Physical Evidence Shows Skaters Are Pushing to Limit

As long as ice is slippery, figure skaters will fall and get hurt. It’s an occupational hazard.

But the spate of stress-related injuries among elite competitors before the U.S. championships raised the question of whether skaters are putting too much strain on bodies that are still undergoing physical and hormonal changes:

* Michelle Kwan, trying to master a second triple-triple jump combination to increase the technical difficulty of her programs, felt pain in her back and stopped practicing the jump. She also reduced the difficulty of the triple-triple in her short program. Her coach, Frank Carroll, cited the twisting of her torso on the combination jumps.

“We are raising the bar,” Carroll said. “But when the body starts to develop discomfort are we pushing into a stress fracture?”

* Naomi Nari Nam of Irvine, the 1999 women’s runner-up, suffered a stress fracture in her hip. Nam, 15, lost too much practice time to compete at Boston.

* Sasha Cohen of Laguna Niguel, the 2000 runner-up, has a stress fracture in a vertebra, possibly related to a recent growth spurt. Although determined to skate, the 16-year-old withdrew after being told she risked long-term damage.

* Deanna Stellato, 17, second in the 2000 world junior championships and eighth among senior U.S. women, withdrew from this year’s event because of a hip injury.

* Timothy Goebel won the men’s championship Saturday on a strained ligament in his right knee.

* Michael Weiss, the 1999 and 2000 men’s champion, missed much of the season because of a broken bone in his foot. He also has back problems.

* 1998 Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski, 20, suffered a hip injury while skating with the Stars on Ice tour. She underwent surgery in September and will need six months to regain peak form.

“I can see where there’s a point where you don’t know how hard you should push yourself,” Kwan said. “I was working on the triple salchow-triple loop and my back started hurting, so I said, ‘It’s not worth it now.’ There’s a lot of demand for triple-triples, and there can be a lot of demands on our bodies sometimes, especially when you’re also working out and doing other things.”

Carroll is wary of the strain jumping puts on bodies.

“When you come down on [the] landing, you use one of your hip sockets and you have to stop rotating. When you do a triple, there’s more force, and a triple-triple, even more,” he said. “There’s a lot of wear and tear on that side of your body because that’s where most of the weight is.

“We try to teach these kids not to be wimps, but you’ve got to say, ‘Hey, you’re on the borderline of being hurt. Get off the ice and stretch.’ A lot of times, they don’t want to hear it. They want to make the Olympics.”

Goebel agrees. “I don’t think it’s really a matter of pushing too far, but not knowing how to deal with it,” said Goebel, who does 15 to 20 quadruple jumps at each practice. “The sport has become so jump-intensive. Even for girls with triple-triples, the tricks are now so difficult to do. You have to do them more consistently, so you’re out there pounding away in practice. You get little aches and pains, and you ignore them. You say, ‘I’ll be fine.’

“You’re afraid to go to a doctor and say, ‘I need to take some time off,’ because you need the jump and the consistency and the training every day of running through your programs. All of us, the coaches too, don’t know how to find a balance.”

Said John Nicks, Cohen’s coach: “It’s called progress, and you can’t stop it. It’s impossible to stem the tide. I’m sure one, two or three young ladies will be doing triple axels soon. The American way is not to stop them.”

If they can’t be stopped, they can be well prepared.

The U.S. Figure Skating Assn. formed a sports medicine committee several years ago and offers seminars on nutrition and training to coaches and parents of novice-level skaters. The USFSA also offers information to elite skaters.

“We have talented kids throwing their bodies around before they’re ready,” said Doug Williams, a former U.S. pairs bronze medalist (with Sharon Carz) and president of the All Year Figure Skating Club of Culver City, host club of next year’s U.S. championships at Staples Center.

“I would skate six days a week. Saturday was my easy day, and I’d just put the blades on the ice. Training might be more intense now. Six or seven days on the ice is too much. The body needs rest and so does your mind.”

GOLDEN MOMENT WAS FLEETING

The U.S. women’s hockey team found no pot of gold at the end of its Olympic rainbow.

Although their soccer counterparts ran their success at the 1996 Atlanta Games into endorsement riches and a new women’s soccer league, the hockey players didn’t get rich off their 1998 triumph at Nagano. A rumored women’s league never materialized, and the U.S. team faded from public consciousness.

“Their sport came from the same place our sport did,” said Cammi Granato, the U.S. hockey team’s captain, of the soccer players. “They were struggling to get fans, then they won the gold medal. They paid their dues for a while.

“It was different for us. Right after the Olympics, things were hot, but we didn’t play any games in the U.S. for an entire year. We didn’t have anything in place. The only way we’re going to get known, other than the Olympics, is to play around the U.S. and get people interested.”

Their unhappiness came to a head when USA Hockey wanted them to sign a new contract before they discussed as a team whether the medical and health insurance and marketing rights were fair. In response, players refused to practice. After about a week, they resolved their differences and resumed training at their base in Lake Placid, N.Y.

“The most important thing is, the communications lines are open,” Granato said. “What most people don’t get is, this is our life and job and what we’re passionate about. Communication is essential because this is the only team most of us play for, except the ones who are in college.”

Team USA will face the Canadian national team Feb. 2 in Denver, before the NHL All-Star game.

DOMINATOR, THE SEQUEL?

Dominik Hasek, whose stellar goaltending lifted the Czech Republic to the men’s hockey gold medal at Nagano in 1998 and took the Buffalo Sabres to the Stanley Cup finals in 1999, might not play at Salt Lake City in 2002.

Hasek, who is struggling to prevent teammate Martin Biron from taking his job, says he hasn’t thought about the Games. But friends say he fears he can’t repeat his Nagano exploits, which included stopping Canada in a shootout in the semifinals.

Hasek planned to return to his homeland after last season, but he postponed that after a knee injury idled him for several months. His contract runs through this season and the Sabres have an option to renew it at $9 million, but they’re unlikely to pick it up because of a financial squeeze.

“I think the Olympics are too far away still,” he said. “I want to focus on this season. There’s lots of hockey left. I just want to play my best hockey, and I don’t think too much about the Olympics.”

HERE AND THERE

Goebel, who moved from Cleveland to El Segundo to train with Carroll, hasn’t become a California dude. He doesn’t like water--except, apparently, the frozen kind.

“I don’t even swim,” he said. “I’ll swim in a pool, but I won’t swim in open water. I don’t surf or Jet Ski, and I don’t like boats. That’s all I’d need, to go surfing and dislocate my shoulder.”

The ice melted beneath Nicks’ feet last week. First, he learned Ice Chalet in Costa Mesa, his home rink, will close next Sunday. And on successive days, his top pupils, Nam and Cohen, withdrew from the U.S. figure skating championships because of injuries.

“It’s been a difficult week,” Nicks said. “I’m looking for a job.”

Ice Chalet executives showed Nicks around their rink in Aliso Viejo, and he might move there.

“It’s very nice,” he said. “I’ve had some other proposals, and I have to decide soon.”

Derek Parra of San Bernardino won the North America-Oceania regional qualifier for the world allround speedskating championships last week. He will represent the U.S. in the World Championships at Budapest, Hungary, Feb. 9-11. Jennifer Rodriguez of Miami was the women’s winner.

Also going are Annie Driscoll, KC Boutiette, Chris Callis and J.P. Shilling.

Caroline Lalive of Steamboat Springs, Colo., became the fifth U.S. Alpine skier to win a medal in World Cup events. She joined Erik Schlopy, Bode Miller, Sarah Schleper and Kristina Koznick. Lalive has four top-10 finishes this season.

Only 383 days until the Salt Lake City Winter Games.