The Associated Press
Michelle Kwan listens to instructions during practice this week in Salt Lake City.

Kwan ready to chase gold

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Originally published Thursday, February 21, 2002

SALT LAKE CITY -- Every step of the way, Michelle Kwan has insisted she's not motivated by the potential rewards at the end of her Olympic journey, but by the richness of the experiences en route.

The favorite to win the gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Games -- especially after she entered the final phase of the competition in first place-she was passed by a more exuberant and relaxed Tara Lipinski and instead got the silver medal.

Tested since then by injury and ennui, pushed to her physical limits by the phenoms who burst onto the figure skating scene every few years, Kwan has learned a lifetime of lessons in the past four years.

Since Nagano, Kwan has reached many milestones. She turned 21, briefly enrolled in college, began her first serious romance, dropped longtime coach Frank Carroll and, in between, won three world championships and four U.S. titles.

Yet, despite the distance she has traveled, she will be in the same situation tonight at the Salt Lake Ice Center as she was four years ago -- the leader and favorite facing a younger, sassier and undeniably appealing challenger.

Kwan, who earned 5.9 scores (out of a possible 6.0) across the board for the presentation of her Rachmaninov short program Tuesday, will need similar presentation and technical scores tonight to defeat Russia's Irina Slutskaya and teen-age compatriots Sasha Cohen and Sarah Hughes, who rank 2-3-4. It won't be easy.

Slutskaya did a more technically demanding short program than Kwan and plans a more demanding long program, perhaps thinking she can trump Kwan's invariably good presentation scores with tough jumps that win her technical points.

Cohen, 17, mesmerized the judges and audience with her grace and musicality, and proved in her second-place finish at last month's U.S. championships she could put a fresh spin on the much-used opera "Carmen."

Hughes can win gold only if someone above her falters. But the 16-year-old New Yorker has enormous talent -- and a victory over Kwan to her credit at the Skate Canada competition in November. Maria Butyrskaya, the 1999 world champion from Russia, probably can't rise from fifth to first but isn't out of the medal picture.

"You just have to be calm," Kwan said recently. "Every competition is just like this. You've just got to put it together, I guess, and just enjoy it.

"Your preparation is already done. You're here now, and you just want to keep up what you've been training for a long time."

Any of the top three could win the gold medal by being ranked first in tonight's free skate, worth two-thirds of the final score, if the other leaders drop far enough.

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