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Mao Asada on her way to winning an Olympic tuneup this month in Fukuoka, Japan.

DETROIT — Figure skating's kiss-and-cry area is designed for sequined emotion. But when Mao Asada of Japan received her composite score at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, her expression remained as flat and neutral as the ice.

Later, she appeared near tears before receiving her silver medal. It was a moment of joy and disappointment. While Asada was both delicate and powerful, one of a handful of women ever to land a triple axel, her jumping technique had eroded. And she had finished far behind the elegant champion Kim Yu-na of South Korea.

"The silver medal was nice, but my jumps were falling apart," Asada, 23, a two-time world champion, said in October at Skate America, speaking through an interpreter. "There was a time when I just couldn't forgive myself."

In 2006, Asada was perhaps the best female skater in the world but, at 15, was too young by international rules for the Turin Games. Four years later, at 19, she found herself struggling with the lutz, salchow and toe loop, curious given that she had mastered the most difficult jump for women, the triple axel.

What followed was a ruthless self-examination. After Vancouver, Asada started from scratch, taking a mechanic's approach to a frilly sport. She stripped her triple jumps to their rudimentary parts and relearned each takeoff and landing, beginning with a single rotation.

For about two years, Asada struggled to regain her consistency. She considered retiring after her mother died of chronic liver disease in December 2011. But another Olympics approach, in February in Sochi, Russia, and Asada has restored herself among the gold medal favorites.

In early December, she won the Grand Prix Final, an important Olympic tuneup in Fukuoka, Japan. The stoicism in her skating has bloomed with newfound feeling, interpretation and creative movement, born of grief and maturity.

"To experience the passing of her mom made her deeper emotionally, made her question a lot of things," said Lori Nichol of Toronto, Asada's longtime choreographer. "When she did that, she became more open to living life and appreciating life. That included exploring movement on the ice, hearing music more. Before, she was a very disciplined skater who did what she was told, but she didn't invest a lot of herself emotionally."

This will be her final competitive season, Asada has said. She is one of Japan's most popular athletes. A gold medal would bring a glorious and redemptive conclusion to a celebrated career. But her chances could go skidding with the slightest of mistakes.

Kim, the reigning Olympic champion, has seldom skated in recent years, but she won the 2013 world title while Asada finished third. After her current Olympic season was disrupted by a foot injury, Kim has returned to competition. The technical skill of her helicoptering jumps and her speed and airy presence are unmatched. If Kim is at her best in Sochi, she is widely expected to become the third female skater to win consecutive gold medals after Sonja Henie of Norway (1928, 1932, 1936) and Katarina Witt of the former East Germany (1984, 1988).

"Yu-na has become a megastar," said Tara Lipinski, the 1998 Olympic champion. "She has that Olympic title and that puts them in a slightly different category than they were in before. Now, Mao is a bit of an underdog, pushing to grab that medal. Yu-na has only gotten more confident."

Surprisingly, Asada finished only third at the recent Japanese national championships. And she has lost reliability in her signature jump, the triple axel, a move as singularly recognizable as it is arduous. It is the only jump launched from a forward position, and it requires three and a half rotations in the air. Asada landed two triple axels in her long program at the Vancouver Games, but lately has fallen on the jump, put her hands to the ice or prematurely ended the maneuver short of the number of intended rotations.

Some commentators have advised her to discard the wobbly jump in Sochi and try to defeat Kim with an otherwise clean program. Otherwise, this theory goes, point deductions could cost her a shot at any medal.

"Mao's obsession with the triple axel has clearly gone too far," the columnist Jack Gallagher wrote in The Japan Times. "She is such a gifted and beautiful skater and so beloved by her fans that they are all being set up for a huge letdown in Sochi. Here is the dilemma: If she could not beat Kim Yu-na in Vancouver when she was hitting the triple axel, how is she going to do it in Sochi while not being able to land it?"

At Skate America, though, Asada said self-satisfaction would trump any rivalry with Kim in Sochi. She is skating more for herself than a particular spot on the medal podium, she said.