VANCOUVER — The area where figure skaters sit awaiting their scores is informally known as the "Kiss and Cry" zone.

Kim Yu-na did not wait to leave the ice before she started crying, and there was little doubt at the end of her nearly flawless performance in the long program Thursday night that the judges soon would be applying a big, wet, smooch to the 19-year-old who already rules her world.

Kim became the first South Korean to win a gold medal in a winter sport other than speed skating with a stunning score at the Pacific Coliseum.

Her mark of 150.06 was the equivalent of an 8-second 100 meters, or a 600-foot home run.

At the end of her program, Kim threw her hands in the air, then began weeping with joy, knowing the lead she had taken in Tuesday's short program could not be overtaken the way she skated Thursday night.

After her gold medal became official, she said, in fluent English, "I still can't believe it. It was my dream, and it's not a dream any more.

Associated Press, Star Tribune
After Kim Yu-na’s free skate Thursday night, it was all over except for tallying up her record-setting performance.

"I still can't believe it."

Kim already employs two bodyguards to keep her fans at bay in South Korea. She might need to hire a few more now, and she should be able to afford it.

She's been making $8 million a year in endorsements, and that was before she became a gold medalist in the most iconic, star-making event in the Winter Games.

Kim easily defeated her most familiar and dangerous rival, Mao Asada, who compiled a long program score of 124.10 and a total score of 188.86, well off Kim's total of 228.56.

Neither she nor any other competitor could match Kim's combination of smoothness, showmanship, flexibility and technical perfection.

Asada said she did not watch Kim's performance, but sensed the result.

"I didn't know the score," she said. "But I could hear the crowd going crazy. Overall, I had a lot of new experiences, and it was a lot of fun."

Canadian Joannie Rochette again skated with remarkable composure days after the death of her mother, who had traveled to Vancouver to see her daughter perform before passing in a local hospital. Rochette made one obvious mistake but held on for the bronze medal.

"This has always been a dream of mine to make it to the podium," Rochette said. "It was always a dream of mine and my mother's."

The Korean-Japanese-Canadian grouping on the women's podium shut out America for the first time since 1964.

In 1961, a plane crash in Brussels killed the entire U.S. figure skating team on its way to the World Championships. In '64, no American women medaled at the Olympics; the great Peggy Fleming, then 15, finished sixth.

Fleming won gold in 1968, and an American woman had medaled in every Olympics since then, until the 2010 games.

Rachael Flatt, seemingly the Americans' best hope to sneak onto the podium Thursday, started in fifth place and finished in seventh.

The United States' Mirai Nagasu put together an impressive performance as the last skater of the night and moved from sixth to fourth place.

Flatt and Nagasu didn't need to feel any shame in finishing behind Kim. "I did my performance very clean," Kim said. "I guessed a score of 130 or 140, but I'm very surprised.

"I don't know why I cried. This is the first time I have cried after my performance, and I'm surprised I cried.

"Watching previous figure skaters, I always wondered why they cried after their performance. Crying for the first time today, I still don't know why I did it. I can't believe this day has finally come for me."

To see her perform was to believe, and to see her cry was to understand how much pressure this 19-year-old hope of a nation must have felt.

Jim Souhan can be heard at 10-noon Sunday on AM-1500. His Twitter name is SouhanStrib. • jsouhan@startribune.com