Ladies event to be the highlight of Four Continents

Ladies event to be the highlight of Four Continents

VANCOUVER, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- With defending world champion Mao Asada of Japan, her rival Kim Yu-Na of South Korea and Canada's five-time champion Joannie Rochette, ladies event will surely become the highlight of the ISU Four Continents, which starts Wednesday in Vancouver.

One of the exciting moments of the competition will be to see Mao Asada, and rival Yu-Na Kim of South Korea, a two-time world bronze medallist, go head to head.

In their last meeting at the Grand Prix Final, Asada took the gold in a show of steely determination. Now it may be Kim's turn to take the title in Vancouver with her mesmerizing musicality, grace and superb technicality.

That said, the only woman so far this season to skate a clean free program is Canada's five-time champion, Joannie Rochette, who has the skills and the ability to be a real threat in this competition.

All five skaters able to take the top spot will be at the men's event. Newly-crowned American men's champion Jeremy Abbott has been unstoppable this season and has to be one of the heavy favorites, especially after his winning performance at the ISU Grand Prix Final.

Japan's Takahiko Kozuka, silver medallist at the Grand Prix Final, will undoubtedly be in the mix as will teammate, Nobunari Oda.

Despite his fifth-place finish at the Grand Prix Final, Canada's two-time national champion, Patrick Chan, is fresh from a dazzling Canadian championship where his short program would have been hard to beat by anyone on the current world scene.

In ice dance, there are Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the defending world silver medallists, America's Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Canada's Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison, the defending world bronze medallists, and Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao of China, the defending world silver medallists.

Competition will conclude Saturday with the men's free skate.

Staged at the Pacific Coliseum, the event is one of several "test events" for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, as the city prepares to launch the one-year countdown to the Games on Feb. 12.