Brian and Yu-Na: Anatomy of a Dissolution

You learn the darndest things by paying attention to Twitter sometimes.

It was a “tweet” by a figure skater—alluding to a split of Kim Yu-Na from coach Brian Orser Monday night—that first sent me scrambling to find out what was going on, and led me to a single article (the one I posted). Three days later, I just Googled Kim’s name and find the number of articles discussing the split has now grown… to 470.

And it was a “tweet” by none other than Kim herself that I stumbled upon Tuesday… though I heard it was deleted shortly thereafter… which told my Spidey senses something was very much amiss:

Would you please stop to tell a lie, B? I know exactly what's going on now and this is what I've DECIDED.

Oh, crap, I thought. What in the world happened with these two?? And why does it have to go down like this—from traditional media to social media and back again?

Coaches and skaters part ways all the time; we don’t joke about it being the annual “shuffle” for nothing. Only when it’s been the skaters especially notorious for coach-hopping—Sasha Cohen, Nicole Bobek, the late Christopher Bowman, back in the day—do we typically do more than raise an eyebrow or make a joke. But this partnership seemed the International Dream Team of our times; the Korean phenom that captured the ultimate prize for her sport, and the Canadian skating-legend-turned-coach that helped her get it done. They shot commercials together. They worked hard. They looked like they had some fun along the way. And when her world became a cautious one, inescapable from the manic media and the sometimes equally manic fans, Orser somehow shielded her just enough, and helped her stay focused. One tends to look at the results, especially over the past two years, and think they were mighty successful. In Kim, we’ve arguably found the biggest star in the sport since Michelle Kwan (and I did say arguably, so Mao Asada fans, please know I’m not looking to start another debate about the two of them with this post). In Orser, we celebrated a fantastic third act for a man who already had one of the most storied amateur and pro careers in the sport.

But what a difference a few days makes. The split may have actually occurred weeks (or unofficially, even months) ago, but suddenly, in the waning weeks of a relatively uneventful August, it’s all skating fans—and selected others—can talk about. As I write this, there have been nearly 1000 posts at Figure Skating Universe regarding the initial news of the split (with well over 100,000 “views” of it), and close to 500 posts for an update that included much more from Orser himself (here is said update, in case you were wondering). Phil Hersh’s current take on the whole thing (oh all right, here’s that article too) generated at least 25 comments from both sides of the debate.

Here’s the important thing to remember in any of this— whether you’re a fan or not: NONE of us know exactly what’s happened here. And just because we think we want to know, and just because it’s all over the headlines this week, doesn’t mean it’s our business to know the details. It’s a sad, unfortunate end to a wonderful story.

I wish it could be left at that, but you know how this goes.

As a tribute to better times, I found Orser & Kim’s commercial shot over in Korea for the Clip of the Day. You’ll notice the “comments” have already been disabled… I’m kind of glad for that.