VANCOUVER — Rachael Flatt let out an audible gasp when she walked into her room at the Olympic Village. No wonder. The room’s great. The view of the courtyard is great. The convenience is great.
Or was that an audible gasp of relief?
It could have been. The Cheyenne Mountain High School senior is in the Olympic Games and will skate her short program in front of the world tonight. However, she can take much solace in knowing all the world won’t be watching her.
The planet, weighted particularly heavy on the south end of the Korean peninsula, will focus on one Yu-Na Kim, the biggest favorite the Olympics have seen among the ladies in more than a decade.
Flatt and U.S. teammate Mirai Nagasu survived last month’s cutthroat nationals selection process and aren’t medal favorites. The pressure is off, kids. In more places than one. Flatt got accepted to Stanford last week.
“Mirai and I are incredibly excited to come out here and kick some (tail),” Flatt said.
Everyone knows how well the 17-year-old Flatt skates when the weight of Colorado is on her. She arrives as the national champion after two runner-up finishes and an uplifting fifth at last year’s world championships.
Now she’s skating for the experience, skating for fun, and who knows? If the favored Asian contingent somehow falls flat, Flatt could be skating for a medal.
“I think coming in as an underdog certainly helps,” Flatt said. “I function well under the radar a little bit.”
If Kim was on the world radar any more, she would have her own weather system. The 19-year-old from Bucheon, South Korea, hasn’t lost a competition in two years. She’s the defending world champion, three-time defending Grand Prix Final champion and has been ranked No. 1 for three years.
puts Kim as a 1-2 favorite (Flatt is 22-1), meaning if Kim wins, you win only half the amount that you bet. She is South Korea’s version of the New York Yankees. The difference is her competition isn’t as tough. Canada’s Joannie Rochette and Japan’s Mao Asada are favored to fight for silver and bronze, at 11-2.
Kim skates at 9 p.m. MST immediately following Asada. Nagasu skates at 7:12 p.m., Rochette at 9:27 p.m., Flatt at 9:40 p.m. and Ando at 9:53 p.m.
Hope for other competitors might rest on the fact this is Kim’s first Olympics. Seemingly half the media room is Korean. Not one of them heard a word from her Monday as she dashed past them following her practice.
“Handling stress is very individual,” said her coach, Brian Orser, Canada’s two-time silver medalist. “The way I handle stress is different than the way she handles stress. Having confidence in what you do best, there’s a lot of comfort in that.”
She does have competition. Japan’s Miki Ando, third at worlds, and Asada, the 2008 world champion, are threats. Rochette finished second to Kim at worlds but will skate two days after her 55-year-old mother died of a heart attack.
“Being the heavy favorite isn’t always a good thing because of the amount of pressure,” Nagasu said. “It is the Olympics, so the whole world is watching. I feel like hopefully I’ll be able to stand next to Yu-Na while she’s carrying the whole weight on her shoulders.
“I’ll just be holding it up with a finger.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
