If you'd asked me, I would have bet she was done with competition, but she's leaving the door open for another chance at Olympic gold.
I was sure she'd retire this year after that disastrous short program at the Olympics. She seemed like she was so tired of the rat race, and was hurting from the loss of her mom. She left out crucial elements of her short program as if on purpose—everyone who has ever competed in a short program event knows that you never ever, under any circumstances want to leave something out. Trying and failing is a million times better than not trying (that's a parable for life, even!) Her long program made up for it, but it seemed more like one last rally than the start of something wonderful. And then the World Championship seemed like a great capstone.
Of course, I am not hesitant to say that I was never that impressed with Asada's skating. She's not very exciting to watch, has zero personality on the ice, and her signature triple axel is blatantly underrotated--a fact that the judges keep ignoring. At Worlds and the Olympics, she got little to no deductions for the cheated 3axels, which in some cases, were almost a half a turn short. Meanwhile skaters like Polina Edmunds and Gracie Gold got slammed with deductions for very minor underrotations (less than a quarter). When I think about it, I'm all like this:
Anyway, as much as I'm not a fan of her skating, I hope Asada makes the right decision for herself, and that whatever it is, she ends up succeeding.
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