The Queen is Back!

2008 World Champion Mao Asada was triumphant in her return to ice competition as she won her 4th consecutive Japan Figure Skating Championship in Osaka to book a berth in the coming Vancouver Olympics in February 2010.

Asada who was in danger of missing the Olympics because of poor performances in the Grand Prix competitions that she was in earlier in the season opened her program with her patented triple axel and committed no major mistakes and was solid the rest of the way in the Free Skate to finish with a personal best of 204.62 points.

Her gold medal winning performance served notice that she is back in the thick of things and is determined to give her Korean archrival Kim Yu-Na a run for her money in Vancouver.