Visions Of Olympics Dance In Kwan’s Head

Even after winning national and world titles and acclaim from millions of figure skating fans, Michelle Kwan feels as if she’s in Fantasyland.

“This is my dream, to be here and talk about how I feel about the Olympics,” Kwan said Tuesday at the U.S. championships. “It’s like a wonderland, Disneyland - something I’ve always dreamed of.”

Kwan, based on her past performances, could have bypassed this competition and still received an Olympics berth. While only the first-place finisher here is guaranteed a place on the team, the U.S. Figure Skating Association can add other skaters at its discretion. But Kwan chose to compete here anyway, on a fractured toe that hasn’t healed completely.

But there are extenuating circumstances this week. Kwan hasn’t skated competitively in two months and missed critical training time in November and December with a stress fracture of a toe on her left foot. She’s still not pain-free and has eliminated the triple toe loop from her short program, substituting a harder triple flip because that jump doesn’t hurt.

Not that Kwan was going to let the injury keep her from nationals, where she and Tara Lipinski, the reigning U.S. and world winner, are shoo-ins for two of the three women’s spots for the Olympics.

“I thought I could have gone to the Olympics without this competition or qualifying for the team,” Kwan said, noting such precedents as Todd Eldredge in 1992 and Nancy Kerrigan in 1994 being given injury byes onto the Olympic squad. “But I don’t want to do it. I want to earn the spot.”

Kwan’s already been to a Winter Games. Four years ago she was an alternate, and wound up watching the competition from the stands.

An orthopedist told Kwan and coach Frank Carroll it would take six weeks for the injury to Kwan’s second toe to heal. That’s six weeks in a cast, off the ice, out of nationals and maybe out of the Olympics.

Kwan told the orthopedist “No way.”

So she’s adapted. Champions do that.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ON TV Today: U.S. championships, ESPN2/8 p.m.