As the article in the Asahi Weekly states, "Mao regains her footing." 浅田 真央 (Asada Mao) is Japan's next Olympic hopeful in the Figure Skating category. Check out her Official Site for more details, if you're so inclined. Though I'm usually not so interested in skating unless it involves hockey sticks and slashing, this is not my first foray into the world of Figure Skating. I never did meet Sendai's very own 荒川 静香 (Arakawa Shizuka) who was the 2006 Olympic Champion and the 2004 World Champion but I came close. One of my pals, Mariko who has her finger in most of the pies in this city, once asked me to translate her Skating resumé into English so that she could take her Ice show to Dubai of all places. Some of this may actually be my handiwork! I never got paid for this work, but I was given free Rakuten Eagle tickets as compensation. Shizuka was intended to become a sponsor for the Pirate Charity that I was assisting occasionally and we were supposed to meet at that ballgame. She didn't show otherwise I'm certain that we would have hit it off and today we'd be working on our second child together! (In some parallel universe, this time-line has occurred.)
Anyway, back to Mao. Best of luck to her in Vancouver, I hope she beats her South Korean rival (Kim Yu-na) and I'll even allow her to win the Gold, provided she makes room for Canada to win the Silver (Ha! Fat chance!) Remember, it's not whether you win or lose that's important, what's important is that the USA loses (I kid!)
Now for the reason that I'm rambling about Figure Skating in the first place...Lotte chocolates have had a promo where if you buy two of their products, you get a free Mao-strap! Look what I have attached to my phone now! Quite the conversation starter...
3 comments:
Oh, husband and I have this crazy idea that me just might pay a riduculous amount for some tickets and he up to Vancouver for the weekend.....I promise to share picture....and don't worry, it appears that there is no chance of the US doing anything metal worthy in figure skating this year :)
Cheers!
If Shizuka shows up as a commentator, say hi to my "wife"!
I'm rooting for Kim, since...
A) She has a canadian coach (Brian Orser I believe) and trains in Toronto.
B) She's way hotter!
Is it me, or do Mao and her coach seem to secretly hate each other? Whenever I seem them together there seems to be much glaring, eye-rolling and... polite seething.
I think, unfortunately, Mao's missed her chance- she was at her peak 4 years ago, when she was just under the bar, agewise, for olympic competition. Now she's grown into a woman and added muscle, but it doesn't fit her skating style.
I just saw an asian-american skater who is now where Mao was 4 years ago. If she's old enough to compete, she might be the dark horse.
When are you going to do your Avatar review? I want to find out what happened in the first 4 minutes!
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