It’s a Hughes Upset

She floated over the ice, as delicate as the flutes that played her music but as assertive and strong as any champion has ever been.

Sarah Hughes faced daunting odds Thursday night and overcame them with uncanny poise and polish, staging one of the greatest upsets in the annals of Olympic figure skating.

With a softly flowing lavender dress and steely resolve, the giggly 16-year-old from Great Neck, N.Y., performed a technically demanding but artistically appealing routine Thursday to vault from fourth place to the gold medal, a leap of faith few but she believed she could carry off.

While favorites Michelle Kwan and Irina Slutskaya toiled on the ice--Kwan two-footed a triple toe loop and fell on a triple flip, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd packed into the Salt Lake Ice Center--Hughes soared to “Daphnis et Chloe” by Ravel. She edged Slutskaya by a 5-4 margin on the judges’ scorecards, leaving Slutskaya with silver and Kwan with bronze.

Seventeen-year-old Sasha Cohen of Laguna Niguel, who fell on her combination jump, dropped from third after the short program to fourth overall because the long program is weighted to count for two-thirds of the final score.

Hughes’ rally is unprecedented in the 11 world championships and four Olympics that have been contested since the compulsory figures were eliminated from figure skating competitions and the current format of short program-long program was adopted.

It also marked the fourth time the U.S. has placed two women on the Olympic medal stand: In 1956 Tenley Albright won gold and Carol Heiss won silver; in 1960 Heiss won gold and Barbara Ann Roles won bronze. In 1992 Kristi Yamaguchi and Nancy Kerrigan won gold and bronze, respectively, and in 1998, Tara Lipinski and Kwan won gold and silver.

“I skated for pure enjoyment,” said Hughes, who learned to skate as a toddler on the family’s backyard rink so she could keep up with her hockey-playing older brothers.

“That’s how I wanted my Olympic moment to be.”

Kwan and Sasha Cohen surely didn’t envision their Olympic moments playing out as they did.

Kwan was the favorite here, as she had been at Nagano and was the leader after the short program, as she was in Japan. The 21-year-old Torrance native, a six-time U.S. champion and four-time world champion, had endured a rocky season that included splitting with choreographer Lori Nichol and longtime coach Frank Carroll. She needed her independence, she said, and her performance in winning the U.S. title last month at Staples Center seemed to justify her decision to go it alone.

But as at Nagano four years ago, Kwan’s Olympic long program performance ended with tears of despair instead of triumph. She was again surpassed by an eager teenager who outjumped her and found a way, for at least four magical minutes, to match the artistry that supposedly was Kwan’s hole card.

At the post-event news conference, Kwan wore a fake gold medal given to her by 1976 Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill. That would be as close as she would come to the real thing after a silver in 1998 and bronze this time. She said she hasn’t decided whether she will continue in Olympic-eligible competition, but Thursday’s results might be a less-than-gentle hint her time has passed.

“I’ve had great practices, and I think this was my worst skate for a while,” Kwan said, her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her eyes bearing traces of tears. “It’s a bummer.

“The color of the medal doesn’t matter. The important thing is my family is here to support me. It’s OK.... I was talking with my parents this morning that I remember I was real young, at a competition in Las Vegas, and I was talking in my sleep, saying, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’ I told my parents I had dreamed about figure skating. Today, I have to remind myself it’s OK. It’s OK.”

At Nagano, it was a plucky, exuberant, 15-year-old Tara Lipinski who overtook her to win the gold. This time, it was a polished, poised 16-year-old named Sarah Hughes who occupied the top step on the medal podium.

“I have to shrug my shoulders and say, ‘It’s life,’” said Kwan, who bit her lip to suppress her tears after she skated, apparently aware her gold medal dreams were fading. “This is all about competition. You don’t skate well every night....

“It’s been a wonderful journey, the last four years since Nagano. I know everyone thinks I waited around the last four years to win gold. My whole goal was to leave a mark on skating.

“It’s hard. Tonight I just wanted to come home with the gold. When you’re young, you dream of it. You want to be in the same category as Dorothy Hamill, Peggy Fleming, Brian Boitano. It just wasn’t my night. I just have to remind myself to keep my head high.”

Cohen, third after the short program, had to content herself with a fourth-place finish in her Olympic debut. She had a shaky landing on the first part of her triple-triple combination, the triple lutz, and fell on her triple loop. She tried to pull it out but lacked the spark and verve that had put her in medal position after Tuesday’s short program.

“I didn’t have the flow I needed for the triple toe loop,” said Cohen, who skated to “Carmen,” complete with a red flower in her hair.

“I can’t do anything more.”

Slutskaya felt she had done all she could too, and bemoaned her presentation scores. They ranged from 5.6 (out of 6.0) to three 5.9s, but also included three 5.7s.

Saying she had not heard about the Russian Olympic Committee’s threat earlier in the day to withdraw its team before her performance, she nonetheless echoed some of Russian officials’ complaints about unfair scoring.

“I work so hard this year for my [presentation] marks and in all competition I have higher marks, 5.8 and 5.9. Here it’s 5.6,” she said. “I have shock. That’s it.... I skated great today. I am a good skater and the judges took the choice and that’s it.”

The judges had ample reason to choose Hughes.

Calmly pulling off a triple salchow-triple loop and, later a triple toe loop-triple loop, she was smooth and sure and increasingly animated as her music played on. Leaning forward afterward, as if she couldn’t believe the ovation that followed her performance, she beamed and drank in the moment.

“Tonight was probably my greatest skate ever. So it was nice it happened the night of the Olympic long program,” she said.

“Going into the long program, I didn’t think I had a chance to win gold. When I went out there I didn’t think about medals. I went out and skated for the fun of it. I didn’t hold back. I just let it go.

“When I finished and the crowd roared is a moment I’ll remember forever.”

Her coach, Robin Wagner, appeared as stunned as Hughes.

The winner learned the impossible is possible, that the Olympic ideal, too often trampled and sullied by scandal and whining, can be inspiring.

“I didn’t really go out and skate for a gold medal. I went out to have a great time,” said Hughes, the fourth of six kids of John Hughes, a former college hockey player turned attorney, and Amy Hughes, a busy mom and three-year cancer survivor.

“I said, ‘This is the Olympics. I want to be the best.’

“And it’s amazing, really, truly amazing.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The Finish

Gold: Sarah Hughes, U.S.

Silver: Irina Slutskaya, Russia

Bronze: Michelle Kwan, U.S.

*

The Resume

Kwan remains one of the most decorated figure skaters in history despite the absence of an Olympic gold medal in her resume. How she has fared in the national championship (U.S.), world championships (W.C.) and Olympics (O):

(text of infobox not included)