Miki Ando: biography and career in figure skating

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

Skater Miki Ando, who performed in single skating, is known to many fans of this sport. She entered her name in history in 2002, when she was the first in the world to perform a quadruple salchow in the final of the Junior Grand Prix. About what other achievements the Japanese woman has and what she does after her career, we will tell in the article.

Biography and first steps in sports

The future figure skater was born on 1987-18-12 in the city of Nagoya. The girl became interested in skating in 1996, when she was nine years old. According to Miki Ando, her father played a big role in her development as an athlete. He loved his daughter very much and was happy when he saw her on skates, and she, in turn, made every effort to make dad proud of her. Unfortunately, Mika celebrated her main victories without him: her father died from an accident when she was very young.

At first, the figure skater trained with Yuko Monna, and since 2000, Nobuo Sato became her mentor. In 2001, Miki won the Japan Junior Championships and the Grand Prix Final, won bronze medals at the Japanese Senior Championships and World Junior Championships.

Career development

In 2002, the whole world learned about figure skater Miki Ando: in the entire history of women's figure skating, she became the first to complete a successful quadruple jump at the competition. In the 2002/03 season, as part of the junior tournaments, the single skater became the champion of Japan and the silver medalist of the World Championship. A year later, a victory at the junior world championship was added to her piggy bank.

In the 2004/05 season, Miki Ando began to compete in adult competitions. At the stages of the Grand Prix, she won two medals, but in the final she was only fourth. After that, the figure skater won the Japanese Championship and took sixth place in the world championship.

In the 2005/06 season, Miki trained in the USA under the guidance of the famous single skater Carol Heiss. At the Japanese stage of the NHK Trophy and in the Grand Prix final, the athlete was fourth.

The 2006 Olympics, which took place in Turin, Italy, was unsuccessful for the Japanese woman. Miki Ando fell three times and took only fifteenth place. Due to such an inexpressive result, the athlete subsequently did not get to the World Championships.

Under the leadership of Nikolai Morozov

After her failures, the figure skater decided to change her coach. Her new mentor was the Russian specialist Nikolai Morozov. In the 2006/07 season, under his leadership, Miki Ando won the Skate America stage and was second at the TrophéeEric Bompard, thanks to which she qualified for the Grand Prix final, which was held in St. Petersburg. At this tournament, the athlete fell ill with the flu, was not in the best shape andtook only fifth place. Performing a free program at the Japanese Championships, Miki Ando dislocated her shoulder. But this did not stop her from riding to the end and winning the silver.

In 2007, at the world championship in Tokyo, the figure skater became the champion. In both programs, she was second, but in terms of total points she managed to get ahead of her main rival Mao Asada. After that, the Japanese woman was recognized as the "Woman of the Year" by Vogue magazine.

The next season, Miki Ando again pursued failure. At the NHK Trophy tournament, she took only fourth place, which is why she did not make it to the Grand Prix final. At the championship of four continents, the athlete landed on two legs while trying to make a quadruple salchow and thereby deprived herself of the fight for victory. At the World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, Miki placed eighth in the short program and withdrew from the competition due to a muscle strain in her leg. However, there were also successful performances this season: the figure skater won silver medals at the Japanese Championship and Skate America.

In the 2009/10 season, Miki Ando's main achievements were bronze in the world championship, victory in the Rostelecom Cup tournament, and second place in the Grand Prix final.

In the 2010/11 season, the figure skater won the Cup of Russia and Cup of China Grand Prix stages and became the world champion.

The birth of a daughter and the end of a career

In April 2013, Japanese Miki Ando gave birth to a daughter. The athlete chose not to talk about the father of the child. After the decree, the skater decided to return to the sport. According to Mika, she had to re-get to know your body and train hard to achieve the same glide. But she was never able to get the right shape: at the Japanese Championships in 2014, she took seventh place and lost the right to participate in the Sochi Olympics. After that, the skater announced that she was ending her career.

Currently

Now Miki Ando trains children, performs at various figure skating shows in different parts of the world and leads several projects aimed at protecting animals and nature.

As for her personal life, until recently she met with the Spanish figure skater Javier Fernandez. Their relationship was first talked about back in 2011, when both athletes trained under the guidance of Nikolai Morozov. However, the Japanese and the Spaniard officially declared themselves a couple only in November 2014. All figure skating fans were waiting for the lovers to get married. But in 2017, Javier Fernandez and Miki Ando announced that they had broken up. However, they remain friends and continue to support each other.