Witt Goes Out on Top; Thomas Slips to Third

Katarina Witt won the women’s title in the World Figure Skating Championships for the fourth and last time Saturday night in a virtual rerun of the Calgary Olympics.

Canada’s Liz Manley took the silver medal and American Debi Thomas finished third, as they did in the Winter Games.

“It was the last time, and I’m very sad about this,” Witt said, dabbing at tears.

“Normally, when you don’t do your best, you can always say, ‘Well, I’ll do better the next time.’ Now there is no next competition.”

The competitors all seemed weary and off their usual standard after a long season.

The East German shortened three of her jumps. Thomas missed one rotation of her opening combination--the same jump that tripped her up in the Olympics--put a hand down on one triple and went all the way down on another.

Neither could Manley repeat her sensational winning long program at Calgary. Although she didn’t fall, she barely held three jumps while landing off-balance.

For Thomas, 21 on Friday, the end was cause to celebrate. As she skated off the ice, she gave a shrug and a smile, and waved to her American cheering section.

“I’m probably the happiest person on earth right now,” Thomas said. “It’s over.

“I tried. It didn’t happen and that’s that. I’ve had too many other things on my mind that I want to accomplish. I just want to get on with my life so much.”

Japan’s Midori Ito, a big hit in Calgary with her weightless jumps, finished third in the long program but landed poorly on several of the jumps. She wound up in sixth place.

West Germany’s Claudia Leistner, who placed fourth, slipped up several times. And so did the other Americans.

Jill Trenary, a promising 19-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colo., took a bad spill at the beginning of her program.

And teammate Caryn Kadavy went down on the ice twice and scaled down two triples to doubles.

Witt, however, stayed on her skates, finishing her last “Carmen” in style.

With bright red fingernails, lips, costume and comb in her hair, Witt brought the legendary seductress to life one more time. Then she killed her off for the last time of her amateur career, sprawling in a dramatic heap at center ice.

Witt said later that she was more nervous than usual, “almost paralyzed,” wanting to leave behind her most memorable impression, but skating sub-par instead.

“Nobody skated their best tonight, because it was a really long season,” she said. “It was really hard for all of us.”

And if it wasn’t her best performance, it was good enough for a fourth world title to add to two Olympic gold medals and six European crowns.

Her 12 major international skating victories puts her second to Norway’s Sonja Henie. The Norwegian collected 3 Olympic golds, 10 world and 6 European titles.

Witt said she sacrificed 17 years of her life to skating, but that the sport has given her more than enough in compensation.

“The audience gave me so much and I hope I helped them forget about their problems for awhile,” she said. “I’m happy that in my career I’ve created a new style and expression,” Witt said. “I hope that in the future I inspire young skaters to do the same.”

Witt’s victory made it three times that results in these world championships duplicated those of last month’s Olympics.

On Friday, Brian Boitano of the U.S. reclaimed his world title, with chief rival Brian Orser of Canada picking up the silver. Soviet Viktor Petrenko again got the bronze.

Natalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin swept through all three ice dancing events to cap a fourth world title.

But in the pairs, Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev of the Soviet Union pushed ahead of Olympic champions and teammates Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov.