Judges Flip Over Kwan’s Program

First, there were the short-program presentation scores for Michelle “Limpalong” Kwan and the left foot that couldn’t land a triple flip in practice:

5.9, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 5.9, 6.0, 6.0.

Then there was the short-program standing for Tara “Can’t Miss” Lipinski, the reigning U.S. and world champion who unseated Kwan a year ago at the unfathomable age of 14:

Fourth place.

If every picture is worth its thousand words, these two statistics, all told, required 999 fewer to get the job accomplished Thursday at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships:

“Wow,” as Kwan put it in the interview after completing one of the most spectacular short programs in the history of the U.S. nationals.

Before Thursday, no woman had received a mark of 6.0 during a short program at the U.S. championships. Not one. Kwan had seven--despite a stress fracture in her left foot that had sidelined her from competitive skating for two months.

Only Brian Boitano, with eight marks of 6.0 in 1988, fared better in a short program at the nationals.

When the scores first flickered on the CoreStates Center scoreboard, Kwan’s coach, Frank Carroll, nearly fell off his chair.

“Sometimes it’s very hard, to be there, standing and watching your own skater, when you’re so critical of everything she does,” Carroll said. “But I think this was one of her best moments.

“I think it’s not so much what she did but the way she did it. I think there was a wonderful look of ease and of confidence on her face. There was a performing aura about it, rather than just a technical aura. It was a pleasure to watch.

“And, I think when you’re under a lot of pressure and stress to try to do very difficult things, to make it come off with great ease, like you’re just having a wonderful time, and to make it look elegant is very difficult to do. And that’s what Michelle did today.”

Even Kwan, who had labored this week during training sessions, failing to land the triple flip--a jump during which she spins three times in the air--in two tries in two days, seemed stunned by the marks.

“When I first heard them announcing the 6.0s, I was kind of like, ‘Am I hearing right?’ ” she said.

It was the most unlikely of all the possible scenarios that had been sketched in anticipation of the first Kwan-Lipinski showdown since October:

Kwan landed her triple flip.

Lipinski fell on hers.

By the time the Zamboni had swept up after them, Kwan held a commanding lead heading into Saturday’s long program and Lipinski was fourth, behind Nicole Bobek and Tonia Kwiatkowski.

Only three female skaters will be named to the U.S. Olympic team, with only the winner here guaranteed a berth--setting the stage for a volatile Saturday night should the current standings hold and a fourth-place Lipinski be appointed to the team ahead of either Bobek or Kwiatkowski.

Already, Bobek has fired the first volley.

“Whoever places [in the top three], they should be sent,” Bobek said. “It shouldn’t be because someone has more points [in international competition] or whatever. I think that would be unfair.”

Lipinski arrived in the interview room disconsolate and red-eyed, having exhausted a box of tissues in the dressing room after a performance that yielded no technical-merit score higher than 5.5.

“I felt good going into the flip,” Lipinski said. “But I didn’t really get the lift I needed for it. I made a mistake.”

Her voice cracked with emotion as she tried to elaborate.

“I’m a little disappointed. I’d hoped to be a little higher in the standings. . . . “

Lipinski blinked hard and set her jaw.

“But I’m going to go out Saturday and do a good long [program].”

Carol Heiss Jenkins, who coaches Kwiatkowski, speculated that Lipinski, utterly unflappable in her victories at the 1997 national and world championships, might have finally succumbed to pressure.

“Tara looked very calm all week. Her practices were good,” Jenkins said. “But maybe all of sudden today, with the crowd and everything, she said to herself, ‘Hey, I’m defending national champion.’ That’s a lot of pressure. Maybe she didn’t come to grips with it before.”

As much happened to Kwan a year ago. Then the defending world champion and seemingly invincible, Kwan fell three times during her long program at the nationals and lost her title to Lipinski.

There, a rivalry was born--with the upper hand swaying to and fro ever since.

To Lipinski at the World Championships in March.

To Kwan at Skate America in October.

Back to Lipinski at the Champions Series Final in December, with Kwan still on the disabled list.

And now, back to Kwan--all the way from here to Nagano?

“I feel about 100% right now,” said Kwan, unable to shed the ear-to-ear grin from her face. “I’m not skating perfectly every day, but my confidence is about a 100.”

And what was that about practice supposedly making perfect?

“It really doesn’t matter what you do in practice,” Kwan said. “It only matters what you do with your two or four minutes on the ice.”

* ELDREDGE WINS

He falls on his first attempted quadruple jump but captures his fifth U.S. championship. C13