Bortz’s Comeback Takes Shape : Skater Picking Up Pieces of Shattered Olympic Dream

For the elite of figure skating, the spotlight is on. Next month, the best in the world will be competing on the stage at Calgary in the 1988 Winter Olympics. And then, one month later, the stage will shift to Budapest, Hungary, for the World Championships.

Not for Cindy Bortz of Tarzana, however. She’ll be spending the time far from the madding crowd and the bright lights at the Pickwick Ice Arena in Burbank.

Bortz is working on a comeback. Sort of. You certainly couldn’t call her a has-been. Not at age 16. And she’s not really coming back, because she hasn’t been there yet. Not to the top in the world of figure skating.

Her coach, Wendy Olson, says Bortz is good enough to be a factor in the next Winter Olympics. So what’s the problem?

Well, Bortz already had done so much in her young life, she harbored a not-so-secret desire to be there for this Winter Olympics coming up.

Why not? She won the Junior World Championship a year ago in Ontario, Canada. In last year’s national figure skating championships in Tacoma, Wash., she finished sixth. Normally the fourth- and fifth-place finishers are the alternates behind the top three on the team that represents the United States in the World Championships. But because Tiffany Chin, who qualified as one of the alternates, bowed out, Bortz was given her spot.

But Bortz’s year appeared to end abruptly in May. While practicing a jump at Pickwick, she landed incorrectly and suffered a stress fracture in her right ankle.

That necessitated Comeback I. And it proved highly successful. By November, Bortz was again ready for competition. She entered the Prize of Moscow News skating event and left the Soviet Union with a gold medal.

So it is understandable that she thought perhaps she could lace up her skates at this year’s U. S. Nationals, held last week in Denver, without missing a turn.

Instead, she finished seventh in senior ladies competition, leaving her out of all national or international events until late spring.

“My jumps just weren’t there in Denver,” she said. “I hadn’t worked on them. I couldn’t practice enough before the competition because I just didn’t feel my ankle was strong enough.”

So now it’s on to Comeback II.

This time, Bortz will learn how she’s doing even before she steps on the ice every day. Because before that, she’ll step on a scale. Her first goal is to lose 15 pounds.

Bortz, you see, is Mary Lou Retton on skates. She has the same infectious smile, the same short frame (Bortz is 4 feet, 9 1/2 inches) and the same muscular legs. The problem, Bortz said, is that the lower-body weight has hindered her ability to perform acrobatic moves. The added weight on her ankles might have even caused the fracture.

“Also,” Bortz said, “it doesn’t look good. You need to look good when you do your turns on the ice.”

Olson, who has been coaching Bortz since the skater was 9, feels it was unrealistic to expect much in Denver. “She was off the ice for two months because of the injury,” Olson said. “It’s hard to get it back, hard to get everything going again.

“But she easily has the potential to be in the next Olympics. She’s very talented.”