It’s in the name.
Expectations are sky high for the latest figure skating prodigy from Japan, 15-year-old Shimada Mao, the defending women’s Junior Grand Prix Final champion.
You guessed it, Shimada was named after Asada Mao, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic silver medallist and arguably the sport’s biggest Japanese female star of all time.
On Thursday (7 December), Shimada set out to defend her title at Beijing’s National Indoor Stadium where she was positioned a narrow second to Shin Jia, the rising hope of the Republic of Korea.
Shimada has every chance of overtaking Shin in Friday’s free skate for a second consecutive championship, but it was not good enough for the “New Mao”.
Shimada went wobbly on a triple lutz that cost her points and pole position, leaving her in tears of exasperation in the Kiss & Cry area.
She explained that because she had felt so good in practice and warm-ups, the teenager got greedy.
“It’s really frustrating because I couldn’t reproduce the form I have had in practice lately,” Shimada said, barely audible and the tears having smudged her makeup.
Perhaps the biggest expectations for Shimada come from within. She arrived in Beijing having been listed for January's Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympic Games in South Korea, after sweeping to back-to-back junior national titles last month.
On Wednesday, when asked about her aspirations for the Grand Prix Final, Shimada spoke about what she hadn’t accomplished rather than what she had.
The Kyoto native looks even younger than 15 but make no mistake, there is a fighter within - as evidenced on Thursday.
Equally, there is a giddy side to Shimada, every bit the kid who wants to soak up the atmosphere in a different country in front of a crowd frenetic about skating.
And perhaps that is the allure of the second coming of Mao as it was for the original - a combination of childish charm and natural-born killer intuition on the ice.
“I was dying to qualify for the Youth Olympics at the junior nationals which led to mistakes,” she said.
“It does cross my mind that a second straight title is at stake here but I need to forget about it. I need to focus on trying to perform at a level I can be happy with. That’s the mindset I need to have.
“I was excited the moment I walked into the arena because it’s so big and so nice. But it also made me a little nervous. I hope the fans get behind me because I feed off the crowd. I hope to have fun.”