EDITORIAL: Asia excels in Vancouver

Skating to a stately melody, Mao Asada landed the jumps that only she can manage in the world. Her brilliant, mesmerizing performance earned her the silver medal.

The gold went to Kim Yu-na of South Korea, who achieved the highest score in history with her lithe, willowy skating and rich power of expression.

During the long history of the Olympic Games, women's figure skating had long been dominated by Western skaters. This is the first time that two Asian skaters stood side by side upon the medal podium.

The two are both 19 years old. We offer them our highest praise.

Both women were already at the top of their game four years ago, but too young to participate in the Turin Games. Since then, they have continued to improve, both thriving upon each other's competition. Both trained under foreign coaches, and learned a lot from foreign cultures. The two are from the neighboring countries of Japan and South Korea, and they have raised the performance level of the sport itself.

U.S. skater Mirai Nagasu, whose parents are Japanese, came in fourth, and Japan's Miki Ando finished fifth. Indeed, there were four Asians among the top five skaters. And in the men's figure skating, Daisuke Takahashi won the bronze medal. In pair skating, Chinese pairs took China's first gold medal as well as the silver.

It is as if the colorful flowers of Asia suddenly went into full bloom on the ice.

The Vancouver Olympics will soon end, but the winds of Asia are blowing through the games in other sports, too.

In the men's 500-meter speed skating, Mo Tae-bum of South Korean won the gold, and Japan's Keiichiro Nagashima and Joji Kato won the silver and bronze. In the women's 500-meters, the gold also went to a South Korean. Short track was dominated by South Korea and China. The two countries also rank high in the total medal count. The Winter Olympics, long dominated by Western countries, have changed drastically.

The 1986 Winter Asian Games Japan hosted in Sapporo started the winter sports fever in Asia. The Winter Asian Games have since been held in Japan, China and South Korea.

The South Korean speed skaters have taken a page from the Japanese skaters' book. On the other hand, times are such that the Japanese short track team enlisted a Korean Olympic medalist to serve as their coach. China also has hired coaches for their various sports from countries like South Korea.

Athletes and coaches have moved across borders and raised each other's level of performance, which, coupled with the region's economic growth, has led to the rise in winter sports by Asian countries.

South Korea has an all-year, multi-sports training facility in the Seoul suburbs, supported financially by a huge business conglomerate. In China, where winter sports athletes all used to come from the northeast region, there are now ski slopes and skating rinks all over the country. Their winter sports population has grown to such an extent that their women's curling team, in their first Olympic appearance, were considered gold medal contenders.

By competing fairly with each other and learning from each other, the level of performance by athletes in the whole of Asia grows, and as a result, the presence of Asia in the world also grows. There is much to be learned from the world of sports.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 27