Shizuka Arakawa
Basic Facts : Shizuka
First Name : Shizuka
Last Name : Arakawa
Birthday Date : December 29, 1981
Expired On : Alive
Known As : Shizuka
Shizuka Arakawa is a Japanese figure skater who won the gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in the Ladies Singles event in Turin, Italy on February 23, 2006.
And the 2004 World Figure Skating Championship. She is the first female skater 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. On May 7, 2006 Arakawa announced her plans to retire from eligible figure skating.
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. She is known also for exceptional skating quality, seemingly effortless cross overs, and gaining speed with ease. Her trademark move is the Ina Bauer.
Arakawa stands out in her professional career for her academic achievements as well. Arakawa graduated with a Bachelor's degree in social sciences from the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo in 2004, while still competing in prominent competitions. She had won her world championship title in 2004, days after completing her graduation examinations at Waseda. 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, which means "a skate school for small children". 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 pair 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 to 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."
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, pair skating and ice dancing) at the ice skating rink at Palavela when she surged to victory after the free skate.
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. Since Arakawa performed Ina Bauer, it became so famous in Japan. The word "Ina Bauer" was one of the most famous words for Japanese people in the year 2006. 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 pleasant 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.
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.
NHK Trophy, Nagoya, Japan, 2004, First Place.
Cup of Russia, Moscow, Russia, 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.
By competition
Olympic Games World Championships Four Continents Japanese Nationals
1996 1st
1997 2nd
1998 1st
1999 6th 1st
2000 5th
2001 6th 2nd
2002 2nd 2nd
2003 8th 2nd 3rd
2004 1st 3rd
2005 9th
2006 1st 3rd
Senior Other Events
Event/Season 96-97 97-98 98-99 99-00 00-01 01-02 02-03 03-04 04-05 05-06
Grand Prix Final - - - - - - 4th 3rd 2nd -
NHK Trophy 7th 6th 8th 5th - - 3rd - 1st -
Cup of Russia - - - - 7th - 5th - 3rd -
Cup of China - - - - - - - - - 3rd
Trophee Eric Bompard - - - - - - - - - 3rd
Trophee Lalique - - - - 9th 6th - 2nd - -
Skate Canada Int. - - - - - - - 2nd - -
Skate America - - 9th - - 4th - 3rd - -
Sparkassen Cup - 7th - 5th - - - - - -
