Everett, Washington—Japan’s diminutive Satoko Miyahara is known to her legion of fans as the “Tiny Queen.” Which is not to confuse her with figure skating’s reigning monarch, Russia’s Alina Zagitova, the sport’s girl queen, 16-year-old Olympic champion.
An underlying story line at Skate America this weekend was whether the 2018-19 season’s first ISU Grand Prix stop would put forward a skater (or skaters) capable of challenging Zagitova’s global supremacy?
Miyahara responded with a performance full of grace and precision that suggested that while she is not yet at the Russian’s level a Battle Royale still might be in the offing this season.
Miyahara, fourth the Olympic Games, third at the World Championships last season, solidified her position as the most likely threat to Zagitova and her countrywoman and former training partner Evgenia Medvedeva, the two-time World champion and 2018 Olympic silver medalist, with a convincing victory at the Angel of the Winds Arena Sunday.
“What I saw tonight was pretty close,” said Rosalynn Sumners, the 1984 Olympic silver medalist, when asked about the gap between Miyahara and Zagitova. “What I saw tonight could start putting a little bit of pressure on Zagitova.”
Still Miyahara, 20, acknowledges closing the gap to Zagitova remains daunting.
“It’s a very difficult thing,” she said. “But I think I have to work on more jumps and spins and steps.
“Everything.”
While Sunday showcased Miyahara and countrywoman Kaori Sakamoto it also reinforced just how dominant Zagitova has been since first upsetting Medvedeva at the Russian Championships last December and how deep the Russian bench is.
Miyahara’s overall score of 219.71 was just off her personal best of 222.38 set at the Olympic Games in February. She landed seven triple jumps including a triple lutz, a double axel, triple toeloop combination, and a triple flip, in the second half of her free skate.
Yet Miyahara’s score was nearly 20 points off Zagitova’s winning score at the Olympics and the 238.43 she opened the season with at the CS Nebelhorn Trophy last month.
“No one can make one little (mistake) or they’ll never catch Zagitova,” Sumners said shaking her head. “Wow ,that’s crazy.”
Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, sixth at the Olympics, was nearly as impressive as Miyahara, finishing second at 213.90. Bradie Tennell of the U.S. was fourth, rebounding from a rough short program, to post a 192.89 overall mark.
The competition’s revelation was Russia’s Sofia Samodurova, a 16-year-old who trains with Alexei Mishin, who has coached three Olympic men’s champions. Samodurova was 11th in last year’s Russian Championships.
But Sunday her score of 198.70 gave her the bronze medal in a Grand Prix event that included five Olympians and a former World Junior champion.
While it wasn’t reflected in a 73.86 score that was just off her short program personal best, Miyahara was nervous on the opening night of the competition.
Sunday, she said, “maybe I was even more nervous than yesterday.”
It was a state she remained in until the closing moments of Sunday’s long program.
“I was really nervous to the very, very end,” she said. “When I landed the triple flip I was very happy.”
Miyahara has learned to take nothing for granted.
She learned how to skate at age 5 while her family was living in Houston. The family returned to Japan two years later and Miyahara emerged as an Olympic title contender. She took the silver medal at the 2015 World Championships but missed the 2017 Worlds with a stress fracture in her left pelvic girdle. Her preparations for the Olympics were further slowed by a foot injury in July 2017 and then an inflamed right hip two months later.
Even so she was fourth in Pyeongchang and third at Worlds.
She came out of the off-season healthy.
“Now I’m very happy because I can train a lot in the off-seasons,” Miyahara said, “and I’m very confident that I don’t have to worry about my body.”
Medvedeva has had her own injury issues. She missed the World Championships with a stress fracture. She then left her longtime coach Eteri Tutberidze in May in a high profile, yet seemingly inevitable split given that the Moscow training rink was never going to be big enough for both Medvedeva and Zagitova. Medvedeva has since settled Toronto to train with Brian Orser, the 1988 Olympic silver medalist and coach of 2010 Olympic champion Yuna Kim of South Korea.
The new partnership remains a work in progress. Medvedeva was upset by Tennell 206.41 to 204.89 at the Autumn Classic in Ontario last month.
Canada’s Kaetlyn Osmond, the Olympic bronze medalist who went on to win Worlds in Zagitova and Medvedeva’s absence, is taking the season off.
Which leaves Miyahara to lead to charge to topple Zagitova from her throne. The pair won’t meet until the Grand Prix final in Vancouver in December.
“I can’t wait to see them together,” Sumners said.
She isn’t alone.
