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Will Kwan's 'work hard, have fun' mantra work tonight?
By Jenifer K. Nii
Deseret News Olympic specialist
The Olympic spotlight today is on the two premier women's Olympic events, as Team USA hockey will try to repeat its gold-medal performance against Team Canada and Michelle Kwan will seek her first gold medal in figure skating.
Both go into their events favored to win gold. The U.S. women's hockey team has been undefeated in Olympic play and in a 31-game pre-Olympic tour. Kwan is leading all skaters after the women's short program Tuesday.
Kwan says she isn't a completely different person than she was four years ago, when she became the most beloved silver medalist of the 1998 Nagano Olympics.
But when she takes the ice at Thursday's ladies free skate, the final competition of the Salt Lake City Games' marquee event, fans will get the sense that she isn't exactly the same, either.
As she was in Nagano, Kwan at these Games is one program away from a gold medal. She took the early lead over Irina Slutskaya of Russia and fellow Americans Sasha Cohen and Sarah Hughes in Tuesday's short program, looking strong and focused. Her margin of victory was slim, a 5-4 split among judges, but her performance was quintessential Kwan: full of grace, heart, and something new — maturity.
"It feels like yesterday that I was at the press conference in Nagano, telling about how I'd like another opportunity to go to the Olympics," she said. "Four years flew by, and I'm glad I stayed in."
Not that the past four years have been easy for the six-time U.S. champion. In the past year alone, Kwan's most ardent fans have stood dumbfounded as she pitched her longtime coach and choreographer, lost competitions and talked more frequently about how winning competitions didn't determine her happiness in life.
Skeptics attributed her new "work hard, have fun" mantra — as opposed to the "work hard, work hard" motto of the past — to burnout or desperation.
But during a press conference following the short program Tuesday, Kwan appeared strangely calm, answering questions with wisdom forged only by overcoming anguish.
"I don't think I'm a completely different person than I was four years ago," she said. "I've been through a few competitions, I've had some ups and downs. . . . Tonight, I tried to skate from the heart. I tried to make America proud."
Kwan wouldn't say she is favored to win the gold here, or even that she has an edge, competing on American soil before sell-out crowds composed mostly of pro-American fans.
"It's not necessarily an edge to be an American, when the Olympics are on American soil," she said. "It is an amazing feeling. But it doesn't change what the judges think."
What she did predict was a good old-fashioned fight to the finish. This year, the field is deep. Kwan will face competition from Russia, in Slutskaya and 1999 world champion Maria Butyrskaya, and from her own team, in Cohen and Hughes. Each has her own golden aspirations.
"I expect a lot of great performances," said Cohen, one of the stars among the rising tide of young American skaters. "This is the Olympics, and we've all been training very hard. I'm just proud to be a part of it."
For the veteran Kwan, the Salt Lake City Games may very well be her last Olympics. If so, she said she'd leave with no regrets.
"I was a little scared in 1997, thinking, 'What if I don't win?' " she said. "In 1998, I thought, I'm on the podium, but there's one more step higher. But there's more to life than just a medal. You have to move on. "
E-MAIL: jnii@desnews.com
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February 21, 2002
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