Shusaku Arakawa Shusaku Arakawa Shusaku Arakawa, who spoke of himself as an "eternal outsider" and "abstractionist of the distant future," first studied mathematics and medicine at the University of Tokyo, and art at the Musashino Art University. He was a member of Tokyo's Neo-Dadaism Organizers, a precursor to The Neo-Dada movement. Arakawa's early works were first displayed in the infamous Yomiuri Independent Exhibition, a watershed event for postwar Japanese avant-garde art. Arakawa arrived in New York in 1961 with fourteen dollars in his pocket and a telephone number for Marcel Duchamp, whom he phoned from the airport and with whom he eventually
Shizuka Arakawa second-place Cohen (183.36). Like Cohen, Slutskaya made mistakes in her long program, and ended up taking bronze, leaving Arakawa as the gold medal winner, which was also Japan's only medal of the 2006 games. Slutskaya was third at 181.44. At age 24, Arakawa became the oldest women's Olympic skating champion in more than 80 years. Florence "Madge" Cave Syers from the United Kingdom was the oldest when she won the Olympic title at age 27 at the 1908 Summer Olympics, which featured the first Olympic figure skating events. After winning her Olympic title, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called Arakawa