Witt Attracts SRO Crowd to Her Only Press Conference

Upon entering the Archie Boyce Pavilion Tuesday, East Germany’s Katarina Witt saw a standing-room-only crowd of reporters and photographers, put her hand over her mouth and gasped.

“What’s happening here?” she asked in English.

It was the Winter Games defending figure skating champion’s first and last press conference before her competition begins a week from today. She attracted so many journalists--about 500 in a 450-seat hall--that Canadian hockey players, scheduled to meet the press at the same time, were moved into a smaller conference hall next door. They were the lounge act, while Witt worked the main room.

Records are not kept for this sort of thing, but journalists who have covered previous Games said they had never seen so many journalists attend an athlete’s precompetition press conference, particularly not one for a Socialist Bloc athlete. Socialist Bloc countries often do not make their athletes available to the press until after their competitions have been concluded.

The East Germans, in this case, seemed eager to please. When Witt sat down, about 50 photographers rushed the stage. She had a coquettish smile for each one.

Four years ago, after she won her first gold medal in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, Witt answered many questions in halting English. But when she was asked about comparisons in the West between her looks and those of actress Brooke Shields, she conferred with an East German official and then gave an innocuous reply in German.

Witt, 22, answered several questions in almost fluent English Tuesday, but this time she avoided no questions.

Asked to discuss politics in East Germany, she said: “In the first place, it’s important in my country that we all have the right to work and to sport. For example, I would not have been able to become a figure skater in a capitalist country because my parents didn’t have the money to pay for it.”

On the subject of money, she, for the first time, left open the possibility that she may join an ice show when she retires from competitive skating after this year’s world championships in March. “After the Olympics and the world championships, then we can begin to talk about that,” she said.

She revealed her sense of humor when asked if she is bothered that more attention is paid to her appearance than her skating.

“The sport of figure skating is an expression of grace and beauty,” she said. “I think every man prefers looking at a well-built woman than someone who has the shape of a rubber ball.”

As usual, she also was flirtatious. One journalist mentioned all the proposals she has received through the mail and then, laughing, said he wanted to become the first person in Calgary to propose to her.

“I hope they’re not all just joking proposals,” she said. “I think we have to get to know each other better.”