Shizuka Arakawa

At the age of five, Shizuka Arakawa took part in skating school. By the time she was eight, she was already able to perform a triple salchow. The young girl from Japan would go on to win five National Championships, three times as a junior and twice as a senior.

In 1998, at just 16 years of age, Arakawa participated for the first time in an Olympic Games, in Nagano. Her home country of Japan had high hopes for her. — even the Emperor and Empress of Japan came to see her perform. Arakawa finished thirteenth.

She did not compete four years later at the Salt Lake City 2002 Games as she finished second in her national championships and did not make the Japanese Olympic team. At the World Figure Skating Championships in Dortmund, Germany in 2004, Arakawa was crowned the winner.

In 2006, after a year-long period in which she almost ended her career, Arakawa took part in the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games. A new coach and program brought out an invigorated Arakawa. Considered a bit of a risk, Arakawa’s short program was set to Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu. She finished an extremely close third to American Sacha Cohen and Russian Irina Slutskaya — they were only 0.7 of a point apart.

In what would be a perfect long program, Arakawa skated to Puccini’s Fantasy for Violin, performing her characteristic element, a beautiful “Ina Bauer.”. Arakawa’s program was marked by simplicity and perfect control. She played her program safe, however, and left out some of the figures planned, a choice which would end up being worthwhile. Her two rivals fell and were relegated to second and third place. Arakawa obtained a score of 191.34, garnering her the top step of the winner’s podium in Torino.

With this performance, Arakawa brought back the only Japanese medal from these Games and Japan’s first gold medal in figure skating.