No Golden Moment

Michelle Kwan listened to her body, and it told her no.

And if her sore groin continues to hamper her as much as it did Saturday, when she was driven to the verge of tears before she curtailed her first Olympic practice session, the five-time world figure skating champion said she would consider withdrawing from the Turin Games.

“Dropping out is not something I want to do, but I have to listen to what my feelings are,” she said after falling hard on a triple flip and botching two other flip attempts during a training session at the Torino Palaghiaccio. She didn’t do a run-through of her “Totentanz” short program and instead performed a few jumps and footwork sequences. The only jump she landed cleanly was a triple toe loop.

“That’s what’s so frustrating about having an injury,” she added. “It’s not something that just goes away....

“Physically, if I’m not able to skate, I will give my spot up.”

The first alternate is Emily Hughes of Great Neck, N.Y., the third-place finisher at last month’s U.S. championships and younger sister of 2002 gold medalist Sarah Hughes. In an odd twist, Kwan was in a similar situation in 1994, when Nancy Kerrigan was struck on the knee and withdrew from the national championships but was given a medical bye onto the Olympic team after she proved her readiness.

Kwan had finished second to Tonya Harding but was designated an alternate behind Kerrigan and Harding. Kwan traveled to Lillehammer and practiced but did not compete.

If Hughes were to ask for advice, Kwan said she’d tell the 16-year-old to continue training hard. “As an alternate, you have to be 100% prepared,” Kwan said during a news conference.

Entries in the Olympic figure skating competition can be changed until the draw begins for the skating order in the short program. However, the International Olympic Committee would have to agree that extraordinary circumstances existed.

Should Kwan withdraw close to the Feb. 21 start of the women’s competition -- or should an injury befall either of her teammates, Sasha Cohen of Corona del Mar and Kimmie Meissner of Bel Air, Md. -- the U.S. can request a replacement. If the request is denied, the U.S. team would lose a spot.

“Mentally, it’s been a challenge,” Kwan said of her physical woes. “Physically, I wish I could practice more, like I did when I was young, but I’m so limited in what I can do on the ice in the period of time from my injury until now.”

Kwan, the silver medalist at Nagano and bronze medalist at Salt Lake City, pulled her right groin muscle in mid-December, shortly after she’d recovered from a hip injury. Because she couldn’t compete at the national championships and earn a Turin berth, she petitioned U.S. Figure Skating for a medical bye onto the team.

The federation agreed to her request with the condition that she demonstrate to a five-judge panel that she could reach an elite level in the subsequent weeks. The panel gathered at the East West Ice Palace in Artesia on Jan. 27 and unanimously confirmed her Olympic spot after she performed her long and short programs with only a few minutes’ rest in between, and displayed spins and spirals that would earn high marks under the sport’s new scoring system.

Bob Horen, a member of the panel, was enthusiastic about her prospects after the session. “It is truly the opinion of this monitoring team that Michelle could win the Olympics,” he said.

But the smooth, confident Kwan who impressed him and his fellow judges two weeks ago was not in evidence Saturday.

Kwan, 25, said she was “a little stiff” when she took to the ice, which she attributed to having spent four hours sitting in chilly Olympic Stadium on Friday during the opening ceremony. She said she didn’t return to the athletes’ village until midnight and applied heat packs as a preventive measure, but to no avail.

She also said she hadn’t adjusted to the nine-hour time difference between Turin and her Los Angeles home. To complicate her woes, her coach, Rafael Arutunian, wasn’t at the sideboards on Saturday to offer advice. Kwan’s agent, Shep Goldberg, said the Russian-born Arutunian had encountered visa problems but was expected to arrive in Turin late Saturday.

U.S. team leaders Taffy Holliday and Roger Glenn supported Kwan on Saturday, though their encouragement didn’t appear to do much to lift her spirits.

Glenn later said most U.S. skaters who have practiced there have also had difficulties. “We’ve had a lot of kids have tough first practices at that rink,” he said. “I’m not worried about her at all. She’s a fighter.”

Kwan said she knew the opening ceremony would be cold but wanted to participate because she’d done it before “and I thought it was a great experience.” She did not march at Nagano in 1998 but took part in the festivities four years ago at Salt Lake City.

She said she did consider skipping Saturday’s practice but thought she’d benefit from getting a feel for the ice and the lights in the primary practice facility.

She left open the possibility that she will train at a rink in Courmayeur, about 90 minutes outside the city. Cohen and Meissner are expected to practice there until a few days before the competition begins.

“It is kind of frustrating making mistakes,” Kwan said. “The first practice, you want to go out and be brilliant.”

She went beyond frustration to exasperation on Saturday. She said she planned to undergo physical therapy during the afternoon; she’s scheduled to have two practice sessions today, a chance to learn whether Saturday’s session was an aberration or the start of a trend.

“I would love to do a triple-triple combination, everything,” she said. “Practice this morning wasn’t as easy-flowing as I wanted it to be. I am going to have to gather myself together, gather my thoughts and practice better than I did this morning.”