Looking Back, Kwan Finds No Silver Lining

She’s not haunted by feeling she lost when she won silver instead of the expected gold at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. And Michelle Kwan enjoys the new balance in her life, which includes taking classes at UCLA and settling into her South Bay condo.

Yet, from time to time, the 20-year-old Torrance native can’t help asking herself, “What if?”

What if she had suppressed the instinct to be cautious in her Olympic long program? Would she have maintained the lead she’d built in the short program and held off U.S. teammate Tara Lipinski, whose technically superior performance won the day and the gold medal?

What if she hadn’t tensed up a bit after realizing it was the moment she had long awaited?

Although there is no answer, Kwan, who this week in Boston will pursue her fifth U.S. figure skating title, still wonders what might have been.

“I catch myself doing that,” she said. “It’s only natural.

“I think the worst mistake I’ve made through the years I’ve been skating is to hold back. It’s hard not to. . . . Something went a little iffy and I caught myself going, ‘Oh.’ I was letting loose at the very beginning.”

Unlike Lipinski, who gave up her Olympic eligibility, Kwan plans to compete at Salt Lake City in 2002. A strong performance in the national competition would position her for a fourth world title in March at Vancouver, Canada, and establish her as the Olympic favorite.

To say the road to Salt Lake City begins in Boston, though, isn’t true. It began in Nagano, when Kwan graciously accepted what she could have taken as a crushing defeat.

“The Olympics is always one of those things athletes see as the most important,” Kwan said. “It’s sort of a dreamlike thing. You just hope you’re at your peak performance level, and if it happens, it happens.

“You can’t set your life to that very moment. That’s what I did before ’98. I said, ‘This is going to make me happier, and if I don’t win, I’m going to be disappointed the rest of my life.’ Life isn’t like that.”

Life has road bumps, yet Kwan finds ways to get over them.

Frazzled by juggling studies, dorm life and skating as a freshman, Kwan has cut her class load to two. She also moved to her own condo, which she spent most of last summer furnishing.

After winning her first world championship in 1996, she was second to Lipinski in 1997, but prevailed the next year. She finished second to Russia’s Maria Butyrskaya in 1999 but last year became the first woman in figure skating history to reclaim the world title twice.

“I’m scared that I’m more forgiving to myself, because that’s not what got me here,” she said. “You can’t push yourself excessively because of injury . . . but how far is too far?”

Kwan appears to be far ahead of her rivals in Boston. She withstood challenges from teenage phenoms Naomi Nari Nam in 1999 and Sasha Cohen last year, and both have been slowed by injuries this season. Kwan also defeated promising 15-year-old Sarah Hughes at Skate America in October. She finished second to Irina Slutskaya of Russia at Skate Canada, but skated on the winning team in a pro-am event and another team-format event.

Even if she wins gold in 2002, Kwan might compete until 2006.

“I respect the sport,” she said. “I know people see it as entertainment. It may look froufrou with our hair up and makeup, but it’s a sport.”

Sometimes, it’s a cruel sport, in which the slip of a blade can destroy long-cherished dreams. Kwan accepts that. But she won’t accept more “What ifs?” The key to avoiding that is to blend the emotional maturity of the young woman she is with the adventurousness she had as a girl, when she had a shorter distance to fall.

“You have to think about being 14 again,” she said, “and having nothing in your mind and not worrying about the consequences if you don’t land a jump.”

THE FORGOTTEN MAN

With Todd Eldredge having returned to Olympic-eligible skating and Timothy Goebel launching quadruple jumps, Michael Weiss will enter the U.S. figure skating championships almost unnoticed.

Weiss, 24, has sat out most of the season because of a broken bone in his left foot. He returned to competition too soon and finished sixth at the Cup of Russia, but is ready to defend his U.S. men’s title at Boston. He doesn’t mind being considered an underdog.

“I feel like I’m in the same position as last year,” said Weiss, who can become the first U.S. man to win three consecutive titles since Brian Boitano’s four-year run of 1985-88. “I was the national champion in ’99 and had an injury [and won]. I’m very comfortable in this position. I handled it last year and I plan on doing it again. I’ve always skated very well when the pressure is on.”

Weiss plans one quadruple toe loop in his short program, one in his long program and a quad-triple combination in the long program, knowing Goebel probably will do more quads. However, Weiss doesn’t fear being outjumped.

“The quad is obviously a very important element of the program, but there are so many other aspects of the program,” said Weiss, who trains in Fairfax, Va. “You can talk until you’re blue in the face, but it still comes down to the overall program.”

GRAY MATTER

A gathering of Olympians to dedicate “Legends Lane”--a lane on the Sports Arena track listing the 105 gold medalists who competed in the Los Angeles Invitational indoor meet--brought out Tommie Smith, whose raised, black-gloved salute on the medal stand with teammate John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Games caused a storm of controversy.

Smith and Carlos, who finished first and third, respectively, in the 200, were sent home. Smith was vilified for years, but he doesn’t regret having taken a stand for human rights.

“What I did then is done every day now,” said Smith, a teacher and coach at Santa Monica College. “It just so happened it was on a world platform.

“A lot of people saw it as an insult. I didn’t see it as an insult.”

His call for respect still resonates.

Johnny Gray, who won a bronze in the 800 meters at Barcelona and holds the American record of 1 minute 42.60 seconds, came home from the Olympic trials last summer to find two letters. One from the USOC asked him to sign retirement papers that would have prohibited him from competing for four years. The other from the Olympic Job Opportunity Program terminated his participation in a program that provides jobs for athletes.

“If you’re as loyal to your country as I’ve been, why would they make you quit before you’re sure you want to quit?” asked Gray, a four-time Olympian who will compete in the 600-meter event in the 41st L.A. Invitational Saturday at the Sports Arena. “It just goes to show you what Tommie Smith did in ‘68, we need another athlete to step up to the plate and make a statement. It looks good from one side. People see Michael Johnson, Marion Jones and Carl Lewis and you think everybody is making money. There’s money for only a few athletes.

“Our country doesn’t put money in the right place. I think there’s enough money to take care of everybody, and there has to be a way to distribute it to help everybody, especially the kids coming up.”

HERE AND THERE

U.S. Olympic hockey Coach Herb Brooks, General Manager Craig Patrick, associate GM Larry Pleau and other U.S. hockey officials will meet next Sunday in Chicago to discuss Olympic preparations. “Every team has to name eight players by the end of March and I’m sure we’re going to talk about that and how we want to set the program up,” said Pleau, general manager of the St. Louis Blues. Pleau said he heard there’s a push to change rules that prohibit teams from practicing even informally before they arrive in Salt Lake City. “You know the Europeans will practice,” he said. “They did it the last Olympics. They had a camp in Philadelphia with mostly, but not all, Russian Olympians.”

Lipinski and fellow Nagano gold medalist Ilia Kulik of Russia, on tour with Stars on Ice, don’t regret giving up their Olympic eligibility. “I wouldn’t go back for anything,” said Lipinski, who will perform Wednesday at Staples Center and Saturday at the Arrowhead Pond. “I did everything I wanted to accomplish. A lot of people said, ‘You could have stayed in and done it again,’ but why split up my family another four years?” Lipinski trained in Detroit and lived there with her mother, while her father lived in Texas.

Kulik said he enjoys the freedom of non-Olympic skating. “There is no room for trying new elements in the training process,” he said. “But now I can explore skating and different programs and music.”

Three-time world figure skating champion Elvis Stojko of Canada tore a tendon in his left knee during practice last week, again postponing his season debut. Stojko, who had overcome groin and heel injuries, will need four to six weeks to heal.

Skier Erik Schlopy of Park City, Utah, last week recorded his fifth top-10 finish this winter with a fifth in a giant slalom at Adelboden, Switzerland. He ranked 10th in World Cup standings and fifth in the giant slalom. The Hermanator, Hermann Maier of Austria, leads the overall standings.

The International Olympic Committee and FIFA, soccer’s governing body, agreed to keep the age limit at 23 for the men’s tournament in 2004 at Athens, and to expand the women’s tournament from eight to 12 teams. In a hint that they have taken too many headers, they also announced they will consider adding indoor soccer and five-a-side beach soccer to the 2008 Summer Games.

Only 390 days until the Salt Lake City Winter Games.