Encore, Encore : Kwan Seems Game for Try at 2002 Games, but Lipinski Not Quick to Commit

Four more years.

Having seen Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan challenge each other since 1996, each pushing the other to marvelous performance after marvelous performance and gold and silver medals in a memorable Olympic women’s figure skating competition, I don’t want it to end.

Who wouldn’t want to see two great athletes in their prime going toe to toe? Or, in this case, toe loop to toe loop. It would be like having another chance to see Ali versus Frazier, Evert versus Navratilova, Nicklaus versus Palmer.

Between now and the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Lipinski and Kwan, barring injury, probably would meet no fewer than 12 times.

Kwan, 17, seems game.

She skated well enough to win a gold medal in Friday night’s freestyle program at the White Ring, then settled for silver when Lipinski skated better.

Immediately after the award ceremony, Kwan said, “Right now, I’m thinking about what I can do better for the next Olympics. I can do more technically. I can do more to improve, and I think I will really be ready next time.

“I’ll only be 21, so who knows?”

Lipinski, 15, was not so quick to commit.

On Saturday, she wouldn’t even say whether she would defend her title in next month’s world championships in Minneapolis.

That’s understandable. Speaking to reporters before her exhibition program, she had been an Olympic gold medalist for all of 16 hours and was more than a little bewildered.

Asked about her reaction to the 5.0 earthquake that morning, she said, “What earthquake?”

Listing her congratulatory phone calls, she said she’d gotten one from Secretary of State Madeline Albright and another from “the mayor of Michigan.”

When reporters laughed, she looked puzzled until her coach, Richard Callaghan, advised her that it was the governor who called.

“Well,” she said, “it was early.”

At least she was awake enough to evade a question about whether Albright had mentioned when the United States might attack Iraq.

“No comment,” she said, not sure by then whether winning a gold medal was worth all this.

She’s going to spend a few days finding out before making any decisions about her future.

“I really haven’t thought about the advantages or disadvantages of coming back for 2002,” she said. “I don’t even want to think about it. It’s four years away. Now is my time to enjoy this, go on tour and just be the Olympic champion.”

There are certainly more reasons for Kwan to return.

Foremost among them is that her dream of winning a gold medal has been deferred.

“I was never one who would quit,” she said Saturday, adding that her coach, Frank Carroll, reminded her the night before that Carol Heiss won a silver medal behind another American, Tenley Albright, in 1956, then came back to win the gold in ’60.

Kwan also is at an age at which she is getting stronger each year, meaning that she should improve technically.

The main reason she lost the freestyle program is because Lipinski did two triple toe loops in combination, in contrast to Kwan’s less difficult triple lutz-double toe loop combination. Kwan can do better, has done better in the past before a stress fracture in her foot this season forced her to become more cautious.

“Anything is possible for me,” she said.

Kwan’s choice is not between a triple toe loop and a double toe loop but between skating and going to college full time. She will receive her high school diploma this fall.

Even before she skated Friday night, her father, Danny, said Michelle could remain in the sport at this level while taking college correspondence courses, then go to school full time after the 2002 Winter Olympics. But she has spoken in the past about applying to Harvard.

“School is very important to me,” she said. “I want to explore the opportunities available to me. I don’t think you can focus on both skating and school 110%.”

As for Lipinski, she already has what she always wanted from the sport, a gold medal.

She can’t go up from here, especially if she has to struggle with natural changes in her body that caused Kwan to go through an awkward period when she turned 16. Lipinski presumably will not be 4 feet 10 and 82 pounds forever.

Lipinski could follow the gilded path of Oksana Baiul, who won the gold medal in 1994 at age 16, and take the millions of dollars that will be available to her from ice shows, professional competitions and endorsements. She will still make millions even if she remains on the Olympic track, but she won’t have to work as hard for it as a professional.

As a professional, she also can return home to Sugar Land, Texas, from her training headquarters in Detroit and allow her parents to reunite.

Her mother, Pat Lipinski, said she’s in favor of that.

“But it’s Tara’s decision,” she said. “If she wants to stay in, I’ll stay with her.”

Lipinski, like Kwan, will only get better. If she’s doing unprecedented triple-jump combinations at 15, imagine how much she might stretch the sport at 19.

There also has to be some allure in trying to join Sonja Henie and Katarina Witt as multiple gold medalists.

I hope that’s the way Lipinski thinks, when she starts thinking again.