For 13-year-old figure skater Young You, her goal in life is clear: be like Yuna Kim.
And since putting on her first pair of skates at age seven, the two-time South Korean national champion is well on her way to emulating the compatriot Olympic figure skating queen, who made history and captured hearts the world over with her Vancouver Winter Games gold medal performance. Kim, herself inspired by the athleticism and artistry of Asian American Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan, has said You was better than Kim was at her age.
You, this year’s youngest Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree, was the youngest ever to win the South Korean national championships in 2016 at age 11, beating Queen Yuna who won the title in 2003 at age 12. You clinched the title again this January, raising the country’s hopes for her to one day fill Kim’s skates.
“I still have a lot to learn, but ultimately I want to be someone like Kim Yuna,” You said in an interview between practices at her training rink in northern Seoul.
You, who spent her early years in Southeast Asia with her parents and two older brothers, remembers first seeing Kim on TV during the Vancouver Winter Games. “It was my first time to see winter sports, growing up in tropical Indonesia and Singapore. I was fascinated to see her skating in beautiful clothes,” she says. She promptly begged her mother to bring her to one of Singapore’s only skating rinks.
While at first struggling not to fall, she improved quickly, performing a single axel in just two days–a jump that usually takes a few months to learn. Soon her skating class nicknamed her Little Kim Yuna.
“Most of all, I really liked the cold air hitting my face when I skated around, which was refreshing,” she says.
You loved the sport so much that she would skate 12 hours a day until the rink closed, sometimes refusing to go home when she obsessed over mastering a move. She caught the eyes of coaches who spotted her athleticism, artistry and agility, a rare combination in someone so young. In the summers she would train in South Korea, where there were better programs.
“Every time she was in South Korea, her skills grew exponentially,” her mother, Lee Sukhee, recalls. Seeing the passion and dedication in her only daughter, Lee decided to bring You back to South Korea–splitting up the family between South Korea, Singapore and now Indonesia–to give pro skating a try.
You, who was in third grade at the time, dropped all academic studies except English and math to focus on skating. The investment has paid off: after a year and a half, You joined the national team, and in two and a half years, became the youngest national champion.
Through it all, Yuna Kim was her idol. You watched all her videos, searched for every picture and set Queen Yuna as the background image on her phone. She credits Kim, along with her mom, there for every practice and competition, for motivating her to reach for her dreams. In January 2016, when You won her first South Korean national title, she met her hero, who was there to give flowers to the winners. Kim told her: “You did well.”
“When I met Yuna, it was like my dream come true–it was unbelievable. She was so striking in person and I thought I should try harder to be someone like her,” You says.
The two later had a few one-on-one skating sessions, when Kim told You she had a natural talent for presentation and jumping, but needed to work on speed and technique.
“I still get nervous when I see her,” You says of the figure skating star, still one of the most loved and highest-paid celebrity athletes in the country. “And yes, I have a selfie with her on my phone.”
At the same time, You is coming into herself as she strives to make her mark. While Kim’s performances were marked by a light elegance through even the most complicated moves, You describes her style as “happy, exciting and cute.” She picks fast songs like “Don’t Rain On My Parade” that showcase her vibrancy and sass on ice and the dramatic “Pirates of the Caribbean” program that won her this year’s national championship.
You was the first skater in South Korea to try a quadruple salchow in competition in 2016. She is also known for her keenness for the tano jump, a move invented by American Olympic champion Brian Boitano in which the skater jumps with one or two arms overhead that garners extra points for its difficulty.
Even at her young age, other athletes already tell You she is their role model, which she finds both flattering and intimidating. “It definitely motivates me to work hard as someone’s role model,” she says.
Her voice tightened as she spoke of being too young to contend for the PyeongChang Olympics, the only Winter Games that would be on her native soil in her career. There were no South Koreans to reach the figure skating podium, but You cherished the opportunity to perform at the gala show with fellow rising star Lim Eunsoo.
Her biggest dream is to win the gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, when she will be 17, and then contend at the 2026 Winter Games before taking a break from skating, her first rest since she was seven years old.
But she acknowledges the long road ahead, saying she is only halfway to where she wants to be. She’s not immune to pressure: at the recent 2018 World Junior Figure Skating Championships in Bulgaria, she placed ninth after two falls and a last minute costume tear that left her flustered and distracted.
At the least, she says she learned from watching other young skaters with great strength and technique, including junior title winner Russian Alexandra Trusova, also 13, who “jumped like a machine,” successfully executing two quadruple jumps for the first time in competition–surely setting a precedent for future competitions. “It’s true countries like Russia have a stellar training system, but I think it’s more the individual effort than the training that really matters,” she says.
Off the rink, she enjoys the pleasantries of other early teenage girls: shopping, trying on makeup, baking cookies (cookies with icing are her favorite) or hanging out with friends, who are mostly her fellow skaters. After her skating career, she hopes to catch up on life by adopting a dog, attending university, traveling and continuing to bake.
Until then, You faces her journey one competition at a time, now focusing on refining her technique and introducing a new jump–the triple axle–to her routine for the national qualifier for the international Grand Prix. As for quadruple jumps, she says: “I need to practice.”
Jinyoung Park contributed to this article.
See Forbes’ full 2018 30 Under 30 Asia list here.
Follow the project on social media: #ForbesU30Asia
