South Korean superstar Kim Yuna won the gold medal in record-breaking fashion at the Vancouver Winter Olympics Thursday night. The American teenagers, Rachel Flatt and failed to medal for the first time since 1964.

Kim, or "Queen Yu-Na" in South Korea, skated one of the best free skates ever at an Olympic games and received a world record score of 150.06. No one else came close to catching her.

"I still can't believe my performance," Kim said. After her program, she burst into tears, knowing she had not succumbed to the pressure of an entire country on her shoulders.
 

"I honestly don't know why I cried," she said. "Maybe I was relieved, maybe I was satisfied with my performance."

Kim's chief rival, Japan's Mao Asada, became the first woman to land two triple axels at the Olympics. However, she had a few errors in her program and was unable to catch up to Kim's performance, finishing with a silver medal.

"I have regrets, but I'm proud of myself," Asada said.

Joanie Rochette, who gave an emotional skate in the short program Tuesday night only two days after losing her mother, captured the bronze medal. At the end of her program, she threw back her head and blew a kiss upwards to her mother.

"It was six in the morning when I heard the news," the 24-year-old Rochette said, speaking publicly for the first time about her loss. "I couldn't really believe it. They took me to the hospital to see mom's body. I was able to say my goodbyes."
 

As for how she was able to skate during her grief, she said: "I tried to be as cold as ice as possible. I know it's going to sound weird but I couldn't be out there and be just a person, I had to be Joannie the athlete. I really tried to be strong to make my mother proud and my father who was in the stands."
 

The American women ended a streak of medals that went back to Peggy Fleming's gold medal in 1968. But the women are already looking to 2014 and if last night was any indication, the future is bright for American figure skating.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't able to keep up the U.S. trend, but I hope I'll be able to make up for it at the next Olympics," 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu said. "I think the timing will be good, because at 16, you don't have the experience and the maturity they skate with, and hopefully by 20, I'll be able to get that."

Nagasu had the skate of her life so far and jumped from sixth place to fourth place in the standings, missing a medal by only 12 points. 17-year-old Rachel Flatt had a few of her jumps downgraded and finished seventh overall.

"I guess everything comes to an end at some point, but I'm not worried about U.S. women's figure skating," 1992 gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi told ESPN. "In these two skaters tonight and Ashley Wagner, there's a lot of depth in the U.S. that wasn't able to be shown here, but I think it's going to start building up again. There are so many inspiring performances here that our young skaters watching saw, and that's going to push them to be skating at that level too."
 

The Olympics head into their final weekend and will air on NBC, KARK Ch. 4 in Little Rock, at 7 pm CST.