto last week, she stated that she would not be saying the words, “retirement” for the next couple of years. She said her main goal, besides winning the gold metal, is to always become a respectable person that will not destroy her past accomplishments. Like not becomming arrogant and think she is the best and all. In addition, she said if she were to retire completeing, she would always be skating because figure skating has become her life, her everything and she knows for a fact that in the next 50, 60 years, she would always be skating.