Kwan Chooses Routine

Seeking new inspiration in choosing the short program she hopes will carry her to victory at the U.S. figure skating championships and the Salt Lake City Olympics, Michelle Kwan turned to an old program that won her raves four years ago.

Kwan said Tuesday she will again perform the Rachmaninoff routine that earned her seven perfect 6.0s for presentation at the 1998 U.S competition, a performance considered by figure skating fans to be among the best presented. Her execution of that program at the 1998 Nagano Olympics gave her the lead, but she was passed in the freeskating program by an exuberant Tara Lipinski and won the silver medal, while Lipinski won the gold.

“It was a really good program for me,” said Kwan, a four-time world champion and five-time U.S. champion. “People loved it. I loved it. I enjoyed it.”

The Rachmaninoff program blends portions of “Trio Elegiaque” and the finale of Piano Concerto No. 3, Opus 30, in D Minor. It was choreographed by Lori Nichol, with whom Kwan ended her working relationship earlier this year. She performed her short program to “East of Eden” by Lee Holdridge most of last season and in her first four competitions this season.

Kwan, who has skated without a coach since she dropped Frank Carroll in October, will revive the Rachmaninoff program at the Grand Prix Final on Dec. 14-16 at Kitchener, Canada. That competition gathers the top six men, women, pairs and dance duos from the season’s six Grand Prix events.

Kwan was third in the Grand Prix standings, behind Russians Maria Butyrskaya and Irina Slutskaya.

“I was looking at tapes the other day, just looking at programs I had done before,” she said. “It’s hard doing my short program to ‘East of Eden’ again. I’ve done it so many times. I said, ‘I want to change and do something else,’ but I had never found anything I liked better.

“Then I looked at the Olympic tape and said, ‘Hey, that’s one of my favorites. That’s the favorite.”’

Practicing mainly at Lake Arrowhead, where she enjoys the relative quiet and the opportunity to train at altitude, she has continued to refine the “Sheherezade” long program she introduced at the Goodwill Games in September. She has not yet decided which triple-triple combination jumps she will perform, which affects the placement of other jumps because of a no-repeat rule.

“I’m always tinkering and polishing and changing things for the setup of the jumps,” said Kwan, who will compete Friday in the pro-am Hershey’s Kisses Challenge at Auburn Hills, Mich.

She also said she’s pleased with her practices, yet she hasn’t ruled out hiring another coach during the final buildup to the Olympics.

“You just never know,” she said. “Until I find somebody and something happens, you never know. I’m not really looking. I’ve been asked by a dozen coaches, ‘Would you like to work with me?’ But that would be hard, with the limited time until the Olympics, to build the kind of trust you need and to get to know someone so well.”

Kwan will be one of five U.S. entries at the Grand Prix Final. She and Sarah Hughes will compete with Butyrskaya, Slutskaya, Yoshie Onda of Japan and Tatiana Malinina of Uzbekistan, while Tim Goebel and Todd Eldredge represent the U.S. in the men’s event.

Angela Nikodinov of San Pedro is the women’s first alternate.