This is not new but I came across it on their website:
[Update]: I think this editor made a mistake, in the part about 3A.
Yu-Na Kim
July 7th, 2010
Fans might have to look back as far as Peggy Fleming in 1968 for a bigger Olympic gold medal favorite in figure skating than Kim Yu-na of South Korea.
Kim, 19, crushed her competition at the 2009 world championships by more than 16 points, seeming to float above the ice, making each difficult maneuver look easy. One of her spins received no points, but she still scored 207.71 overall to become the first female figure skater to break 200 points.“I try not to think about difficulties or discouraging events, if possible. I trust that if I focus on goals I set up and quietly push myself forward, all the urges to give up will disappear”.
Date of Birth: September 9, 1990
Place of Birth: Gyounggi-Do
Height: 162 cm
Hometown: Gunpo City
Hobbies: Web surfing, shopping
Started Skating: 1996
After her world triumph, Kim went on to win her two Grand Prix assignments, setting scoring records at each. At Skate America in November, her score for the short program was so high it would have placed her in second in the men’s short program. In her program she skated to a medley of music from the James Bond films. This season, she has performed her long program to “Concerto in F” by George Gershwin.
She came from behind in the short program at the Grand Prix Final in Tokyo to win that title, too. With her frequently flawless triple-triple jump combinations and her often cleanly executed triple axels, she has recently performed on a different level than her competition. Her artistry, too, is often unmatched.
Kim’s fame, however, does not ride on her winning the gold medal at Vancouver. She is already a superstar at home in South Korea, where she is called the Queen of Figure Skating, or Queen Yu-na. Her followers tend to show up days before each big competition to affix celebratory banners around the arena.
Forbes Korea listed her as South Korea’s top celebrity, based on professionalism, popularity, income and influence. The Korea Times named her the person of the year in 2008. The runners-up? President Obama, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak.
In South Korea, where Kim has two full-time bodyguards, her face is on billboards, in magazines and on television in every corner of the country. She is featured in ads for the car company Hyundai and for air conditioners, mobile phones and milk. Samsung even launched a cellphone model called Yu-na Haptic, after Kim, and that model turned out to be one of the fastest-selling models in the company’s history.
In the United States, her photo is often found on the covers of Korea Herald Business, The Daily Sports Seoul USA and The Korea Daily, newspapers that follow her every move.
A compilation of her skating music, called “Fairy on the Ice, the Classics Album,” has been one of the top-selling CDs in South Korea and in Korean neighborhoods in the United States. Kim, a music lover, also has sung in several of her television commercials and enjoys karaoke in her free time.
She trains in Toronto, under the two-time Olympic silver medalist Brian Orser, who said that the attention Kim has received over the last few years from the news media and fans would help her in Vancouver. “She has 1,000 eyes on her all the time, so she’s used to it and the pressure that comes with it,” he said. “She’s gotten used to being a rock star.” Her choreographer is David Wilson.
This year, though, Kim has been under more scrutiny than usual as the Olympics grow near. The attention also grows as her fiercest rival, Mao Asada of Japan, becomes seemingly less of a threat.
In 2009, Asada failed to make the Grand Prix Final for the first time in her career, as she struggled with her jumps under the Russian coach Tatiana Tarasova. But in 2008, Asada was the world champion, with Kim finishing third.
In 2007, Asada was runner-up at the world championship, with Kim third again. Miki Ando of Japan won.
Kim has shown that she is far from perfect. In competition in the run-up to the Olympics, she flubbed her triple flip several times. But more often than not, the strength of her other elements has kept her in front of her competition.
