Kim, Orser split; Olympic champion's coach feels insulted and disrespected
Brian Orser has known for a couple months that something had changed in his relationship with Kim Yuna, the South Korean figure skater who won the 2010 Olympic gold medal in her fourth season of working with Orser -- or if not with Kim herself, at least with the new management team headed by her mother.
There were emails not returned. A press conference in Korea announcing Kim's 2011 competitive plans that Orser first learned about by reading media accounts. A choreographer change for which he also received no advance notice.
"It was a series of insults," Orser said Tuesday morning via telephone. "I deserved more respect."
For all that, Orser said nothing for the three weeks after Kim's mother, Park Mee-hee, and an agent, Helen Choi, told the coach and Tracy Wilson, who also helped coach Kim, in an Aug. 2 meeting at the Toronto Cricket & Skating Club that they were no longer the skater's coaches.
So much for the idea that you don't mess with success.
Orser said he never was given a reason for the split. But he first hoped that it wasn't irrevocable, and Kim still was training -- with an occasional tip from Orser -- at the Toronto Cricket Club.
So he kept the situation quiet until Monday night, when Orser's agent, David Baden of International Management Group, issued a statement about the split on the coach's behalf.
Orser and Wilson had a final conversation with Kim last Thursday. They told her they still were confused by what had happened. According to Orser, Kim replied that she was confused as well and "had no idea what is going on, either."
"We told her, `Whatever you decide to do, we support you, and we want you to be happy,'" Orser said. "I don't want anything to deflate the memories of the four wonderful years we had together."
Kim, 19, remains at the club, of which she is a member. Orser feels that situation is rapidly becoming untenable.
"It has created a tension that is having an impact on all the other skaters," Orser said. "Something has to change.
"I think it would be better for her to leave the club. I don't think she can train on her own at this level."
Kim announced in July she would not be competing on the Grand Prix circuit this season but intends to skate at the World Championships. She turned to former Canadian ice dancer Shae-Lynn Bourne to choreograph this season's short program after having worked solely with David Wilson, who is choreographing the long program.
Orser, two-time Olympic silver medalist, said Bourne called to tell him she would be working with Kim. After that, the coach said he sent several emails to a member of Kim's management team but received no response.
"I thought that was disrespectful," Orser said.
Orser began to suspect things were going off the rails when rumors circulated in April that he was interested in coaching 2010 Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada of Japan, who went on to beat Kim at the March world championships. Orser said he was approached about the possibility of working but immediately rejected the idea.
"I told Yuna, `Im sure you have heard the rumors, but I want you to know my loyalty is to you, and your skating is my priority,'" Orser recalled.
Kim split with her old management group, IB Sports, after worlds, when her mother founded a new company, All That (AT) Sports. Her primary agent at IB Sports joined All That Sports, which is run by Kim's mother.
In a statement Monday reported by a Korean newspaper, AT Sports said, "Ever since Orser was offered a job to coach another skater, we have had an awkward relationship. Since June, Kim Yuna has essentially been training alone."
Orser said financial issues had nothing to do with the split. He denied reports of having received a $1 million bonus after KIm won the Olympics.
"I'm the lowest paid coach at this level in the history of figure skating,'' Orser said. "I get $110 an hour, and that is what I charged her. I did make something from Korean commercials, but there was no deal between us for that."
A Forbes.com story last week said Kim, a national hero in South Korea, had earned $9.5 million in the past year. Forbes said Kim ranked fifth in earnings over that time period among female athletes, after tennis players Maria Sharapova, Serena and Venus Williams and race car driver Danica Patrick.
Kim started working with Orser and David Wilson as a 15-year-old in 2006. Within nine months, she had gone from an athletically talented junior to an artistically striking bronze medalist at the 2007 senior worlds.
She utterly dominated the competition at the Olympics with her mastery of the technical demands of the current judging system and and artistry that included sexy pizzazz in a James Bond-theme short program and a jazzy lightness of being in her long program to Gershwin.
Photo: Kim Yuna and coach Brian Orser react with joy after hearing her free skate scores at the 2010 Olympics. (David Phillips / Associated Press)
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