Ice Breaker

Naomi Nari Nam was first taken to an ice-skating rink by her grandfather.

It was an innocent trip, just a treat by a grandpa to his teeny, darling granddaughter. No one expected that eight years later, 13-year-old Naomi would boldly introduce herself--”Hi, I’m Naomi, how are you?”--and say with a steely seriousness unexpected from one so tiny and so young that she absolutely hopes to participate in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City as a member of the U.S. women’s figure skating team.

Coincidentally, Nari Nam, who lives in Irvine and trains in Costa Mesa, is in Salt Lake City this week to participate in her first senior nationals. She will be competing at the 1999 U.S. Championships against her hero, Michelle Kwan, the defending national and world champion and 1998 Olympic silver medalist.

For just a moment, then, Nari Nam becomes a kid again. A smile spreads across her face. Her fingers tap nervously on her chin.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be in the same competition with Michelle,” she says on her last day of practice in Costa Mesa before her dream begins. “A little bit, this doesn’t seem real.”

Naomi’s parents had no grand plan to raise a future Olympian. Her father, David, an avionics engineer at John Wayne Airport, came to the United States from Korea 30 years ago. Her mother, Connie, arrived in the U.S. 20 years ago. Their dream was more pedestrian: to achieve a safe, secure and comfortable life for themselves and their children.

Naomi has a 9-year-old sister named Nami and a 4-year-old brother named Joseph. Connie quit work when her children were born.

“I needed to be at home,” she says softly, holding a neighbor’s son on her shoulder while watching Naomi do a run-through of the short program she will skate Thursday at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

“This, this all? We never expected this.”

On that day Naomi’s grandfather took her to the skating rink, Connie watched and was amazed. Her 5-year-old daughter began spinning and swooping and jumping. She didn’t want to leave the ice, and the next day, Connie says, “Naomi begged me to go skating again. And the next day it was the same.”

That’s usually how it is with these little champions-in-the-making.

An accidental trip uncovers something deep inside a child. Where the desire came from, who knows? Usually the parents are filled with surprise and fumble to find their way as a child begs, pleads, demands to continue in a sport that was supposed to be nothing more than an afternoon of fun.

Tara Lipinski, the 1998 Olympic champion, was taken to a skating rink to burn off energy. Kwan followed her older sister to the rink, a tag-along.

“For us, there was no thinking of Olympics or competitions,” Connie Nari Nam says. “We are just finding our way now. Sometimes I worry that the family is too much wrapped up with Naomi. Sometimes I am afraid I am not paying enough attention to my other children. But what are the choices? We have a daughter who is in love with this skating.”

Just Let Her Skate

As Naomi continued begging to skate, Connie continued taking her daughter to the rink. Naomi began taking lessons. In fact, a coach had seen Naomi skating one day and offered to give Naomi a free lesson. The talent was that obvious.

Pretty soon, Naomi was skating three times a week. About five years ago, John Nicks, a respected teacher who coached the American pair of Jenni Meno and Todd Sand at last year’s Olympics, saw both the talent and determination of Nari Nam and took her on as his student. Nicks says he appreciated both Nari Nam’s physical and mental abilities as well as her family support.

“The family support is extremely important,” he says. “Without it, you can have trouble.”

Naomi and her family consider themselves lucky that a coach with the talent and experience of Nicks is available to them just 10 miles from home.

Lipinski’s father, for example, kept his job in Houston while she and her mother lived in Detroit for three years so that Tara could have Olympic-caliber coaching.

“I would never allow our family to do that,” Connie says.

“I understand how Tara did that,” Naomi says later. “If I had to, I would want to do that. It would be hard, but I love skating that much.”

In one major concession to a training schedule that begins at 9 in the morning, Naomi is home-schooled. Her mother helps her with the lessons, Naomi says, and her cousins who live nearby come in the afternoons to keep her company.

“My friends from school don’t really understand why I love to skate so much,” Naomi says. “They just don’t understand.”

Nari Nam entered her first competition when she was 6.

“I couldn’t believe how fun it was,” she says. “I won that competition and I got to be on the podium. I loved being on the podium.”

Nari Nam has been on the podium a lot. She won the Juvenile Junior Olympics in 1995, the U.S. national novice title in 1997 and earned her trip to this year’s senior nationals by winning the Pacific Coast Senior title late last year. But taking this step up, moving to the competitive level of Michelle Kwan, this is a very big deal for a 4-foot-10, 82-pound 13-year-old. For the future is so very uncertain.

2002’s the Goal

When one Olympics ends for figure skaters, the positioning begins immediately for the next Games.

Lipinski has given up her Olympic-eligible competitive skating to perform in the more loosely-scored professional competitions.

Kwan, 18, who had been the heavy favorite to win last year’s Olympic gold medal after she skated nearly perfectly at the national championships in Philadelphia, has said she plans to compete in the 2002 Games.

But assuming the U.S. earns three Olympic berths for women as it did in 1998, two positions will be up for grabs for, as Nicks says, “the most talented group of young skaters in this country that I can remember.”

The more experienced skaters include Amber Corwin, 20, a Long Beach State sophomore who also trains in Costa Mesa with Coach Scott Wendland and who has finished as high as fifth in her four previous senior nationals; Angela Nikodinov, 18, of San Pedro, who finished fifth at last year’s nationals; and Brittney McConn, 18, of Marietta, Ga., who was seventh last year in Philadelphia. They are hoping to join Kwan on the podium in Salt Lake City.

But eyes will also be on a group of four youngsters.

Besides Nari Nam, 13-year-old Sara Hughes of Great Neck, N.Y, who won the 1998 junior nationals, has chosen to compete at the senior level this year. And skating in the junior nationals are Elizabeth Kwon, 12, of McLean, Va., who won the 1998 U.S. novice title, and Sasha Cohen, 14, of Laguna Niguel, who is also coached by Nicks in Costa Mesa.

Nicks believes all four will be prominent challengers for the 2002 Olympic team. But this week, his immediate concern is to watch how Nari Nam handles the pressures of skating on the big ice of the Delta Center and in front of a national television audience, and also how she is scored by the judges.

Age Is Everything

When Lipinski made her incredible ascension to become a 15-year-old Olympic gold medalist, after which she almost immediately announced the end of her Olympic career, there was substantial grumbling in the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. as well as in the International Skating Union, the governing body for Olympic-eligible skaters.

Some skaters and coaches considered Lipinski, a tiny, athletic bundle of jumping energy, still an unformed artistic skater who was rewarded with marks based too much on her ability to do seven triple jumps in her long program. They suggested that the naturally smaller young skaters, like Lipinski, were making it impossible for older, more mature skaters to complete as many jumps as their bodies became taller and heavier.

So the ISU passed age-eligibility rules that will, for example, keep Nari Nam from competing at the World Championships for at least two more years. Lipinski competed at her first World Championships as a 13-year-old and won as a 14-year-old.

Nari Nam, as the rules are now, would be unable to gain that valuable international experience even if she were to finish in the top three at the U.S. championships, which, a year ago, would have earned her a spot in the World Championships.

“I am opposed to that rule,” says Nicks, who believes the ISU overreacted to Lipinski and Oksana Baiul, who won the 1994 Olympic gold medal as a 16-year-old, then abandoned amateur skating for the less stressful professional competitions.

“Personally, I feel that if the judges didn’t approve of the less mature form of skating, they should judge accordingly,” Nicks says. “But don’t punish young skaters who are able to perform at a high level.”

Nicks adds that when Nari Nam wanted to move up to the senior level this season, he explained that, knowing she would be ineligible to compete at the World Championships, U.S. judges might score her lower than her routines deserved.

“They understand what might happen,” Nicks says. “Naomi understands.”

Speaking before 1998 U.S. bronze medalist Nicole Bobek withdrew over the weekend because of an ovarian cyst, Nicks said he thought it unlikely that Nari Nam could win a medal this year. He also said, however, that if she were to win one next year, he would consider protesting the age restrictions and petition for Nari Nam to be allowed to compete at the 2000 World Championships.

Meanwhile, Nari Nam skated her short program easily in practice. The music is a bouncy, perky selection from “Cirque du Soleil.” Her long program, to be performed Saturday, live on national television, will be skated to a selection of Rachmaninoff piano concertos.

And already, in TV promos for this week’s skating, Nari Nam was being touted as a possible medalist.

Connie Nari Nam seems startled and a little nervous about that. But her daughter is eager to embrace this week.

“I just love performing,” she says. “The big crowds, that will be so exciting. I can hardly wait. Because this is the next step in getting to my goal: the Olympics.”

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.

U.S. Figure Skating Championships

When: Wednesday through Saturday

Where: Delta Center, Salt Lake City

TV: Channel 7