Asada unable to skate in meet because of age

The age deadline to compete was 15 by July 1 and her birthday is Sept. 25.
PARIS (AP) -- Armed with a triple axel and bunches of other jumps, Mao Asada has beaten two-time world silver medalist Sasha Cohen and former world champion Shizuka Arakawa.
Asada's only loss since 2004 has been to two-time world champ Irina Slutskaya.
But those parts of her background won't get her to the Turin Olympics.
Nothing can.
While the others are preparing for February's Winter Games, the Japanese skater who turned 15 on Sept. 25, is ineligible because of age.
International Skating Union regulation 108-2 requires any skater at the Olympics or World Figure Skating Championships to be 15 or older by the July 1 preceding the event.
"Right now, she is the finest jumper in the world in the ladies division," said John Nicks, Cohen's coach, who has been coaching close to 50 years and has a few problems with the age eligibility rules.
In an elite group
Asada routinely has done the triple axel, a 31/2 revolution jump only a handful of women have mastered.
Last December, at the junior Grand Prix final, she was the first woman on that level to have it ratified in international competition. She was 14; Tonya Harding was 20 when she did the first by an American at the U.S. championships in 1991.
Last Saturday, in winning the Trophee Bompard, a senior Grand Prix event, she did seven jumps in the last minute of her free program, when other women were struggling to stay on their feet.
Asada's problem is not the quality of competition, then. It's International Skating Union regulation 108-2, which requires any skater at the Olympics or World Figure Skating Championships to be 15 or older by the July 1 preceding the event.
Tara Lipinski, who was 14 when she won the 1997 world championships, was grandfathered into that event and the subsequent Nagano Games, which she won at age 15. Lipinski was the youngest women's Olympic champion, beating Sonja Henie by two months.
Basis of the rule
"This is a rule based on medical aspects and not a technical one," said Ottavio Cinquanta, the ISU president and a member of the International Olympic Committee. "And the rule is the age, not the standard of skating."
So while others chase Olympic gold, Asada will concentrate on the Grand Prix final in Tokyo next month and her own national championships. Any Olympic aspirations will have to wait until 2010 in Vancouver.
"I am obviously disappointed, but I have to fulfill the rules of the ISU," Asada said. "I hope to do two triple axels at the Grand Prix finals," for which she's already qualified.
"I also want to do a quadruple jump," she said.
The only woman who has done that in competition is another Japanese, Miki Ando.
Triple or double jump
"We cannot stop the skater to do a triple jump instead of a double jump," Cinquanta said. "But if the triple jump could result -- in training or in competition -- in a negative aspect for the health of the skater, than this is something for the medical doctor and not the coach.
"On the basis of the medial advisers of the ISU, the congress had decided that especially for the major events, where particular attention is to be given in the training -- such as the Olympic Games and world championships where you have to train more than other events -- there is an age limit."
Cinquanta has said the rule may be reviewed and could even be lowered to 14 at a future ISU congress.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.