Who was the first female skater to land the triple axel?
Axel jump
In the early years of skating, jumping was the exclusive domain of men. Sonja Henie is generally acknowledged as the first female skater to perform an Axel jump. Today, however, her Axel technique (preserved in her many films) would be considered very poor, since her jumps were badly pre-rotated without a "step up", giving them more the character of a jumped spin. In 1953, Carol Heiss was the first woman to perform a double Axel. Thirty-five years later, Midori Ito (JPN) became the first woman to land the triple Axel jump in competition, when she first performed it at the 1988 NHK Trophy. Since then, eight other women (Tonya Harding (USA), Yukari Nakano (JPN), Ludmila Nelidina (RUS), Mao Asada (JPN), Elizaveta Tuktamysheva (RUS), Rika Kihira (JPN), Mirai Nagasu (USA), and Alysa Liu (USA)) have succeeded in completing the jump in international competition, while another woman, Kimmie Meissner (USA), first completed the jump at the 2005 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Midori Ito (JPN), Mao Asada (JPN), and Mirai Nagasu (USA) are the only women who have landed triple Axel jumps in Olympic games. Tonya Harding (USA) was the first woman to land two triple Axel jumps in the same competition (1991 Skate America). Mao Asada (JPN) was the first junior ladies competitor in history to land the triple Axel jump successfully, at the 2004–05 Junior Grand Prix Final. This feat was next accomplished by fellow Japanese skater Rika Kihira who landed the jump at the 2016 JGP Ljubljana. Mao Asada (JPN) was the first woman to land three triple Axel jumps in the same competition (2010 Winter Olympics). Elizaveta Tuktamysheva (RUS) is the first woman to land four triple jumps in a short program including a triple Axel: 3A, 3Lz, 3T-3T (2015 World Championships) Rika Kihira (JPN) was the first woman to land a triple Axel-triple toeloop combination (2017-2018 JGP Final). Mirai Nagasu (USA) landed the triple Axel jump at the 2017 Rostelecom Cup in Moscow, Russia. She was the first female athlete from the United States ever to land the triple Axel jump during an Olympic competition, at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.[2] Alysa Liu (USA) landed the triple Axel jump at the 2018 CS Asian Figure Skating Trophy, making her the youngest female athlete in history to land the jump successfully in international competition, at 12 years old.
Mao Asada
From 23 to 25 February, Asada competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics. In the short program on 23 February, she executed a triple axel-double toe loop, a triple flip and a double axel as well as receiving level fours for all her spins and her spiral sequence. She scored 73.78 points to place second in this phase. In her free skating on 25 February, she succeeded in landing two triple axels, but under-rotated the first jump of a triple flip-double loop-double loop combination and popped a planned triple toe loop into a single. With 131.72 points from the free skating, Asada won the Olympic silver medal with a combined score of 205.50 points, 23.06 behind Yuna Kim of South Korea. She earned a Guinness World Record for the most triple axels performed by a female skater in a competition – one in the short program and two in the free skating. Asada was Japan's flag-bearer at the closing ceremonies.