Figure Skating

VANCOUVER - Together, Brian Orser and Kim Yu-Na are the stuff of Olympic fable.

He is a Canadian figure-skating legend, a two-time Olympic silver medalist and an emerging coach at the age of 47. She is a legend in the making, a hit with Vancouver's South Korean community and a Toronto resident.

With an Olympic medal hanging in the balance, they would cut quite the delicious photo next February in the kiss-and-cry area. Already, at the Four Continents championships this week, her short-program routine - and his mannerisms while watching it - have been must-see TV.

On Wednesday, as Kim skated to the lead in the short program of this Olympic test event and world championship tune-up, cameras caught Orser mimicking her every glide, step and jump on the coach's side of the boards.

"I skate it with her during the training process," Orser said. "I know all the steps, so now when I'm standing on the side without any skates on, I kind of do the best I can.

"It's instinct. And I feel like there's a sense of energy I can help send out. Or maybe it just helps me. But it just feels good to do that. I just can't help it."

And Orser just couldn't help coaching this 18-year-old darling, something of a skating prodigy and already a superstar in her homeland. When Kim's camp first asked Orser, who won the silver medals at the Sarajevo Games in 1984 and again in Calgary four years later, he declined because he was still touring and skating exhibitions.

But one year later, in 2006, she asked again, and it changed Orser's life. Now, he tutors five skaters at the Cricket Skating & Curling Club in Toronto, including U.S. world junior champion Adam Rippon, who united with him in December, and he helps many other skaters at the club.

"It was a sign for me to move on with my life," Orser said of Kim's persistence.

"I've always liked teaching, and I just wasn't sure how I was at coaching. I knew it was a full-time commitment. You can't do this halfway, especially at this level. I had to realize I had to do it for however long."

Kim, who can win the Four Continents women's title in the free program today, lives and trains in Toronto with her mother and a support group. Her short program on Wednesday not only set a personal best score of 72.24, but also it was cheered loudly by the dedicated Korean fans at the Pacific Coliseum.

Kim is credited for having put the sport on the map in her homeland, and her skate in Goyang at the Grand Prix series final late last year was a major sports happening in the Asian country. Fans littered the ice with stuffed toys, and Orser said Kim, the first South Korean to win a senior International Skating Union figure-skating medal, is now a celebrity who can't walk the streets without being stopped.

"She is their first skater," Orser said. "There will never be another one. Her face is everywhere. She is smart and she is beautiful and she speaks very well."

Kim also speaks English, which wasn't the case when she started working with Orser. Earlier this week, she said she felt comfortable with Orser and considered Canada her second home.

Always the showman, Orser showed off his limited South Korean vocabulary, including the words for "hurry up," which he learned during their intense practice sessions.

Of the 36 female skaters listed in the Four Continents media guide, no one claims to practise more than Kim. The two-time world bronze medalist says she practises 48 hours a week during high season and 48 hours a week during low season. The next busiest skater practises 38 hours a week, according to the guide.

Asked to describe Kim's talent, Orser uses words such as reliable, athletic, elegant and competitive. He said she owns "an amazing gift," which has already persuaded him to plunge into coaching for now and the foreseeable future.

"When you have a student like Yu-Na," Orser said, "it makes it quite pleasurable."