That’s certainly not all bad because, at least, this competition is the real thing. Spare me from another of those made-for-TV faux figs that proliferated in the wake of the Nancy-and-Tonya frenzy. It became hard to tell one “battle” or “ice war” from another. But when the world championships finally roll around in the pre-Olympic season, it’s time for the skaters and also us fans to get serious. Performances at this “worlds” have often proved to be a precursor of the Olympics. Oksana Baiul and Tara Lipinski pulled off surprises in winning world titles eight and four years ago, respectively; then each proceeded to repeat her victory at the Olympics the following year.
With the Olympics just 10 months away and figure skating certain to be the centerpiece, here’s my handy-dandy guide to what you need to know: the key people and the critical trends along the way to Salt Lake City.
RIVALRIES
When Lipinski retired after narrowly besting Michelle Kwan in Nagano, Kwan appeared to have a clear path to the next Olympic gold. But it’s already proved to be far more slippery than Kwan or anyone might have anticipated. The three-time world champion (and five-time American champ), who is still only 20 years old, has struggled to upgrade her jumping prowess and, even more important, to maintain the competitive hunger that propelled her to the top. A 22-year-old Russian, Irina Slutskaya, has emerged as Kwan’s principal impediment to Olympic glory. A peppy, upbeat counterpoint to Kwan’s lyrical, at times almost cerebral, style, Slutskaya has whipped Kwan three straight this season.
The Kwan-Lipinski rivalry was fueled by personal animus. Lipinski may have won the Olympic gold, but she got her butt kicked in the popularity contest. Michelle was far more gracious and classier in defeat than Tara was in victory and managed to parlay silver from Nagano into gold-plated endorsements like Disney and Chevrolet. Lipinski has been pretty much consigned to “where are they now” stature.
The Kwan-Slutskaya rivalry, by contrast, is a very cordial affair. They gush about each other’s charms on and off the ice. And when the two toured last spring and summer with Champions on Ice, Slutskaya says they talked regularly and even occasionally hung out together. “We have a loose, very friendly relationship,” says Slutskaya, who trains in Moscow. This rivalry is being billed as the athlete (Slutskaya) vs. the artist (Kwan) and it’s a decidedly class act.
Fortunately, those who prefer their rivalries venomous will have the men’s competition, a duel between two fair-haired Russians. And as they used to say when hyping boxing matches, these two lads really don’t like each other. Alexei Yagudin had won three straight world titles post-Nagano, but this season has been surpassed teen sensation Evgeny Plushenko. The two were former rink-mates in Russia. And even when Yagudin was atop the skating world, his coach would say, “If you think Alexei is special, just wait. I’ve got this kid coming up….”
Yagudin, who understandably bolted his coach and now trains in the United States, boasts an intense, macho style with the most powerful, soaring jumps in the sport. But Plushenko’s artistry, his dazzling array of tricks is unrivaled. Every skater in the world is wrestling with the quad, the four-rotation jump that is the current yardstick for the men’s elite. But Plushenko, who looks like a flaxen-haired knight of the round table, has one-upped the field, developing a quad, triple, double combination that is a dizzying showstopper.
JUDGING
When the Iron Curtain toppled, there was much discussion of the profound implications for nuclear weaponry, human rights and free-market economies. Lost in that global shuffle was any examination of the critical effect it had on the sport of figure skating. Judging used to be consumed with ideological grudges. The Eastern bloc judges punished the American skaters and their allies. The judges from the Western democracies paid back the Russian champions in kind. The result was stalemate–a skaters’ detente. The scores were virtually a foregone conclusions. Thus, once a champion, always a champion. It pretty much took several bellyflops and a Zamboni imitation for a defending champion to get knocked off his or her perch. That pretty much curtailed the competitive suspense.
No longer. With judges freed up for all-consuming, political considerations, the judging has become reasonably, maybe even remarkably, fair. (The International Skating Union no longer even identifies the countries of the judges on the scoreboard, as it has always done in the past; it doesn’t matter any more, they seem to be saying.) As a result, the worlds in Vancouver has the distinct possibility of witnessing all four defending champions lose their titles. That’s great for skating and, above all, great for its fans.
JUMPING
Take a good gander at the men’s performances and you won’t see skying like this anywhere outside the NBA. The Russian stars and other quad-masters like America’s Tim Goebel are pushing the envelope year by year, competition by competition. Which makes what’s happening on the ladies’ side rather strange. A decade ago, both Tonya Harding and Japan’s Midori Ito successfully performed triple axels, the most difficult of the six triple jumps.
Neither, though, could master the big jump, which has an extra half rotation compared to the other triples. Both botched their attempts in Albertville (and in Harding’s case, again in Lillehammer), which was fatal to their gold-medal dreams. And, remarkably, that was pretty much the end of it. It seems as if the ladies were scared off. No woman today even tries the jump. But America’s 15-year-old rising star Sarah Hughes is supposedly readying the axel for next season. If successful, the youngster will be a force in Salt Lake. It could be, as they say in showbiz, the bomb.
ICE DANCING
Confessing to a deep and abiding passion for ice dancing elicits the same kind of horrified gasp one might expect after confiding a weakness for sniffing glue. It is seen as more than unseemly, perhaps even a bit perverse. “What’s next for the Olympics, ballroom dancing?” folks sneer. They’re probably not aware that the hardwood version is indeed an Olympic possibility in the future. And why not? If curling, essentially shuffleboard on ice, is an Olympic sport, then ballroom dancing, hell, even tiddlywinks on ice, should be considered.
Most American skating fans disdain ice dancing largely because the Yanks are lousy at it. We have neither the balletic-from-birth training nor the natural temperament to invest the partnership-years in developing the perfect timing and extraordinary trust that this discipline requires. We haven’t had a world-class ice-dancing team since the mid-’80s when Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert won a succession of world bronzes. And we’ve never ever won a gold. This year the U.S. championships could barely muster an ice-dancing field. In the off-season, women ice-dancers scurry around the country trying to make a match with the latest Russian emigre.
Thus ice dancing rates very little time on American TV broadcasts. Which is a shame because it is an extraordinarily beautiful discipline. For all the great Olympic skating moments America’s champions have produced, nothing will every rival for sheer majesty Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s performance of “Bolero” at the 1984 Games in Sarajevo. A few years ago, I was invited to a rehearsal for perhaps the most prestigious skating exhibition ever held. Only Olympic gold-medallists were invited, and crisscrossing the practice ice at the same time were such luminaries of the sport as Brian Boitano, Scott Hamilton, Katarina Witt, Kristi Yamaguchi, Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming.
As each skater performed a run-through of his or her routine, the others would drift toward the boards, continuing their workouts out of harm’s way. But when Torvill and Dean stepped to center ice, all movement stopped, all eyes were upon them. The ultimate tribute is the respect of one’s peers, those who know best. To steal a line from the NBA, “I love this sport.”
