Kwan’s New Jump Not Just a Footnote

Michelle Kwan practiced and fell Wednesday, just as she practiced and fell Tuesday, and now she and her aching left foot have run out of practice sessions.

Today, Kwan ends her doctor-imposed two-month exile from competitive skating as she steps out into the bright light of the ladies short program at the U.S. Figure Skating championships, confronting the crowd, the pressure, defending champion Tara Lipinski and the stress fracture that put painful brakes to her Olympic preparation in early November.

Although not necessarily in that order.

“What can I tell you?” Kwan’s coach, Frank Carroll, said after Kwan fell while attempting to land a triple flip jump for the second time in as many days.

“We’re coming back from an injury. Her foot is sore. She’s not 100%. . . . We’re doing the best we can, trying to hang tough.”

The triple flip is the maneuver Carroll introduced to Kwan’s program as a sort of injury replacement for the triple toe loop, the jump that causes Kwan the most pain.

It is a more difficult jump than the triple toe, but Carroll and Kwan are test-driving it because, at this point in Kwan’s recovery, the wince-inducing triple toe loop is not an option.

“I can’t do the triple toe now,” Kwan said flatly. “It’s very painful to land. If I tried it in the short program, I might not make it to the long program.

“The triple flip is harder, you get more [judges’] points on the technical part for it, and I’m more consistent with it. Why not put it in?”

Yet, Kwan has struggled with the jump in trial run-throughs, failing to land it twice in two days--although after the music stopped Wednesday, Kwan returned to the ice and completed two flawless triple flips.

“Today, she shouldn’t have gone down at all,” Carroll said. “She did it--and then she sat down. She’s sitting there on the ice, kicking herself--’That was so stupid.’ ”

Carroll downplayed the miscues, noting that Kwan has a history of ragged practices just before hitting every jump in competition.

But Kwan has never attempted to win a major championship on a bad foot before, the last competition she will have before next month’s Winter Olympics in Nagano.

“We’re not aiming at perfection here,” Carroll said. “We’re aiming at doing a really good job and just hanging tough.”

Kwan is not actually required to compete here. Three women skaters will be named to the U.S. Olympic team, but only the winner of these championships will automatically qualify for Nagano. The other two berths could be allotted to the second- and third-place finishers, or a committee of coaches, judges and U.S. skating officials could appoint two skaters.

Because of her track record in international competition--No. 1 in the world in 1996, No. 2 in 1997--Kwan is all but assured an Olympic berth, whether she falls here, whether she skates here.

“I could go to the Olympics without qualifying [at the nationals],” Kwan said, “but I didn’t want to do that. . . . There’s no guarantee about what might happen at the Olympics. This is kind of a test.

“If I can’t make it through this, how can I make it through the Olympics?”

Kwan conceded that the last two months have been fraught with self-doubt. Four years after Nancy Kerrigan’s famous “Why me?” cry of distress after having her knee bludgeoned at the 1994 U.S. championships, Kwan was echoing a similar refrain:

“Why is this happening to me?” she asked Carroll again and again.

“At Christmastime, I was thinking, ‘Am I really ready for the nationals?’ ” Kwan said. “Frank told me, ‘Don’t worry about it. You kind of have to go with the flow and just let it happen.’ ”

Notes

One difference between the short-program performances of Jenni Meno and Todd Sand at last year’s U.S. championships and this year’s:

This time, Meno skated off the ice with her arm wrapped about Sand--instead of picking ice shavings out of her hair bun after being dropped on her head during a program-ending death spiral by her partner and husband.

Last year’s head-banging climax to their short program at the nationals eventually cost Meno and Sand the U.S. pairs title they had held since 1994, relinquishing it to Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen.

Wednesday night, Ina-Dungjen were first and Meno-Sand second after the pairs short program, but this time, Meno and Sand skated cleanly, and confidently.

“If they skate Friday [in the long program] like they did tonight, I’d say they have a good chance to get their title back,” said John Nicks, coach of the Orange County-based pair.