Olympic champ Kim splits with coach Orser

In the shocker of all shockers, Olympic champion Yu-Na Kim of Korea announced her split with coach Brian Orser yesterday.

Orser, who guided Kim to World and Olympic titles in less than four years, said the skater's mother, Park Mi-Hee, approached him three weeks ago and said that his services were no longer needed.

There is clearly something more going on here; it's likely that Kim no longer has the drive or ambition to train at an elite level anymore, which is understandable. After all, she's won everything imaginable and is the biggest celebrity in South Korea right now, endorsing everything from refrigerators to her own brand of cell phone.

Skaters change coaches all the time, but this split comes as one of the biggest surprises since Michelle Kwan left Frank Carroll before the Olympic season in 2001.

What makes the situation more awkward is that Kim, 19, still trains at the same Toronto rink Orser coaches at, and he admitted that "it has created a tension that is having an impact on all the other skaters. Something has to change."

Those "other skaters" include both Adam Rippon and Christina Gao, a pair of quickly rising American stars. Orser guided Rippon to the Four Continents Championship gold medal last season, while Gao was a surprise bronze medalist at the Junior Grand Prix Final.

Kim announced her intention to skip the Grand Prix Series this fall, and instead focus her training for the World Championships coming up in March in Tokyo. However, with a plethora of opportunities coming her way since striking gold in Vancouver -- including her own ice show -- it appears unlikely at this point in time that we will see her on competition ice again.

Brian Orser: World's most sought after coach?

This is going to be a monumental year for Brian Orser.

Twenty-two years after his last experience at the Games, Orser hopes to coach his protege - Yu-Na Kim of Korea - to an Olympic gold medal. Like Orser did, Kim will enter the competition as the reigning world champion and, like Orser, will be skating on "home ice" in Canada. However, both hope that the similarities end there (Orser was defeated by the United States' Brian Boitano in Calgary in 1988 and had to settle for his second straight Olympic silver medal).

Kim appears to be in a good place, though. Her high-flying triple jumps and massive Program Component Scores allowed her to bury the competition at Worlds this year. At that event, she set records for the highest ladies short program score ever (76.12) and the highest overall score (207.71). She beat silver medalist Joannie Rochette of Canada by over 16 points and her biggest rival, Japan's Mao Asada, by nearly 20 points. Asada, the '08 world champ, fell (literally) to a disappointing 4th place this year.

Regardless of the scores, Kim has clearly flourished under Orser's tutelage. So much so that American Adam Rippon moved to Toronto to train with him last fall as well. With Orser at the boards, Rippon defended his World Junior title in March, hitting two picture perfect triple Axels and accumulating an astounding competition score of 222.00. That marked him as the fourth-highest scoring U.S. man internationally last season (behind veterans Evan Lysacek, Jeremy Abbott and Johnny Weir), and distinguishes him as a legitimate contender for a 2010 Olympic berth.

Orser's influence doesn't end there. His most recent student is 2009 U.S. junior bronze medalist Christina Gao. As a novice in 2008, Gao fell numerous times and finished 12th (a.k.a., last) in the national competition. In her '09 junior freeskate last January, she again fell three times but hung on for the bronze medal in an underwhelming and relatively weak field. However, her months spent with Orser in Canada have proven to be beneficial already. Gao competed in the Skate Detroit event in late July and reeled off six effortless triple jumps in her long program, racking up more than 108 points for the program and earning a total competition score of over 164 points.

The improvement in all three of these skaters since being coached by Orser has been more than just technical. His friendly demeanor and calming presence has elevated Kim to greatness already in her short senior career (two Grand Prix Final titles, a Four Continents championship, two World bronze medals, and a World championship). Rippon also appears to be on the right track, and 15-year old Gao is certainly poised to make a splash in her senior National debut this season as well.

When ya got it, ya got it, and Orser has definitely proven his worth as an elite coach.