Kim Yu-na has won her sixth Grand Prix title, the Trophee Eric Bompard, with a record score of 210.03, beating the previous record (also by Kim) of 207.71.
Mao Asada came in second, and Yukari Nagano was third.
The video of Kim’s short program skate is here, and the one for her long program is here.
The 7-foot-2, 319-pound mixed martial artist (a former ssireum wrestler) tapped out (submitted to) a fighter who’s 126 pounds lighter than he, Ikuhisa “Minowaman” Minowa. You can see the video here.
Unfortunately for Choi, this is the latest of a series of embarrassing losses to smaller opponents (being KO’d by Mighty Mo, TKO’d by Badr Hari and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović, and tapping out to Fedor Emelianenko).
When I wrote this previous blog entry, I sarcastically poked fun at Park Tae-hwan’s handlers in blaming Park’s losses at the most recent world championships on his swimming suit, probably because it reminded me of this guy and others like him. However, there has been a lot of harsh criticism of the suits, to the point that they will be banned next year.
Phelps’ coach has threatened to not have him swim again until the ban is in place.
“Probably expect Michael not to swim until they are implemented,” Bowman said. “I’m done with this. It has to be implemented immediately. The sport is in shambles right now and they better do something or they’re going to lose their guy who fills these seats.
[ snip ]
“It took Michael from 2003 to 2008 to go from 1:46 to 1:42.9 and this guy’s done it in 11 months. That’s an amazing training program. I would love to know how that works.”
Phelps himself had some strong words about them.
After the race, Phelps made his strongest statement yet about the suit controversy. When asked by NBC’s Andrea Kremer about his “inferior suit”, Phelps declined to take a direct shot at Biedermann but said, “I will say that next year swimming will be swimming again. You’re going to have to do all the work and there’s not going to be a suit that does it for you.”
Even the new champion from Germany, Paul Biedermann, gave a lot of credit to the suits.
“The suits make a difference,” Biedermann said. “Last year, it was Speedo. This year, it’s Arena.
“I hope there will be a time when I can beat Michael Phelps without these suits,” the German added. “I hope next year. I hope it’s really soon.”
[ snip ]
Biedermann conceded after his 400 free win that the suit made him two seconds faster, but Phelps passed on the chance to wear one of the latest-generation suits. He’s been sponsored by Speedo since he was a teenager and wasn’t about to abandon the company that paid him a US$1-million bonus after he won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.
Shortly before the race, FINA confirmed that a bodysuit ban will take effect by May 2010, making this the last major competition where buoyancy-aiding suits are allowed.
“It’s not my problem,” Biedermann said. “It’s the problem of FINA. They should handle it really fast.”
So what will be permissible next year?
Suit materials will be restricted to “textiles,” a definition of which will be determined by a scientific committee. FINA also announced specific standards for buoyancy, thickness and permeability. The complete rules will be given to swimsuit companies by Sept. 30.
To his credit, Park Tae-hwan himself has downplayed the swimsuit issue, instead focusing on his lack of a personal coach when asked about his losses.
Park Tae-hwan failed to advance to the swimming finals of neither the 400-meter or the 200-meter freestyle at the World Championships in Rome, despite having won an Olympic gold and Worlds silver medal in those respective events. So what happened?
Some experts blamed Park for refusing to wear the new high-end swimsuits considered the best on the market now.
Contrary to the craze for the polyurethane suits, credited with shortening the world records, the South Korean insisted on going with what he has. Among the competitors, Park was the only one who wore the outdated swim pants that exposed his bare torso.
Wait a minute. I don’t know for sure, but since he was swimming “with what he has,” I’m assuming that it’s either the same suit that he wore at the Olympics or a similar one. Those polyurethane suits were being used back then, too. Are they trying to blame the suit? Also, isn’t Korea a high-tech powerhouse? Surely the country that rules World of Warcraft could make a decent suit for its star swimmer.
Park signed a lucrative contract with SK Telecom, the biggest telecommunication firm in South Korea, in October last year after his success at the Olympics. He has trained separately with an SK Telecom special team organized just for him, separately from the national team.
[ snip ]
[T]here was no swimming expert to manage Park’s exercise schedule or health conditions in SK Telecom’s special team. Many say Park needed a personal coach.
[ snip ]
A month before the world championships, Park returned to the national sports training center. The national squad’s head coach, Roh Min-sang, said in Rome that by that stage it was too late to fully prepare him for the world event.
That sounds like a much more sensible explanation: Being treated like a superstar, instead of training with other national team members. And no swimming expert on SK’s special team? Since it had no swimming expert nor national swim team members, who the heck was on this “special” team? Comedians? Actually, that may not be so far-fetched …
The gold medalist has also spent considerable time shooting TV commercials and appearing in talk shows since the Olympics.
I can see him losing some of his focus after being hit on the head with a rubber mallet on one of those brain-rottingly stupid comedy shows.
“I felt the pressure more than I did in Beijing. It was difficult to cope with the attention and the expectation of the South Korean people,” Park told reporters. “I was nervous when I raced. I can’t believe that I was eliminated (in the 400 meter event).”
At that high level of competition, where victory is measured in slivers of a second, frame of mind certainly comes into play.
Park has one last chance to medal, at the 1,500 meter freestyle on Saturday.
Hopefully, he learns from his mistakes, as opposed to my students, who promptly throw their corrected tests into the trash bin.
Park Tae-hwan, who won the gold medal in the 400-meter men’s freestyle at last year’s Beijing Olympics, has been eliminated from the final round of that event at the World Championships in Rome. He had to place in the top eight, but finished in 12th place.
On Monday, Park will compete against Michael Phelps in the 200m men’s freestyle. At the Olympics, Phelps won gold and Park took silver.
There’s an interesting article about sports figures in the Dong-ah Ilbo.
Lee Seong-ho, editor-in-chief of the monthly MFight, described the Russian fighter [Fedor Emelianenko] as having soft muscles on top of hard ones. “The reason why he`s so flexible is due to his soft muscles, which work as armor,” Lee said.
Despite exercising regularly, I’ve been discouraged by the fact that I still have a layer of fat over my muscles. I needn’t have worried. Those are just my “soft muscles,” which will act like armor if any street hoodlum is foolish enough to try to mug me.
Lee Ji-hee, vice chairwoman of the Korea Skating Union and an international judge, said Kim [Yu-na] has the “ultimate” body for figure skating: a small face, a properly thin body, and long arms and legs.
Having a big face increases your centrifugal force, which makes you more likely to lose your balance when you spin or do a double Axel. There’s nothing more disappointing to see than a big-faced figure skater spinning out of control. I remember one such skater lamenting, “If only I had a smaller face. Why have I been cursed like this?” Look at Michelle Kwan. How could she have been a five-time world champion if she had had a bigger face?
“With her ability to express her physique beautifully, she is matchless,” said Lee Ji-hee, vice chairman of the Korea Skating Union and an international judge.
OK, it’s true that her long limbs make her movements more graceful and aesthetic. However, champion skaters come in more than one shape. Midori Ito had short, stubby legs, but she was the most powerful jumper I’ve ever seen. When she was competitive, she was unique in that she used, more-or-less, the same jumps that the male competitors were doing.
And the fact that Lee Ji-hee is vice-chairman of the Korea Skating Union and an international judge needs to be repeated a third time.
This is why medical professionals in Korea scare me, and they should scare you, too. You can’t know if they passed their medical exams legitimately or if they cheated.
This October, Copenhagen in Denmark will be hosting the world championships of the WTF.
WTF is the WTF?
Oh, it’s the World Taekwondo Federation.
Apparently, Shaquille O’Neal wants revenge on Choi Hong-man for beating up Jose Canseco (as if any other outcome had been possible). Go here to watch him rant, and then beat up a cardboard cut-out of Chuck Liddell. Just don’t blame me for losing a minute of your life that you can’t get back.
In a poll of Japan’s favorite sports stars, Kim Yu-na made the tenth spot, the highest-ranking non-Japanese on the list. Kim’s archrival, Mao Asada, came in second.
Kim has become Korea’s most famous user of Twitter, an instant messaging service that allows one to send and receive text messages via both cell-phones and computers.
Personally, I don’t see the use of Twitter, and I’m someone who loves blogging and discussion boards. Anything worthy of being said requires at least a paragraph. In my view, Twitter’s popularity can be accounted for by widespread attention deficit disorder and il-o-literacy (lol + illiteracy). By “il-o-literacy,” I mean the condition of knowing one’s way around computer, but being functionally illiterate. I mean, is it really so hard to write “That’s hilarious!” or “Ha, ha!” that we had to replace it with “lol” (hence, “il-o-literacy”). And how often do people actually laugh out loud? Not that often. “Lol” has become an insipid cliche. If you ever want to see examples of il-o-literacy, just to go daveseslcafe and cringe at the spelling and grammar of so-called “English teachers.”
Returning to the topic of Mao Asada, she became the second woman to score over 200 points in competition. Moreover, it seems that the scoring system has been slightly revised, and in a way that could be advantageous to Mao and disadvantageous to Kim.
Lee Ki-su, the president of Korea University, has made some really dumb statements about Kim Yu-na, the current world champion of ladies’ figure skating. In case you don’t know, Korea University is Korea’s third most prestigious university, after Seoul National and Yonsei.
“We can say KU delivered Kim,” Lee told a forum at a meeting arranged by Kwanhun Club, a senior journalists’ group in Seoul.”
“Delivered” Kim? She’s a package?
“You can tell Kim made totally different performances from the ones she performed during her high school era.”
Which could be attributed to the fact that she matured and trained hard (overseas, by the way).
“It is a result of the injection of the KU spirit into her. I called and told her a leader in the 21st century should retain an ethnic, pioneering spirit and a conviction for victory.”
What is this even supposed to mean? He injected something into her? That sounds dirty.
And in any case, Kim may end up attending the University of Toronto.
