ladies figure skating

On Sunday, Thérèse Rochette died from a heart attack at 55. Tonight, her daughter Joannie won bronze at the Winter Games. “I’m so proud,” Rochette said later, touching the medal around her neck. “I know this: My Mom was with me every step of the way tonight.” Fifith in Turin, Rochette had been waiting four years for tonight’s four minutes. Competing to Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns, the Canadian skater took to the ice attired in something blue, skimpy and sparkly – basically, what a girl would wear in a rap video had rap been invented by Liberace. Rochette wasn’t flawless, but her athletic and casually energetic performance gave her third place by a comfortable margin, just behind Mao Asada of Japan, who took silver. Neither finished within a rink’s length of Yu-Na, who turned in a world record performance, scoring 150.06 in the free skate – a number that in the arena prompted gasps: the good kind, not the someone-just-fell-down-again kind. (Asada, by comparison, earned 131.72 points.) Yu-Na is coached by Brian Orser, who clapped hard and pumped his fists along the boards as his pupil nailed jump after perfect jump. “It’s her medal, but I do feel like I’m part of this gold,” Orser said. “It’s so surreal. And it’s so satisfying.”

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