The term I have seen used to describe Midori best is "phenom". At the end of her 1989 world's exhibition skate, Scott Hamilton said" witnessing the birth of a new age in figure skating". Single handed she changed ladies figure skating and forced all the other women competing against her to up their game and add technical difficulty to their programs. Watch the above skate by Midori on Canadian TV and listen to Toller Cranston, the 1976 bronze medalist rave about her performance.
She was so damn amazing and ahead of her time... she was truly the first skating prodigy... I mean, she was doing stuff that are being done only wiht a few ladies now, twenty years later...and she's still much better... The fact that she came in second IS the reason they got rid of figures.
I really regret NOT knowing about Midori's history before the 92 Olympics. I had been "backward watching" her programs and just cannot believe the unbelievable... "Phenom" as someone else said earlier that she was. Midori Ito truly was, she did a LOT of things that were new to skating - like her costumes (pretty much everyone of the Ladies in the 90s copied her!) montages of classical music, and her moves. It was so sad that the pressure before Albertville affected her confidence. She deserved so much more credit for what she brought to the sport, aside from the 3A.
