The Biggest Story Is Kwan’s Practice Session? It Figures

The whispers began Monday morning at the Main Press Center, and, by mid-afternoon, they had turned into a rumble. Michelle Kwan would arrive in the city that night from California and practice Tuesday morning.

Her entrance coincided with those of the U.S. and Canadian men’s ice hockey players. But if she thought for one moment she could hide in their shadows, she underestimated the extent to which her own sport dominates the Winter Olympics.

Dream Teams?

They’re no match for the Dream Teens.

According to the schedule, the duel between Kwan, 17, and Tara Lipinski, 15, for the women’s figure skating gold medal will not begin until the short program on Feb. 18.

In fact, it could begin as early as this Thursday.

Unlike Kwan, Lipinski traveled to Japan in time for Saturday’s opening ceremony. She had such a good time in the athletes’ village that she wanted to stay, but she complied with her mother’s wishes and went to Osaka for four days of private practices. Now she’s expected to return Wednesday night.

If true, she and Kwan will be on the ice together here for the first time for the next morning’s practice.

Let the mind games begin.

Tuesday was a significant day for figure skating in these Winter Games because the first medals in the sport were awarded. The competition was not particularly memorable, but it was historic.

Russia’s Artur Dmitriev became the first man to win pairs gold medals with two different partners, Natalia Mishkutenok in 1992 and Oksana Kazakova in ’98. From the start, the legendary and delightful Tamara Moskvina has coached him, although somewhat loosely I must add because he continues to chain-smoke.

The pairs competition, however, seemed of secondary importance on a day when Kwan sampled the White Ring’s ice for the first time. About 100 reporters, more than five times the number that has been attending practices, greeted her. CBS televised the session, as it did Lipinski’s on Sunday.

Kwan fell on her first jump, a triple lutz, and then proceeded without another misstep worth noting.

She was under strict orders not to talk to the media from her agent, Shep Goldberg. But considering he can’t get near her because he does not have a credential, she defied him and lived to joke about it later with her father, Danny, and coach, Frank Carroll.

If her comments Tuesday are an indication, Goldberg shouldn’t worry that she will say something incendiary.

Lipinski is equally guarded, although it appeared she might be trying to get into Kwan’s head at the national championships last month. Lipinski said she wasn’t really concerned about the skaters “under” her.

Kwan responded with 15 perfect scores of 6.0 for presentation in the short and long programs, reversing the order by reclaiming the national title.

But even if Kwan and Lipinski say or do nothing of any consequence during their practice sessions here, I guarantee you that the figure skating media will have them covered.

We trained under fire. Woodward and Bernstein had Watergate. We had Tonya and Nancy.

Four years ago, Hamar, Norway, was the site of the most famous practice in figure skating history, the first one in which Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding appeared together after the fateful national championships in Detroit.

Hundreds of reporters and photographers were there, more than the number who attended most of the competitions in Norway. Extra security was summoned when Olympic officials received two death threats against Harding. The tension was so thick that one skater unfortunate enough to be assigned the same session, South Korea’s Lee Lily Lyoonjung, cried on her coach’s shoulder.

I don’t recall any incidents between Kerrigan and Harding in that practice. Only a few days after it became apparent that Harding’s husband and his friends had conspired to injure Kerrigan, she wore the same white skating dress she had worn on the night of the assault.

Kerrigan didn’t feel it was necessary to send any other message other than she wasn’t afraid.

A much more serious confrontation occurred on the day before the long program in Hamar. Ukraine’s Oksana Baiul was notorious for skating close to her competitors in practice. Germany’s Tanya Szewczenko decided to see what would happen if she didn’t step aside.

Baiul flattened her.

She got the worst of the collision, requiring three stitches to close gashes on her shin and suffering injuries to her shoulder and lower back. But, 24 hours later, she won the gold medal.

Baiul’s tactics were hardly new. In her book, “Inside Edge,” Christine Brennan wrote that, in practices for the 1968 Olympics, a decidedly indelicate East German named Gabriele Seyfert tried to intimidate her competitors by skating toward them at full speed.

The Americans--Peggy Fleming, Tina Noyes and Janet Lynn--never found out if she would have flattened them because they, unlike Szewczenko 26 years later, decided that stepping aside would enable them to come back and skate another day.

A more recent East German, Katarina Witt, chose a more subtle form of intimidation, often performing her programs in practice to her opponents’ music.

“I didn’t do it on purpose; I didn’t know I would drive them crazy and make them nervous,” Witt protested, demurely.

War is hell.

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Women’s Figure Skating

The event that is already producing the biggest buzz of the Winter Olympics is still a week away. The schedule:

* WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18: Women’s short program. TV: 8-11 p.m.; 12:35-1:35 a.m.

* FRIDAY, FEB. 20: Women’s long program. TV: 8-11:30 p.m.

* SATURDAY, FEB. 21: Figure skating exhibition with medalists. TV: 7-11 p.m., 11:35 p.m.-2 a.m.