Kwan Wins Third U.S. Title as Southland Skaters Excel

The setting was snowcapped Utah, the competition was open to all 50 states, but truth be told, this was the Los Angeles Invitational masquerading as the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Saturday at the Delta Center, medals were presented to the six best male and female solo skaters in the country. A partial roll call:

Michelle Kwan of Torrance and Lake Arrowhead, women’s national champion for a second consecutive year.

Naomi Nari Nam of Irvine, women’s silver medalist at the ripe old age of 13 years and seven months.

Angela Nikodinov of San Pedro, women’s bronze medalist.

And, in something of an upset, Trifun Zivanovic of Los Angeles, men’s silver medalist.

For the record, the men’s gold and bronze medalists, Michael Weiss and Timothy Goebel, hail from east of the San Andreas Fault. (Weiss is from Washington, D.C., Goebel from Rolling Meadows, Ill.) But had a decibel meter been activated inside the Delta Center to monitor crowd enthusiasm, the needle would have declared the day a decided LA Story.

Kwan, Nam and Zivanovic all received standing ovations, for widely differing reasons:

* Kwan for smoothly toying with near-perfection again, a year after her remarkable eight 6.0s during her long program at Philadelphia, before slipping and falling on a late triple lutz.

* Nam for her precocious buzzing across the rink--”Adorable, very cute,” Kwan assessed--and her hyper-speed spins, the current best in the sport, according to her coach, John Nicks.

* Zivanovic for an aggressive, athletic routine that signaled his emergence from previous obscurity, a performance that eclipsed Weiss’ in the opinion of many fans, if not the judges.

Kwan’s championship was her third--she also won in 1996--and sets her up as the favorite for a third world title next month in Helsinki, Finland. Joining her on the U.S. women’s world team will be Nikodinov and fourth-place Sarah Hughes--not Nam, who doesn’t meet the International Skating Union’s 15-year-old age minimum.

(Hughes, technically, is also too young at 13 years, 9 months, but the ISU is granting her an exception because she won the U.S. junior championships in 1998.)

“A deplorable instance of age discrimination,” Nicks said. “For the last four years, the American ladies have been the dominant force in world figure skating. For this rule to permit our second-ranked skater from competing [at the world championships] is ludicrous. . . . It hurts Naomi a lot and it hurts U.S. skating a lot.”

For 3 1/2 minutes, Kwan was working on a flawless long program, including the first triple-toe, triple-toe combination she has landed in competition in more than a year. Then, 30 seconds from the routine’s end, Kwan miscalculated her landing on her last jump, a triple lutz, and fell to the ice--her first fall in competition since last August’s Goodwill Games.

“Doing the triple-triple had been our goal for a year,” Kwan said. “When I finally did it, I was, like, ‘Yes!’ Then I had to tell myself, ‘OK, settle down, I still have a lot more things to do.

“The lutz was just one of those things you take for granted. I didn’t have any jumps after that. I took off, thought I had it, but my foot came out a little.”

The men’s long program was distinguished, mainly, by what didn’t happen.

Five-time champion Todd Eldredge didn’t compete, enabling Weiss, his longtime understudy, to finally break through to the top of the podium.

The much-hyped attempts by Weiss and Goebel to land quadruple jumps went by the boards, with both skaters taking the leap and winding up on the seats of their pants.

And young hopefuls Derrick Delmore, Matthew Savoie and Scott Smith failed to make much of an impact on the event, being eclipsed instead by a 23-year-old converted hockey player from Los Angeles named Zivanovic.

Zivanovic previously had been a non-factor at the U.S. Championships, placing seventh in 1996 and 1998. But after a surprising third-place showing in Thursday’s short program, Zivanovic hit all seven of his triple-jump attempts Saturday to punctuate a muscular performance that prompted the only standing ovation of the men’s session.

“This was the best performance of my life,” Zivanovic said. “I didn’t care what my place was. It just felt great to skate that well and have that much fun.”