The answer has become the stuff of conspiracy theories, the main one being the Ghana chocolate theory. Last month the confectioner Lotte, a sponsor of the Japanese team at the Winter Games and the official partner of the Japan Olympic Committee, launched a campaign for its Ghana brand of chocolate featuring three women skaters ― Fumie Suguri, Shizuka Arakawa and Miki Ando ― on a chocolate rink.
It is these three women who will be representing Japan in Turi; but their official selection came long after the advertisement had established them as the “faces” of the Japanese Olympic effort. If Japan lobbied the IOC to let Asada skate and was successful, goes the theory, Lotte’s campaign would be flawed by having sold Japan on the wrong trio of skaters.