- Joined
- Nov 5, 2011
Rip.
So many skaters have lost someone close to them lately. Not liking the trend. Wonder if we'll see Mao the rest of the season...
I feel today like when Joannie was in Vancouver and I read the news. Mao is so young to have this loss, I still get shocked by stories like this even for people i dont personally know, I have a plan to wake up early tommorow and buy my mum flowers and bring them home.Joannie was also already at teh event and her mother passed away there in teh same city, not billions (or so it would feel at a time like this) of miles away... it's easier to stay away in Mao's case... and I agree, she should get the love and support she needs and should not feel pressured to do anything she's not ready to deal with.
She will definitely need to take some time off to grieve privately. When she feels like skating, she should. I think by March she may feel ready to compete at worlds but it's hard to say how anyone will react/respond to a loss like this one. I do believe she will be back next season because she is a competitor and she obviously loves to skate.
In Joannie's mind, the skating goal was something the entire family shared in, so she remained in the competition even in the darkest moment. Similarly, Mao might want to resume skating this year because it mattered so much to her mother as well as to her. But really, no one knows until the moment what feels right, and Mao will have to let her instincts and needs guide her. She may realize that she just can't think of skating during this period, or she might find that it's the skating that makes order out of chaos and that keeps her steady.
But today, what matters is the terrible loss. I hope that the family finds comfort, though goodness knows that won't happen anytime soon.
That was the right thing to do. The Asada family appears to be quite private--to the extent that few skating fans knew of what was going on, it seems--and to have publicized the terrible news further would have gone against that, I think. My heart goes out to them.The Mainichi Daily News link given in the post above is a good article, written in English, about the situation. It talks about why Cinquanta won't have a moment of silence in the arena, and I think he makes a valid point. He says that the ISU sent letters of condolence to the Japanese federation, other Japanese "sports entities," and the family, and that because it was a private situation, it wouldn't be appropriate to have a public moment of silence.