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Shizuka Arakawa

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Olympic medal record
Ladies' Figure Skating
Gold medal – first place 2006 Turin Ladies' Singles
Shizuka Arakawa
File:Shizukaarakawa.jpg
Shizuka Arakawa doing a Stretch spin at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.
Height166 cm / 5 ft 6 in
Figure skating career
Country Japan
CoachNikolai Morozov
Skating clubPrince Hotel
RetiredMay 7, 2006
Most Recent Results:
Event Points Finish Year
Olympic Winter Games 191.34 1st 2006
World Championships 185.73 9th 2005
Four Continents - 2nd 2003
National Championships 187.36 3rd 2005
Grand Prix Final 160.24 2nd 2004–05

Shizuka Arakawa (荒川 静香 Arakawa Shizuka, born December 29, 1981) is a Japanese figure skater who won the gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Ladies Singles in Turin, Italy on February 23 2006, and the 2004 World Figure Skating Championship. She is the first woman who was born in Asia to win the Olympic gold medal in figure skating. She is the second oldest woman to win the Olympic figure skating gold (Yahoo, 2006 and NBC Olympics, 2006). On May 7, 2006 Arakawa announced her plans to retire from eligible figure skating (Reuters, 2006).

Biography

Arakawa was born in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan, and grew up in Sendai, the largest city in the Tohoku region. She is the only child of Koichi and Sachi Arakawa. Her current coach, Nikolai Morozov, is a former figure skater from Belarus. Her previous coaches were Tatiana Tarasova and Richard Callaghan. She was also coached by the 1994 world champion Yuka Sato's mother, Kumiko Sato, at one time.

Arakawa landed her first triple-jump, a salchow, when she was 8 years old. She competed in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano in 1998, at the age of 16. Her favorite jump is the toe loop. The double axel jump is the hardest for her. She enjoys skating to classical music like Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and James Horner's Titanic soundtrack. Arakawa explained, "I like to skate to music with a story. Something big that I can skate to. If you compare skating to ballet, there's a story you have to follow in ballet. But in skating, I can tell my own story by performing whatever feels best with the music."

At 5 feet 6 inches, Arakawa is one of the tallest ladies' skaters and is known for her spins and jumping ability, particularly her difficult triple-triple combinations. In 2004, she added a Biellmann spin to her repertoire. The Biellmann requires exceptional back flexibility. It took Arakawa about five months to learn this move.

Arakawa stands out in her professional career for having graduated with a Bachelor's degree in social sciences from the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo in 2004, while still competing in prominent figure skating world competitions. She currently lives and trains at the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury in the United States after the closure of the Konami Sports Ice Rink in Sendai, where she began her career.

Arakawa cites gourmet cooking as one of her hobbies. She collects beanie babies, has a pet shih tzu (named Charo) and hamster (named Juntoki).

The early years

When Arakawa was 5 years old, she became interested in skating and entered the Chibikko Skate School. Arakawa explained, "I went to the ice rink and saw the kids with cute clothes. I wanted to wear the beautiful costumes." She started ballet lessons at 7. At 7, Arakawa had begun training with former Olympian Hiroshi Nagakubo, a pairs skater who competed in the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. She was landing triple-jump salchows at age 8. The Arakawa family saved hard and often had to scrimp to afford their daughter's skating lessons. Arakawa's father, Koichi said, "I wasn't worried about how far she'd go. We were more concerned whether we could afford it for her." Arakawa's mother, Sachi, made her costumes, once even adding a thousand beads by hand to one of her daughter's costumes. Sachi keeps all of her daughter's old dresses and skates as memorabilia, not having the heart to part with them. Sachi still continues to make dresses designed by Arakawa and sends them to her when done. Arakawa once said of her mother, "She didn't buy things she wanted. She didn't do things she wanted to do. All she did was give, give and give, and she sacrificed everything. Now, it's my turn to repay my parents as long as they live."

By the time she was in third grade in elementary school at 8 years of age, she had mastered the triple jump, a salchow. She was called The Little Angel. In 1994, she began participating in Japanese national skating competitions. She was named the 1994, 1995, 1996 All Japan Junior Figure athlete. Arakawa progressed through the Japanese ranks quickly and was the first skater in Japan to win three consecutive junior national titles (a record now tied by Japanese skater Mao Asada). Arakawa was the senior national Japanese champion in both 1998 and 1999.

The middle years

Arakawa made her Olympic debut when she represented Japan in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano at age 16. The Emperor and Empress of Japan attended the ladies' free skate event. Unfortunately, she performed poorly, falling and missing her jumps and finished 13th at the Nagano Olympics. At this time, she was ranked number 2 in Japan. On March 2000, she enrolled at Waseda University. In 2002, Arakawa finished second at Japan's national championships and as a result was not named to the Japanese 2002 Winter Olympics team.

During the 2002-2003 skating season, Arakawa won the Asian Winter Games and the Winter Universiade. She took her second consecutive silver medal at the Four Continents Championships. She finished fourth at the ISU Grand Prix Final and she took the bronze at the NHK Trophy. She placed fifth at the Cup of Russia. She also finished third at the Japanese Nationals, marking her fifth medal from this meet to go with two golds and two silvers from previous seasons. Arakawa is the only Japanese skater to win the junior title for three consecutive years from 1996 through 1998. In 2004, she won the 2004 World Championships gold in Dortmund, Germany, after landing seven clean triple jumps including two difficult triple-triple combinations (triple lutz-triple toeloop-double loop and triple salchow-triple toeloop).She is the third Japanese woman to win this title after Midori Ito who won in 1989 and Yuka Sato in 1994. After winning her gold at the 2004 Worlds, she said, "I feel very happy to be World Champion and am still surprised that I won. I kept my gold medal by my pillow the night after I won here in Dortmund."

File:Arakawa mother.gif
Shizuka Arakawa leads her mother Sachi Arakawa onto the ice at the rink where she first began skating in Japan.

2006 Winter Olympics

At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Arakawa was in third place behind Sasha Cohen (trailing Cohen by only a point) and Irina Slutskaya after the short program. Arakawa skated to Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin for her short program. Although Cohen and Slutskaya were the heavy favorites for the gold medal, both fell during the long program. Arakawa gate-crashed what was expected to be a Russian sweep (of men's figure skating, pairs figure skating and pairs ice dancing) at the ice skating rink at Palavela when she surged to victory after the free skate as leading challengers Cohen and Slutskaya both fell during their long program.

Arakawa skated to Puccini's Violin Fantasy of Turandot in a shimmering purple-and-light blue dress for her free skate long program. She performed her famous Ina Bauer, a variation of a spread-eagle move that puts her in a full backbend while her toes point in opposite directions. Arakawa skated a clean free-skate program, with no falls. She however did scale back her planned triple salchow-triple toe loop combination to a triple salchow-double toe loop combination. She capped off her stellar performance with a triple-double-double combination. She won over the judges with seemingly effortless spins and spirals that were clearly ahead of the other competitors. The judges found Arakawa's program to be an artistically and technically sound program and awarded her 191.34 points, almost eight points ahead of the second-place Cohen (183.36), therefore earning her the gold medal. Slutskaya was third at 181.44 (The Advertiser, 2006). Arakawa's victory came in the first Winter Olympics to utilize a new judging system that has scrapped the traditional 6.0 mark for a cumulative points system that supposedly favors complete skaters over phenomenal jumpers. This new scoring system was adopted after a vote-trading scandal undermined figure skating's credibility at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.

Arakawa's Olympic win broke the dominance by the Russians and Americans of the ladies' figure skating event. In an interview with Associated Press on February 23, 2006 after she won the gold medal, Arakawa said, "I still can't believe this" (AP, 2006). Her gold medal in women's figure skating on the evening of Thursday, February 23, 2006 gave Japan its first and only medal of the 2006 Winter Olympics. At age 24, Arakawa is the oldest women's Olympic skating champion in more than 80 years. Florence "Madge" Cave Syers from the United Kingdom was the oldest when she won the Olympic title at age 27 at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom which featured the first Olympic figure skating events (Yahoo, 2006 and NBC Olympics, 2006). Arakawa is the second Japanese woman to win a figure skating Olympic medal. Japanese skater Midori Ito won a silver at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. Arakawa is the second Japanese woman to win a Winter Olympic gold. The first Japanese woman to do so was freestyle skier Tae Satoya at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

File:Shizuka arakawa goldmedal.jpg
Shizuka Arakawa with her 2006 Olympic gold medal during a victory lap.

Arakawa's win at the 2006 Olympic Games was a stunning return to form for her. She could only finish ninth at the 2005 World Championships. (She had previously won the gold at the 2004 World Championships). Arakawa had planned to retire after the 2004 World Championships, but her victory there convinced her to change her plans. She struggled with a foot injury, homesickness and motivation. She was also beginning to trail behind younger Japanese competitors like Miki Ando and Mao Asada. She explained, "Many times I thought of quitting. I lost my motivation. It took me a long time, probably a full year to regain it." Her dismal 9th place finish at the 2005 World Championships was the motivation she needed to stay in the sport and regain top form. She felt she could not quit on such a down note. In November 2005, Arakawa called Belarus figure skater Nikolai Morozov and asked if he would consider training her. She had wanted a change, a makeover that included her coach, her costumes and her programs. She knew it had to be a drastic change if she were to have any chance at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Morozov said, "Yes, of course I was surprised. I thought she could medal. But I didn't think she would win gold."

Arakawa said the Olympic gold medal had vindicated her decision to stick with the sport, with her 2004 from leaving her on the verge of giving up. She said, "I thought about quitting. I'm very glad now that I chose to continue. I want to give hope to everybody who watches me skate."

After winning her Olympic title, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called Arakawa in Turin, Italy to congratulate her. Koizumi said, "I cheered for you with excitement while I watched television. All the Japanese people are rejoicing. I give a perfect score to every bit of your performance" (Gulf Daily News, 2006).

Records and achievements

  • Olympic Games, Turin, Italy, 2006, First Place.
  • Cup of China, Beijing, China, 2005, Third Place.
  • Trophée Eric Bompard, Paris, France, 2005, Third Place.
  • International Challenge, Tokyo, Japan, 2005, Second Place.
  • Campbell's FS Classics, 2005, Third Place.
  • NHK Trophy, Nagoya, Japan, 2004, First Place.
  • Cup of Russia, Moscow, Russia, 2004, Second Place.
  • Campbells Skating Challenge, 2004, Second Place.
  • ISU Grand Prix Final, Beijing, China, Second Place.
  • World Championships, Dortmund, Germany, 2004, First Place.
  • Olympic Games, Nagano, Japan, 1998, Thirteenth Place.
  • Two-time Japanese National Champion, 1998, 1999.
  • Three-time Japanese Junior National Champion, 1995-1997.

References

See also

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