When the ground shook, the ice buckled and the skating-rink building began collapsing around Japanese teenager Yuzuru Hanyu in March 2011, Sochi must've seemed a long way off. Survival suddenly trumped Olympic training.
Three years on, the 19-year-old has given his hometown of Sendai, in the heart of the earthquake-devastated Tohoku region, something to cheer about. On Feb. 14, the figure skater won Japan's first Winter Games gold medal since 2006.
And then Hanyu said something equally extraordinary, when asked by the media about March 11, 2011, a day many of his friends didn't survive. "It's a very difficult subject for me to talk about," he said. "I think my service to all those who were affected by the earthquake starts today." This, he added: "is going to be the starting point for what I can do for the recovery."