World Figure Skating Championships : Witt Reclaims Her Gold Medal; Thomas Must Settle for Silver

Maria never has been better than she was Saturday night, at least not on ice, as Katarina Witt performed to the music of that East German favorite, “West Side Story,” in the World figure skating championships.

Indeed, Katarina Witt never has been better.

Even though she had to follow a courageous performance by defending champion Debi Thomas of San Jose, and was skating before a largely pro-American crowd of 15,085 at the Riverfront Coliseum, Witt performed her long program virtually without a flaw.

She won over the crowd, which gave her a standing ovation, and the judges, who did everything but.

For artistic impression, she received a perfect score of 6.0 from the East German judge and 5.9s from six of the other eight judges.

“I have never seen a woman skate better,” said Carlo Fassi, who should know something about the subject as the former coach of Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill.

Witt, 21, became the eighth woman to win at least three world championships, but the first since Fleming in 1966-67-68. Witt, the 1984 Olympic champion, also won world championships in 1984 and 1985.

She also is only the third woman to lose her title and win it back.

“I was second last year,” she said, “and I told myself, ‘You have to win again.’ ”

But last year’s champion, Thomas, also showed her mettle. Entering Saturday night’s competition in third place behind the Soviet Union’s Kira Ivanova and Witt, and skating on two injured Achilles’ tendons, Thomas, 19, gave her best performance in more than a year to finish second in the long program and second overall.

Thomas even received better scores than Witt from two of the nine judges, one from the United States and the other from Australia.

Another American, Caryn Kadavy of Erie, Pa., won the bronze medal after finishing third in the long program, which counts for 50% of the final score.

The third American, U.S. champion Jill Trenary of Minnetonka, Minn., who, like Kadavy, trains with Fassi at the Broadmoor Skating Club in Colorado Springs, Colo., finished fifth in the long program and seventh overall.

Trenary was only two places behind Ivanova, who, as usual, won the compulsory figures Wednesday and then began to self-destruct when the skating began.

She finished sixth in Thursday’s short program, and while she still had the overall lead entering the long program Saturday night, the other Soviet skaters in the audience covered their eyes when her turn came.

They knew what was coming. She fell twice and stumbled once to finish ninth in the long program and drop to fifth overall.

The next skater to take herself out of medal contention was Canada’s Elizabeth Manley, who was fourth entering the long program and figured to improve her position.

It wasn’t to be. The most ambitious of the skaters, she took a head-first tumble on one of her five triple jumps, the triple lutz, and never regained her composure. She finished sixth in the long program and fourth overall.

That brought on Thomas, who was second in the compulsory figures but dropped to third after a disastrous short program, in which she fell on one of the required elements, the double axel.

Considering the condition of her sore Achilles’ tendons and Witt’s considerable freestyle ability, Thomas said Thursday it would take a miracle performance in the long program for her to successfully defend her championship.

As it turned out, she was right.

But she came closer than anyone expected. Taking shavings from the ice after her warmup and rubbing them on her ankles to relieve the pain, she went out 20 minutes later and completed her five triple jumps, all but one of them, a triple toe-loop, cleanly.

Her coach, Alex McGowan, stood by the ice and crossed his fingers on both hands every time Thomas started a triple jump.

“I’ve been going through this for weeks,” McGowan said.

When Thomas finished, she clenched her fist and raised it into the air, then covered her eyes with her hands.

“I couldn’t believe what I had just done,” said Thomas, who botched the same program at the national championships last month in Tacoma and lost her title to Trenary.

“It’s the best I’ve done it the whole time I’ve been here, and I did it when I had to, in the competition. I told myself it was going to feel great if I just stood up out there. I knew I was going to feel rotten if I fell down.”

Thomas came off the ice, hugged McGowan and sang, “Louie, Louie” to the television cameras, an inside joke for her friends at Stanford, where she is a sophomore microbiology major.

Under her arm, she carried a pizza box, which another American skater, Jim Mattos, had given her.

Thomas had to explain that one.

“I asked him once, ‘Why do the people always throw flowers? Why don’t they throw something good, like pizza?’ I guess he remembered.”

While the crowd was still standing for Thomas, Witt went onto the ice with fire in her eyes.

“She’s the gutsiest thing,” said U.S. champion Brian Boitano, who was among the crowd. “You saw it in her first step, when she clenched her teeth. I didn’t see any of the other girls out there with their teeth clenched.”

As Thomas watched from the side of the ice, she saw her chances for first place disappear. Witt completed five triple jumps with only one slight glitch on a triple toe-loop.

“The girl’s amazing,” Thomas said. “It’s hard to come out after a performance like mine. But she’s just as tough whether she skates before or after. She does what she has to do.”

But not even Witt could explain how she does it.

“Sometimes I don’t know why I’m so relaxed,” she said, speaking nearly perfect English. “I’m surprised sometimes.”

She said she has never skated better than she did Saturday night, even though she was awarded two 6.0s for artistic impression at last year’s world championships in Geneva. She also won the long program there but finished second overall to Thomas.

“I did three different triple jumps, and my impression was better than ever,” Witt said. “I felt the music very good.

“Debi’s a good jumper, yeah, she’s the athletic type. Myself, I am trying to do the jumps and the artistic impression, to do them together, yeah, to feel more the music.”

But as good as Witt was Saturday night, her coach, Petra Mueller, said the skater could be better next year, when she tries to become the first woman skater since Norway’s Sonja Henie to win two individual gold medals in the Winter Olympics.

“We hope next year to introduce an even better Katarina,” Mueller said, “if that’s possible.”