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Keeping it going Kwan dispels notion of short careers
Posted: Sunday April 02, 2000 09:45 AM
NICE, France (AP) -- Michelle Kwan is the World Figure Skating champion of even years: 1996, 1998, 2000. More than a coincidence of years, Kwan has been at a distinctly new stage in her competitive cycle each time she's won. She was only 15 when she took her first world title and the talk at the time was that the domination of younger jumping bean skaters risked robbing the sport of its grace. When she won at 17, she had made the transition through adolescence, retaining her athleticism while projecting new maturity. Her most recent title -- and in her words the most satisfying -- was won Saturday, following a difficult transitional year into young adulthood. Kwan admits having had trouble adjusting to college, and not skating as much as she would have liked in the fall. She buckled down over the winter, and focused on adding tougher jumps. Kwan's short and long programs were the most technically difficult of her career -- and she needed nothing less to vault back from third in the short program to win the title. "I never felt like that! I never felt as fast," Kwan said coming off the ice. Not so long ago, a woman skater's championship cycle seemed as brief and fragile as a butterfly's life span. The impression was enhanced by Tara Lipinski's rapid rise to the world title and Olympic gold at 15, followed immediately by her dash to the more lucrative and less demanding world of show skating. But skaters like Kwan and the Russians who shared the podium with her Saturday night, silver medalist Irina Slutskaya and bronze medalist Maria Butyrskaya, are bringing longevity to the sport, and challenging the wisdom that women can't attain medals after a shaky start, or an off-season. "I don't think age has anything to do with it," said veteran coach Richard Callaghan, who trained Lipinski through her titles. "It's your mind and how you decide to keep your body." Slutskaya, 21, dropped out of international view entirely last year after failing to place at Russian nationals and losing her chance to compete at Europeans or worlds. She put on weight and appeared to have slipped from the elite ranks for good. But Slutskaya came back strong and slimmer this year, winning the Russian title, then the Europeans, even raising the ante in the women's jumps when she beat Kwan at the Grand Prix final in January with a triple lutz-triple loop combination and a 6.0 for technical merit. And at 27, Butyrskaya once would have seemed impossibly old for the women's figure skating world podium -- but she won the title in 1999, the oldest woman to be world champion ever. Arguably the most artistic and expressive skater in the sport, demonstrated in her softly skated short program, Butyrskaya has nonetheless often folded under pressure, missing medals that seemed a sure thing. Still, she also has the experience to know she can overcome disappointing results, like falling to third in Saturday's free and failing to defend her title. Butyrskaya is in it for the long haul: Coach Yelena Tchaikovskaya said she intends to compete at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City -- when she'll be 29. Longevity has it's own problems. Kwan admitted Saturday that besides trouble balancing skating with college, she had difficulty renewing her motivation. Still just 19, she's already skated in seven world championships. "After a while, it seems they all blend together. You have to motivate yourself, and take them all as separate entities and not let them blend together," Kwan said. "I wish I knew what sort of motivation I got from nationals to here. I wish I could bottle it up and open it for later." It's an important example for younger skaters like Sarah Hughes who at just 14 competed in her second worlds, finishing fifth. Pressure on Hughes has increased both on the ice now that she has proven her elite status by returning to worlds twice and off the ice with her graduation from middle to high school. "This year is different. Last year I was happy to be at worlds. I wasn't thinking of placement," Hughes said this week. "This year there is a little more media attention focused on us. We're the same team returning, so it wasn't a fluke." The demands of school, training, competitions and tours put a lot of pressure on a young skater. Hughes trains 2 1/2 hours six days a week, and studies 1 1/2 to 2 hours each morning, and some in the evenings. While limiting Hughes' time on tours, coach Robin Wagner said that the sanctioned open competitions with professional skaters help young skaters like Hughes mature. With less emphasis on jumping, Hughes can work on her interpretation and learn good training habits and techniques by skating alongside older pros. "It's been hard because I'm in high school now," admitted Hughes, who also plays the violin in the school orchestra. "There's much more work. I have to plan my time more." Just wait.
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