New Spin On Life Kwan Comes Of Age As Nationals Beckon

When she won the world figure skating championship last March at age 15, Michelle Kwan slept with her gold medal. But her teenage exuberance was tempered by a more grown-up revelation: “It was like, ‘I won, get on with life,”’ she said.

Now, as she completes her final preparations for the national championships, which begin Saturday, she possesses a rare maturity for a 16-year-old. Where she once succeeded with a style of innocent youth, Kwan is now exploring dark, dramatic roles and contemplating life after high school, with an eye toward Harvard and perhaps law school.

Into the narrow-minded world of skating, she brings the broader but increasingly quaint notion, popular with such former champions as Dick Button and Tenley Albright and Debi Thomas, that double majors are as worthwhile as double axels.

“After the Olympics, I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t compete for a couple years and goes to school,” said Frank Carroll, who coaches Kwan here at the Ice Castle training center nestled in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles.

For the moment, though, Kwan’s laser-like focus remains on skating when it is not on the tutored courses of biology, algebra, English, French and history that she is taking in her junior year of high school. She has won all six of her competitions this season, even defeating 1992 Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi. And she remains a heavy favorite to win the Olympic-style nationals in Nashville, Tenn., which conclude Feb. 16, the world championships next month in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the 1998 Winter Games next February in Nagano, Japan.

Kwan will earn more than $1 million this year. And with the Salt Lake City Olympics ahead in 2002, she could conceivably become a two-time gold medalist by the grizzled age of 21. The only thing that has defeated her lately was the three-point turn on her driver’s test, which she eventually passed last summer.

Between training sessions recently, Kwan had lunch with her parents, Danny and Estella, and spoke animatedly of her aspirations, her intended legacy and her desire to forge a separate career, perhaps in TV or as a district attorney, thus avoiding a life of skating nostalgia.

“I want to be a legend, like Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming,” Kwan said. “Janet Lynn didn’t win an Olympic title, but in every skater’s mind she’s a legend. I want to leave a little mark: ‘Michelle Kwan was a great skater, artistically and technically. She had the whole package.’ I want people to remember me after 1,000 years when skating is weird and people are doing quintuple jumps.”

At the same time, Kwan said: “I always tell myself I’m not going to do this until I’m 30. That’s way too long. If you can’t show your best on the ice, why show it? I want to be the best and walk out. I don’t want to be skating when I’m going downhill.”

Kwan is an athlete of uncommon determination and direction, having taken the test for the senior level of skating at age 12, without the knowledge or consent of Carroll, her coach.

On the ice, she has responded calmly under pressure. At the 1996 world championships in Edmonton, Alberta, Kwan needed perfection in the long program, and she attained it as if she were going to an automatic teller machine for fast cash. She followed a pair of perfect marks of 6.0 by the defending champion Chen Lu of China with two 6.0s of her own, and improvised a triple jump at the end of her routine to become the third-youngest women’s world champion.

“Everyone asks, ‘Aren’t you surprised that you accomplished so much at 15 or 16?”’ Kwan said. “I’m like, ‘No - I hoped for something and I got it.’ “

Two years ago, Kwan admits, she skated to the music instead of really feeling or interpreting it. She was only 14, her pink costumes were the color of cotton candy, her routines were skated with a paint-by-the-numbers approach, and her smile as rehearsed as her jumps. Judges, at least at the international level, seemed to be telling her with their restrained marks they were waiting for a talented girl to become a young woman.

It happened last season when Kwan, Carroll and choreographer Lori Nichol took the bold, risky move of having the 15-year-old portray biblical temptress Salome. At first, it appeared to be wrong; with heavy makeup, Kwan seemed to be yet another teenager rushed unnecessarily toward adulthood. But she matured into the role, and by the end of last season, her Salome ascended into the artistic ranks of Katarina Witt’s Carmen and Oksana Baiul’s Black Swan.

“When I was 14, I didn’t know much of anything,” Kwan said. “I never really developed my skating. I just jumped and jumped some more. It wasn’t really artistic. I kind of smiled every once in a while and laughed it off. But you want to feel what’s inside and be able to portray it and express it to the audience. This year, I’m trying to perfect the limit of being dramatic and powerful.”