Fall From Grace Colors Bobek Bronze

U.S. champion Nicole Bobek fell twice, hung her head at the end of her routine and left the ice in tears. Still, she was good enough to win the bronze medal Saturday at the World Figure Skating Championships.

Bobek, the 17-year-old problem childturned-ice princess, had an improbable gold within her grasp after winning Friday’s short program. Instead, she was overtaken by a smooth and stylish performance from Chen Lu, who became the first Chinese skater to win a world title.

“It wasn’t my best performance,” said Bobek, who crashed to the ice after a triple loop and a triple salchow. “I was upset that I did miss those two jumps. They were very easy jumps for me.”

Having blown a chance for the gold, Bobek had to sweat it out through the last four skaters. Then came the joy of realizing she’d hung on for a place on the podium.

“This has helped a lot,” she said. “I’ve proved to a lot of people that all this stuff written about me didn’t affect me, and I think that’s what they wanted it to do.”

Moments after Bobek skated, her American teammate, Michelle Kwan, also was crying at the end of her program. But these were tears of joy for a spotless performance that lifted Kwan to fourth and signaled that the 14-year-old skater would, like Bobek, be a title contender for years to come.

“There was nothing I could have done better,” said Kwan, fifth after the short program. “It was overwhelming with everybody standing and clapping and waving. It was unbelievable.”

In the quirky world of figure-skating scoring, it was ironic that Kwan’s performance actually took the silver away from Bobek. Kwan finished one place ahead of Bobek in the free skate, knocking her teammate down the one vital position that was just enough to improve France’s Surya Bonaly to second overall.

The five-time European champion and pre-competition favorite, Bonaly blew her chance for the gold with a flawed performance in the short program that left her fourth. But on Saturday, the 21-year-old French skater roared back, hitting seven triple jumps in a routine to gypsy music.

The performance of the day, however, belonged to Chen. Wearing a red dress, the 18-year-old Chinese skater hit four triples in her program to “The Last Emperor” soundtrack. But her smooth lines and elegant tracings were even more impressive, reflected in nothing but 5.8s and 5.9s for artistic impression.

“To win is a first, not only for me, but also for China,” said Chen, who won bronze at last year’s Olympics and also took third at the Worlds in 1992 and 1993. “That is significant for us.”

Bobek’s performances all week showed remarkable poise that complemented her school-girl smile. Having failed to qualify as a relative unknown last year, she came back this time to win her qualifying group on Monday as well as Friday’s short program.

A self-described free spirit with a distaste for training and a reputation for going astray on foreign skating trips, Bobek went through eight coaches in eight years before signing on with Richard Callaghan last summer.

Callaghan introduced a strict practice regimen, which paid off with a shock victory over Kwan at last month’s U.S. nationals.

Then word leaked out that the case was dismissed after Bobek had entered a conditional plea of guilty in January for home invasion of a fellow skater’s house.

One of the conditions of Bobek’s plea was that it not be made public. Her lawyer alleged that a rival skater or former coach was behind the leak.