Kwan Hits Road for Some R

Michelle Kwan has had almost no time to rest on her impressive laurels since last Saturday, when she won her fourth world figure skating championship.

“I had like, half a day in Vancouver,” she said. “It was nice. I was able to walk around and see the city. But I had to get a few things because I had lost my luggage.”

No sooner had she bought new clothes than it was time to let the airline lose them again.

The day after she rallied from second after the short program and became the first U.S. woman to win four world titles since Carol Heiss’ five-year reign from 1956-60, Kwan performed in an exhibition in Vancouver. Then she had to leave for Florida to join the Champions on Ice tour, in which she has skated since 1994. The tour began Friday and will end May 3, abbreviated this year so skaters can begin preparing for the Olympic buildup. The local stop will be April 29 at the Arrowhead Pond.

“My legs are sooo tired,” Kwan said Thursday, after rehearsing for Friday’s opener in Orlando, Fla. “We’ve been on the ice all day.”

Although she would have welcomed a respite, she enjoys touring because there’s camaraderie without competition-- and without worrying if the judges will like her triple toe loop-triple toe loop combination.

Irina Slutskaya, who finished second to Kwan at Vancouver, is with the troupe but will leave after the April 21 shows at Chicago. Bronze medalist Sarah Hughes will skate in only some cities, and 1999 U.S. nationals runner-up Naomi Nari Nam of Irvine, who missed this year’s national competition because of a hip injury, will skate in seven shows. Sasha Cohen of Laguna Niguel, who was the 2000 U.S. runner-up but missed this year’s event because she had a stress fracture in a vertebra, will skate in selected shows.

Evgeni Plushenko of Russia and Todd Eldredge and Tim Goebel of the U.S., who finished 1-3-4 in the men’s world competition, are also on tour. So are pairs champions Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada.

“It’s such a different atmosphere,” Kwan said. “You go on tour and everyone’s loose and having a great time. Everyone’s always hanging out together, and when we’re not on the ice, we go out to dinner or do stuff.”

After the tour, Kwan will take about a week off before returning to the ice at HealthSouth training center in El Segundo to work with coach Frank Carroll.

“I really want to start early for next season,” she said. “A lot of competitions are earlier next year, so I want to be really prepared.”

Kwan was invited to the Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, in August but hasn’t decided if she will go because of the distance involved.

Goebel, who also trains at HealthSouth, will compete in the Spring Figure Skating Challenge April 10 at Binghamton, N.Y. After that, he will go to Toronto to work on new programs with choreographer Lori Nichol--who also works with Kwan--and Nichol will come here. Goebel agreed to perform Oct. 5 at Madison Square Garden in a tribute to the U.S. world team skaters and coaches killed in a 1961 plane crash.

“He’s a busy boy,” said his agent, Lee Marshall.

Too busy, probably, to stick to his plan of enrolling at Loyola Marymount this summer.

“I think getting an Olympic medal is first and foremost,” Marshall said. “As much time as he puts in on his figure skating, with his international schedule and going on tour, it would be tough.

“He doesn’t want to take easy classes just to fill time. He wants to take challenging courses. He’s a bright kid. He told me, ‘I don’t want to take basket weaving.’ ”

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Winning the first women’s Olympic hockey gold medal at Nagano in 1998 wasn’t the be-all, end-all for the U.S. national team.

The U.S. women have a few more “firsts” on their list: beating Canada and winning the world championship. They get their next shot this week, when the world tournament is played in six Minnesota cities. The final is scheduled next Sunday on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.

Canada, which lost the Nagano gold-medal game to the U.S., has won each of the six previous women’s world titles and has a 30-game unbeaten streak in world championship play. No one had to remind U.S. Coach Ben Smith or his players about it.

“That’s pretty understated, but pretty well understood,” said Smith, whose team’s only loss in a 37-1 season was to Canada. “They’ve gotten the better of us and you have to tip your cap to them and try your best to beat them.

“As a conductor, you hope you’re hitting a crescendo at the right time and hitting the high notes. There have been points in the year I’d feel, ‘We’ve got it now,’ but unfortunately, it wasn’t April. We hope we can reestablish what we’d been doing at those points.”

The U.S., seeded first in Group B and second overall to Canada, has had some turnover since Nagano. Krissy Wendell, 19, is the scoring leader with 37 goals and 72 points in 38 games against college and semipro teams, and goalie Ali Brewer is 12-0. Olympic medalists Cammi Granato, Katie King, A.J. Mleczko, Angela Ruggiero, Shelley Looney and Karyn Bye provide experience.

“We’re kind of excited to be at Ground Zero finally,” Smith said. “It’s been a very long and arduous schedule up until now. We spent a lot of time training together in obscurity and we played a lot of games nobody cared about, other than us. We want to put a good face on the sport, given we have this unique opportunity of having the world championships and 10 months later having the Olympics in our country.”

ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT

U.S. Olympians, an association that represents 6,000 Olympic alumni, endorsed Anita DeFrantz for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee.

The backing is symbolic and isn’t likely to sway the IOC members, who will choose a new leader in June. DeFrantz, Jacques Rogge of Belgium and Pal Schmitt of Hungary have declared their candidacies; Dick Pound of Canada and Kim Un Yong of South Korea are expected to enter the fray this week.

John Naber, a five-time Olympic medalist and president of U.S. Olympians, said the endorsement is important because it comes from athletes who believe DeFrantz hasn’t forgotten her roots as a 1976 rowing bronze medalist.

“One key thing is, she was extremely active in opposing [then-President] Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the 1980 Games, which showed she was willing to buck authority to further athletes’ rights,” Naber said. “Her affinity for the Olympic cause touches me deeply, and she hasn’t allowed her position to go to her head. She treats me and all Olympians equally.”

Naber said the vote to endorse DeFrantz was nearly unanimous and involved him, the organization’s six vice presidents and presidents of its 15 chapters.

“I like that she has campaigned on a platform of diversity and more women’s events,” Naber said. “We feel she’s one of us and we wanted to show her some support.”

HERE AND THERE

Marion Jones, who hasn’t run indoors after winning three gold medals and two bronzes at Sydney, will go for a world record in the 300 meters, a rarely run distance, next month at the 43rd running of the Mount SAC Relays. Pole vaulter Stacy Dragila, who won gold at Sydney and has raised her indoor world record to 15-5, will also compete. Hurdler Mark Crear, who won bronze in the 110 hurdles, has committed, as have twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison. Alvin won silver in the 400 and both ran on the gold-medal 1,600-meter relay team.

U.S. men’s water polo goalie Genai Kerr of Coronado made his biggest save of the FINA World Championships qualifying tournament in La Romana, Dominican Republic, out of the pool. Kerr was on the team bus when it started rolling down a hill as players boarded. He alertly leaped into the driver’s seat and put on the brakes. He wasn’t bad in the water, either. He made 12 saves in a 7-5 U.S. victory over Brazil, which followed a tournament-opening 11-2 rout of Argentina. The U.S. was 4-0 and earned a berth in the world championships July 19-30 at Fukuoka, Japan.

Cross-country skier Bjorn Daehlie of Norway, whose 12 Olympic medals are the most by an athlete in the Winter Games, has retired because of a lingering back problem. . . . Maria Garcia of Carson won the national junior girls’ short-track speedskating championship at the national age group meet in Bay City, Mich. Lezleigh Jaworski of Long Beach ranked second among junior girls, and Jade Wheeler of Los Alamitos was third. Alice Kim of Reseda won the national juvenile girls’ title. All are members of the Southern California Speedskating Assn. . . . Dallas Star defenseman Sergei Zubov said he won’t play for his native Russia in the Olympic hockey tournament.

Only 313 days until the Salt Lake City Winter Games.