Kim was already a major celebrity after winning the 2009 World Championships, but the Olympic gold made her a cultural icon.

The 23-year-old is the country’s most ubiquitous pitchman by lightyears, trading on her wholesome image in commercials for bottled water, beer, coffee, air conditioners, cars and financial services. She’s published books (Kim Yu-na’s Seven Minute Drama and Like Kim Yuna), recorded songs with K-pop stars and hosted Kiss & Cry, a skating variety show that aired on SBS. She netted $14 million last year to land on Forbes' list of the world's highest-earning female athletes—an unheard-of sum for a skater—yet her earning power is matched only by her largesse. It’s a cult of personality not unlike the religious mania about Manny Pacquiao.



Where could an athlete possibly go from there?

It takes an uncommon brand of competitive spirit and work ethic to come back and defend a gold medal in any discipline, but it’s exceedingly rare in figure skating, where only Norway’s Sonja Henie and East Germany’s Katarina Witt have repeated as champions. What happens when perfection is expected? In many ways, it seemed, Kim Yuna could not win at the Sochi Olympics, even if she came in first.

Yet in no way does that makes her controversial second-place finish to unheralded Russian teenager Adelina Sotnikova on Thursday any easier to stomach. The decision strikes a blow to the artistry that sets figure skating apart from all other sports—and to many, seems to stink of corruption.

Kim’s preparation for the 2014 Olympics had been shrouded in mystery. She’d left competitive skating for 16 months and entered just four major international competitions in the four years since Vancouver. A foot injury had kept her off the ice for six weeks during her preparation for Sochi. The oddsmakers had her as an even favorite to win the title, but in truth no one knew exactly what to expect.

This year’s Olympic figure skating competition attracted one of the deepest and most exciting ladies’ fields ever: a talent-stacked mix of established stars, rising ingénues, and dangerous floaters. Adding to the intrigue was the breakthrough of Russia’s Julia Lipnitskaia, a 15-year-old phenom whose breakthrough in last week’s inaugural team event—where she became the youngest female skater in 78 years to win an Olympic gold—pushed her onto the short list of contenders for gold. Also in the mix was Kim’s longtime frenemy, Japan’s Mao Asada, the silver medalist in 2010.

After landing in Sochi, Kim drew throngs of press at practice sessions, even as the men's skaters competed—and looked good, but not great. She skated well but with almost no spark, seeming almost unhappy at times. The sense around the Olympic Park was that Lipnitskaia and American upstart Gracie Gold were entering the event with more momentum. Unlike in 2010, Kim would be skating against a legitimate hometown contender in a sport where crowd reaction can often translate to higher scores. (More on this later.) This was a pressure wholly unlike Kim’s Vancouver crucible, yet no less intense.