Akiko Suzuki, the nova from Japan

By Teruro Sakaki

“I shall come here again absolutely 1 year later.”

She swore so in the Four Continents which was hosted in Vancouver in January last year and was her first participation.

While piling the good results after having jumped out onto the international stage from the NHK Trophy in October last year, she ran up the stairs toward the Olympics.
The performance at "her Land of Promise" is approaching 1 month later.

In the Japan Nationals of the end of last year which the ticket of her first Olympics rested on, she had a lot of guts. She said, “I would like to excite the full audience most in the participants”. On the big stage, almost players is apt to be conscious to the failure and the results, but the 24 years old danced with all her passion and was filled with the thunderous applause.

She became the 2nd place while winning the come-from-behind in FS from the 4th place in SP and was decided into the Japan representative for the Olympics. But, she couldn’t easily feel that it is real.
After drinking a toast with Hiroshi Nagakubo coach to the victory and being blessed by the phone and the mail, from the friend and the acquaintance, she was only to find that she achieved the big job really.

She said to us, "There was a time difference somewhat between you and I, doesn't it?" This was the ticket of the result that she was conscious of the own skating more strongly than the Olympics participation right.

She was expected in the future from childhood. She won the championship, too, in Junior GP Series. (2001 JGP Nagano, JPN and 2002 JGP Arizona, USA)
After going on to Tohoku Fukushi University in the spring of 2003, she fell into the eating disorder while being conscious of the weight adjustment, and her weight fell even 15 kilograms.
She could not skate on the rink for 1 year, but she made a thought to the skating new in that anguish.

She came back in 2004/2005 season, but, in the Japan Nationals before the Turin Olympics, she was 12th place. “The last group was tense and it was on entirely different level from her.” For her, the Olympics was just a dream of a dream.