We in Japan finally got something to get excited about at the Torino Winter Olympics. After a long medal drought, Japan finally won a gold medal.

Needless to say, it generated a huge sensation in Japan. Of course, any gold medal would create a sensation in Japan, but this one was triple special. It was for women’s figure skating, the crown jewel of the winter Olympics. Plus it was Japan’s first gold medal in that event as well as Japan’s first winter gold medal in eight years (since Nagano 1998).

Like many other people in Japan, I stayed up at around 3 am to 7:30 am to watch it live on TV. It was worth it. It was such a contrast to watch Japan’s three women competing in figure skating. Each of them were so different and each of them ended up in a totally different situation. I felt a very strong but different emotion for each one. All the while, it was very exciting to watch them.

First we saw Miki Ando who is the most attractive of the three and Japan’s media darling. The big question was whether she would do the quadruple jump. Although she is the only one who has done it successfully at competition, it has never been done successfully at an Olympics.

Well, she tried it and almost succeeded, but fell. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of her performance as she fell or lost her balance a few more times. It was painful to watch her fall so many times. But I thought it was great that she at least tried the quadruple jump. Like, atta girl, be brave and go for it! It’s better to try and fail than to not try at all. We really admired her for that. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Apparently, she was unable to practice as much as she should due to a broken toe in Dec. But she’s young yet (still in high school), and there’s Vancouver in 2010.

Then in the final and best group of skaters, Shizuka Arakawa was so calm and collected. She gave a near-perfect performance and got a standing ovation and a point tally that seemed to be untouchable by the others. What a moment it was, right after the points were calculated for the last skater. Wow, a gold medal in women’s figure skating no less. It was awesome.

Right after Arakawa came Fumie Suguri. She also gave a near-perfect performance, and it was heartbreaking to learn that she came in 4th and just missed the bronze. Many of us in Japan thought she skated better than the Russian bronze medalist who fell once. When Suguri was interviewed on TV soon after the competition ended, she looked like she had been crying. Just heartbreaking.

These three skaters from Japan were in such different situations and I felt so differently for each. A promising, young skater who tried but failed, but will try again next time. A gold medalist who broke Japan’s medal drought with an awe-inspiring performance. She had gone through many trials and hard times and her talent did not come overnight. But it paid off big time. And a skater who worked hard, did her best, and did it very well, but was not justly rewarded.

My final question is, what if Michele Kwan and 15-year-old Mao Asada (disqualified due to her age) were also competing? Boy, that would have been something.

We are now seeing an ice-skating boom in Japan. Skating rinks are full of people. I tried ice skating a few times, but never got good at it.