Olympic medalists and world champions will perform at South Korean figure skating icon Kim Yu-na’s final ice shows this spring, the skater’s agency said Tuesday.

According to All That Sports, Denis Ten of Kazakhstan, the reigning Olympic bronze medalist in the men’s singles, and Alexei Yagudin of Russia, the 2002 Olympic gold medalist and the four-time world champ in the men’s singles, will headline the star-studded cast.

Kim, who retired from competition after last month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, will hold her farewell ice shows in Seoul from May 4-6.

Other medalists from Sochi will take the ice here in May, the agency said. Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia, the gold medal-winning duo in the pairs, will be joined by the bronze medalists in the same event, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany.

Ten rose to international fame by capturing silver at the 2013 world championships, and then became the first figure skater from Kazakhstan to reach the podium at the Winter Games in Sochi.

Ten, 20, is the great-great-grandson of a Korean-born independence fighter, Gen. Min Keung-ho.

Yagudin retired in 2002 after winning one Olympic gold medal, four world championships and three European titles.

Volosozhar and Trankov set the world record score of 84.71 points in the short program en route to capturing the pairs gold in Sochi. The two also helped Russia win the gold in the inaugural team competition in figure skating. (Yonhap)

Seoul to honor Olympic medalists

The South Korean government announced it will seek to award three medalists from the recent Winter Olympics the most prestigious national order of merit in sports, in an apparent attempt to assuage critics of its revamped qualification requirements for the honors.

In a statement, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said speed skater Lee Sang-hwa, short tracker Park Seung-hi and figure skater Kim Yu-na will be considered for the Chungryong Medal, the highest decoration in South Korea’s Order of Sports Merit. “They helped raise the prestige of our nation with their performances at the Sochi Winter Games,” the ministry said. “We will look to confer the Chungryong Medal on them after consulting with relevant organizations.”

Lee won her second straight Olympic gold in the women’s 500 meters. Park won two gold medals and one bronze medal in the women’s short track and was the only South Korean athlete to capture more than one gold medal in Sochi. Kim claimed the silver medal in the ladies’ singles event.

The ministry’s decision came on the heels of criticism it faced last week for introducing more stringent points-based qualification standards for the Chungryong Medal starting this year. Under the revamped criteria, even Kim, a two-time Olympic medalist also with two world championships to her credit, wouldn’t have enough points to be eligible for the Chungryong.

Critics argued that they saw little point of having national sports honors in the first place when someone as decorated as Kim couldn’t qualify for the highest award. (Yonhap)