Mao Asada Back in Shape

The Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2015 opened this week with the Audi Cup of China, the third of six events in Beijing, November 6.

Following a year-long break, three-time World champion Mao Asada came back in the finest of shapes and topped the day's short program with 71.73 points, followed by 19-year-old Rika Hongo with 65.79 for the second place. Russia's 2015 World bronze medalist Elena Radionova finished 6th with 58.51.

Mao Asada had made her comeback earlier in Japan Open at Saitama Super Arena. She had demonstrated her might not only in performance on the rink but in the total number of sponsor companies. Asada heroines in the TV commercials of five out of the seven companies sponsoring the event. During the year's break, Asada had not lost one but gained more sponsors ousting upcoming competitors.

Mao Asada is in a world of her own. Her Coach Nobuo Sato is not worried so much about her skating skills as her physical readiness. He analyses:

"Figure skating is a trial of strength behind superficial extravagance. It's not a jump that matters - rather the steps between jumps and between jumps and spins. The more steps, the better the points."

Coach Sato has never coached skaters over 25 years of age, he says. He doesn't think it impossible for Asada to keep on outperforming younger competitors.

"But there is no knowing how her resilience will sustain trial", Coach Sato confides.

In no Olympic figure skating has any skater over 28 years of age ever won a medal in the single event - neither men or women.

Coach Sato does have Mao Asada in mind for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018. He comments:

"Mao Asada is walking into an untrodden path - a step at a time on the stairway to the unknown".

News Source: Nikkei Shimbun