South Korea's Kim Yu-Na triumphs in powerful skating competition

Forget about all the sequins and dainty costumes. The participants in the signature glamour sport  of the Winter Olympics — women's figure skating — showed plenty of power and true grit Thursday night.

South Korea skater Kim Yu-Na blew away the competition to take the gold medal with the highest point total ever achieved since the new figure skating point system was instituted. But the rest of the elite field didn't back down. 

Japan's Mao Asada completed two triple axels — the most difficult jump in  women's skating —in her long program. (She also completed a triple axel in the short program two nights earlier.)

Canada's Joannie Rochette skated a poised and controlled performance that seemed almost superhuman — her mother unexpectedly died of a heart attack earlier in the week — to win the bronze medal. For once, NBC commentators kept their mouths shut during a performance. They wisely remained mum during Rochette's performance, although it must have been agony for commentator Scott Hamilton to stay quiet for that long.

Sixteen-year-old U.S. skater Mirai Nagasu took fourth place with a sparkling, error-free performance.

All in all, it was a competition in which the participants skated at or near their best — a rarity in previous Olympic ladies figure skating competitions where the pressure-packed surroundings led to numerous skating errors.

It was also a triumphant night for Brian Orser, the Canadian skater who famously lost the "Battle of the Brians" to Brian Boitano in the 1988 Olympics. As Kim's coach, he guided the South Korean skater through the Olympic pressure cooker to the top position. So in a way, he also received his gold medal at last.

The ladies competition was the highlight of NBC's overly long and heavily padded nightly Olympics coverage. The lowlight: Mary Carillo's embarrassing feature on lumberjacking, in which she dressed in a buffalo check plaid jacket and cackled loudly as she watched a logging truck do wheelies in the Canadian outback. Her credibility as a serious sports commentator has evaporated during the past two weeks with such cringe-inducing nightly features.