A fierce -- but friendly -- rivalry develops on the ice

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Minutes after Mao Asada's short program at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, the soft-spoken star's post-skate interview is stopped cold by shrieks and cheers from the rink behind her.

Her rival, Kim Yu-Na, has taken the ice, and is about to take over. In the interview area, Asada seems to pay no mind, her face never flinching or changing expression at the explosion of sound from the fans of her fiercest rival.

Kim would eventually win the competition, and Asada would place third. But in women's skating these days, the two are considered Nos. 1 and 1A.

Born the same month in 1990 and stars in their home countries since they were young teens, South Korea's Kim and Japan's Asada are living parallel lives that intersect regularly -- and with increasing stakes -- as the 2010 Winter Olympics loom.

Next month, it'll be at the World Championships in Los Angeles. A year from now, it'll be at the Games on this very rink, the Pacific Coliseum, that last week was the site of the Four Continents competition in Vancouver.

"These two are the best thing in figure skating right now because they're both really good and they're both beautiful," said Kim's coach, Canada's Brian Orser, the two-time Olympic silver medalist who knows a thing or two about rivalries as foil to U.S. star Brian Boitano in the "Battle of the Brians" at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, where Orser missed gold by the slimmest of margins.

"These two have gone through juniors together, as Brian and I went through juniors together, and then all the senior years we skated and were back and forth, back and forth," Orser said.

Asada and Kim, both 18, have alternated time at the top. Asada is the defending world champion; Kim, suffering from a nagging hip injury, was third at the competition. Kim was last season's Grand Prix final champion and Asada was second. This season, it's reversed. For two years, the pair swapped champion and runner-up status at the junior World Championships. Currently, Asada is ranked No. 2 in the world and Kim is No. 3 behind Italy's Carolina Kostner, a possible spoiler at the Worlds in late March.

Asada and Kim are friendly but not necessarily friends. Kim told of the one time, after the 2007 World Championships in Tokyo, they went shopping and had lunch. They talked about "nothing special," Kim said, noting Asada is still learning English. "We've been meeting only in the competitions to say ?Hi’ or ?How are you?’”

Kim's English improved when she left Korea in 2006 to train full-time with Orser in Toronto. Asada, speaking through an interpreter, credits the rivalry with making her a better skater.

"By skating with her, it makes her go to the next level," said Asada's translator. "It also motivated her to go to the next year and the year after so she can skate with her."

Orser said Kim keeps close tabs on Asada, coached by famed Russian Tatiana Tarasova. Tarasova, the first to coach world champions in all four disciplines (men's, ladies', pairs, ice dancing), has also coached Olympic champions Alexei Yagudin, Ilia Kulik, Shizuka Arakawa and pairs legends Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev, along with Americans Sasha Cohen and Johnny Weir.

"She tracks every move that that girl makes, all year long," Orser said. "Where she's skating, when she's skating, what program she's doing, what [music] she's skating to, who's choreographing, who's coaching her now. Everything. And I bet you Mao's doing the same thing."

Neither has yet skated in an Olympics, but they are celebrities in their home countries. Kim lives with her mother in Toronto, but still gets mobbed in Korea as that nation's first skating star -- the first to win an International Skating Union medal or championship, which she did by placing second in the Junior Grand Prix Final and the Junior Worlds, won by Asada in 2005.

In Japan, Asada appears on billboards and in advertisements. Her high school graduation made the news. At Four Continents, a large group of Japanese media created a crush whenever she spoke. When she stood in sixth place after an uncharacteristically poor short program, they seemed to take it personally, blaming the small, NHL-sized ice rink for the failure of "our Mao" (The ice will be expanded to Olympic size for figure skating and short track speed skating for the Games.).

In Vancouver, home to one of the largest Asian populations in North America, Kim and Asada are certain to attract a huge fan following during the 2010 Olympics. More than 10,000 people, many of them Asian, came to watch the Four Continents final earlier this month.

Kim's known for her spring-loaded triple-triple combination and speed, and Asada is known for her triple axels -- she is the only female skater in history to land back-to-back triple axels in competition. Both have dazzling artistry -- dizzying spins, flexibility and grace.

The two first met at age 14 at the 2004 Junior Grand Prix Final, won by Asada with Kim second. By then, the buzz had already started. Even at the 2006 Olympic Games, where they were too young to compete, the pair was being talked about as the sport's next big thing. With a year to go until the start of the 2008 Vancouver Winter Games, two young stars are right on track.