The Sun Rises on a New Power
 A Galaxy of Young Stars Emerge From Japan

By Susan Wessling

Much like the symbol of the rising sun on their country’s flag, Japanese singles skaters have made a steady climb upward to become a major force on the world figure skating scene in recent years. To confirm this fact, one needs to look no farther than the opening event of the Grand Prix Series and Smart Ones Skate America where Japanese skaters scooped three of the six singles medals that were up for grabs. In the process, they made history. Japan had never before won both singles titles on North American soil.

From the Japanese cheering section in the stands to the hordes of journalists who followed every move of the Japanese skaters, it is clear that these young Asian stars have rocketed into a new stratosphere.

Remember these names: Nobunari Oda, Miki Ando and Mao Asada. Oda and Ando were golden at Skate America. Though Asada won the bronze medal her stunning short program left many veteran followers of the sport wondering if they were witnessing the birth of the next Olympic champion.
And don’t forget about Daisuke Takahashi, Yukari Nakano and veteran skater Fumie Suguri.

The depth and talent within the Japanese program may well make its skaters the U.S. team’s biggest rivals in the years leading up to the 2010 Olympics. Consider this: At Skate America, Kimmie Meissner, the 2006 World champion, and Evan Lysacek, a two-time World bronze medalist, had to settle for silver behind Japanese skaters who had never won a medal at a senior World Championships.

“Many of the top ladies and men’s competitors in the world right now are from the United States and Japan,” said Lindsay DeWall, the director of Media Relations for U.S. Figure Skating. “These athletes continue to raise the bar and most likely will be tough competitors for years to come. The rivalries on the ice are exciting for the sport of skating, the fans and even the athletes.”

A Golden Boost

One can’t talk about Japanese singles skaters without mentioning Shizuka Arakawa, who had an up-and-down career. She competed at the Olympic Games in 1998 in Nagano where she placed 13th, but failed to make the Japanese Olympic team in 2002. The 2004 World champion, Arakawa was ninth at the 2005 World Championships and had an inauspicious start to her 2006 season. She failed to earn a spot at the 2006 Grand Prix Final and was third at the 2006 Japanese national championships. But at the 2006 Olympic Games in Torino, Arakawa was magical, claiming the most coveted crown on the planet, the Olympic ladies title.

That victory boosted interest in skating in Japan, according to Nikolai Morozov who coached Arakawa to her Olympic victory. “I think it has brought skating to a higher level and there are lots of kids starting to skate there now,” he said. “There is now more interest in that country and more shows. It is bringing up all skating in Japan. It is always like this. In the U.S. when people win medals, it is the same thing. The same thing happens in Russia with skating.”

But now it is time for Japanese singles skater to shine. “There are a lot of good skaters everywhere,” Morozov said, “but obviously you will see more good skating from this country, that is for sure.”

The three Japanese medal winners at Skate America, along with Asada’s older sister, Mai, drew a lot of attention in Hartford, Conn. in late October. These four skaters were constantly followed by a large number of print journalists. Out of the 88 credentialed journalists in Hartford, 52 were from the United States while 24 represented Japanese publications, according to DeWall. These numbers, DeWall added, did not include TV-rights holding journalists. Several television outlets from Asia were also in attendance; there appeared to be three separate groups of camera-toting crews on hand to capture Japan’s victories.

And just think: this competition was just the first major event of the season. “The Japanese media is like the paparazzi in Italy in the 50s,” said choreographer David Wilson, who works with Oda. “It is just crazy.”

It is likely to get crazier if the first four stops on the Grand Prix Series are any indication of what is to come. After four events, the United States led the Grand Prix medal count with 12, followed by Japan with seven and France with six. What makes these numbers even more interesting is that Japan’s success lay with its singles skaters. The United States, on the other hand, had medal winners in every discipline.

An Inside Look

Wilson, who has been to Japan 11 times in the past 12 years to work with singles skaters, has had a firsthand look at the evolution of the Japanese program. “They have kind of crept in through the back door on the world scene but I have been seeing it coming since 1995,” said Wilson. That year, Wilson went to Japan to work with Midori Ito who was attempting a comeback. “I was able to see all these little kids, these little babies, coming up at that time and they all had triples. This is when I worked with Yukari Nakano. I was with her when she was 9 years old and she was doing two triples.”

The jumps are definitely one of the strengths of the Japanese singles skaters. In 2002, Nakano landed a triple Axel at Skate America. In doing so she and Russian Liudmila Nelidina became the first skaters to land the jump in the same competition. Prior to that event, Japan’s Ito was the last skater to execute this element in competition (she landed a triple Axel at the1992 Winter Games).

Three years later it was Mao Asada’s turn to make some history. At the 2005 Japanese nationals, Asada became the first woman to land two triple Axels in a free skating program. Last season, Asada landed a triple Axel in her free program at the Grand Prix Final where she defeated Irina Slutskaya and took the title. This season, Asada has two triples Axels planned for her long program but has yet to execute them cleanly in competition. Meanwhile, Ando remains the only woman to have landed the quadruple Salchow in competition.

The Discipline Factor

“It [the success of the Japanese skaters] was destined to get to this point,” said Wilson about the explosion of singles talent in Japan. “They don’t have the volume but the skaters that do get involved are totally driven. Their mothers are there with their video cameras, videotaping every second of the training. Then they go home and the children watch what was worked on. When they come back the next day they know what they are doing. The discipline factor is incredible.”

What makes this success even more astonishing is the fact that Japan has so few ice rinks in operation. “I was mainly doing work in Nagoya, which is Japan’s fourth largest city and about a five-hour drive or two-hour train ride from Tokyo,” Wilson said. “It is the size of Toronto, a couple of million people. But there were really only two rinks running full-time and depending on the season, there might be a third.”

Within these facilities, minimal training time is scheduled for figure skaters. “When I was there they would have a couple of hours of ice time available only for figure skating,” said Wilson who was last in Japan in December 2005 and January 2006. “At one rink, there was an extremely small ice service, nowhere near code size. A lot of the work I did with choreography was during public sessions with 50-some-odd people in rental skates and group sessions with these little hockey players in the corners. It was just unbelievable conditions.”

Takahashi points to these conditions as one of the reasons many Japanese skaters move to foreign countries to train. He trains in Connecticut with Morozov, but still calls countryman Utako Nagamitsu his coach and lists Osaka as one of his training sites. “I train [in the United States] mostly because of the rink program in Japan,” he said through an interpreter. “They don’t have very desirable conditions.”

At just 16 years old, Mao Asada is possibly the Japanese star with the most potential.



Mao Asada made history when she landed two triple Axels in her long program at the 2005 Japanese nationals.



Miki Ando is making her mark on the international scene this season. After two Grand prix events, she has a gold and silver medal to her credit.



The 2004 World junior champion, Miki Ando is finally realizing her untapped potential this season.

Spurts of Greatness

Over the past three decades Japan has had its share of great skaters. Ito made history when she won the ladies title at the 1989 World Championships, subsequently winning the silver at the 1992 Olympics, Japan’s first Olympic figure skating medal.

Credit also must go to Takeshi Honda who put his country in the spotlight when he won bronze medals at the 2002 and 2003 World Championships.

Yet Japan has never had as many great singles skaters on the world scene at the same time as it has in recent years. At press time, the current ISU World Standings had five Japanese ladies and two men in the top 10.

On the ladies side, 16-year-old Asada undoubtedly is the skater with the most potential, given her youth and undisputed talent. At press time she was in fourth-place in the world standings, one spot behind Arakawa. Although Arakawa has retired from competitive skating, she compiled enough points last season to earn an ISU ranking at this point in the season.

Asada, who trains in Lake Arrowhead, Calif. along with her older sister, would love to follow in the 2006 Olympic champion’s footsteps. “I think it was great,” Asada said referring to Arakawa winning the Olympic title for Japan. “I will try to do the same.”

Asada’s immediate goal is to earn a trip to Worlds. “At Skate America, I did okay. The short program was very good but the free program could have been better,” she said. “I want to go to Worlds and skate strongly there.”

Rafael Arutunian coaches the Asada sisters. Last year, he worked with Michelle Kwan. “Mao is a very smart girl for her age. It is very easy to teach her,” he said. “I have been around skaters for 30 years and she is one of the smartest skaters I have met in my life. She is a very smart, very good skater. She can do it all.”

With the next Olympic Games in three years, Arutunian said luck will play a role in Asada’s shot at that title. “Everything needs to fall together,” he said. “She is one of the faces which I think will be there.”

Reaching Her Potential

Ando, currently ranked seventh in the world standings, has had a lot attention placed on her shoulders. She won the 2004 World Junior Championships title and finished fourth at the senior Worlds that same year. But last season she was suffering from foot injuries and did not perform to her potential. The two-time Japanese champion was only the sixth best ladies skater at her country’s nationals. Her selection to compete at the 2006 Olympic Games was a controversial decision, and she placed a distant 15th in Torino.

This year life is considerably better for Ando who followed her Skate America win with a silver medal at Trophée Eric Bompard. “Last year, I made many errors,” Ando said through an interpreter at Skate America. “So I’m determined. ‘People said, ‘Miki Ando is just a jumper.’ I want to dispute that.”

Ando, 19, said her goal is to make the Japanese World team. “But right now I want to concentrate on the steps leading to that competition,” she said. “[At Skate America] my speed was too slow. I had a mistake in my step sequence. My goal is to keep the same program but improve the speed by the time we get to the World Championships.”

Morozov has bigger plans for her and that includes adding an old trick to her repertoire. “My goal for her is to win Worlds,” he said. “She will have to skate like she did at Skate America and do the quad Salchow.”

Suguri, who turned 26 on New Year’s Eve, is the veteran of the ladies team and is the sixth-ranked lady in the world. She has medaled at the last seven Japanese national championships, winning the title from 2001-03 and reclaiming it in 2006. She has also won three World medals: two bronze (2002-03) and a silver last season. Suguri is a two-time Olympian. She finished in fifth place in 2002 and placed fourth in 2006.

Currently ranked 10th in the world, Nakano, 21, is a two-time Four Continents medal-winner. She has yet to earn a podium finish at her country’s nationals but has won four Grand Prix Series medals, including a bronze at last season’s Grand Prix Series Final, and claimed bronze medal at the 2006 Cup of China. Nakano was fifth at the 2006 World Championships.

A Rivalry Develops

On the men’s side, Oda, 19, is ranked sixth in the world and Takahashi, 20, is ninth. Both are former World junior champions. Oda won the title in 2005 while Takahashi claimed gold at that competition in 2001. The rivalry between the two has helped both skaters, Takahashi said. “That is probably the biggest reason [we have both done well],” he said.

Takahashi, who landed his first quadruple jump in competition at 2004 Four Continents, won 2005 Skate America, the 2006 Japanese national title and placed sixth at the Olympic Games. At Skate Canada he struggled with his jumps, popping a planned quadruple loop into a single. “I made the same mistake at Campbell’s,” he said through an interpreter. “I am not really sure what happened.”

Oda hasn’t attempted a quad this season, taking the safer route with an array of triple jumps. The 2006 silver medalist at Japanese nationals, Oda has exhibited a greater maturity in his artistic presentation this season.

Artistic presentation is an area where many of the Japanese skaters have shown improvement, according to Wilson. “Nobu is the perfect example of this new generation of Japanese skaters. They have the base of the Japanese work ethic and diligence but they are also starting to understand it is a showmanship thing,” Wilson said. “It is all about being a star and it is not just being a little robot.”

Wilson said the Japanese federation also deserves credit for helping generate the rise of its skaters. “The Japanese federation has worked very hard at supporting its athletes and helping manage their careers. They have been learning as they go. They have had their fiascos and scandals but basically there are a lot of people putting a lot into it,” he said. “Skating has a very political past. For Japan to have become a force on the world scene as they have, it is not just the skaters that have done the performing. The federation had a lot of respect to earn. They had to get into the judging community and work as officials [on a world level],” Wilson said. “They did a lot of work behind the scenes.”