Energized Kwan Plans To Land Feet-First In Nagano U.S. Champion Embraces Her Rediscovered Role As Favorite For Olympics

Michelle Kwan used to hate the words “gold-medal favorite.”

Just hearing them tied her stomach into knots. She didn’t want to be the figure-skating favorite. She didn’t want to be the one everyone wanted to beat. And after free-falling at the end of last season, losing three times to Tara Lipinski, she got her wish.

Now, after winning her second U.S. title in near-perfect fashion last weekend, those dreaded words are back. This time, with the Nagano Games less than a month away, the 17-year-old Kwan doesn’t mind a bit.

“It used to make me shake,” she said. “Now it’s like, I know what I’m capable of doing. It’s just how to put it on the line when it counts.

“I’ve trained hard for this moment, and everything is going right and in my direction. I’ve just got to let it happen and believe I can do it.”

It’s a lesson she’s learned the hard way. After winning the U.S. and world titles in 1996 with her sultry performance of Salome, Kwan was figure skating’s latest darling.

She was Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill and Kristi Yamaguchi all wrapped into one.

But with all the talk about gold medals and hype over being the favorite, she couldn’t even enjoy skating. Every time she took the ice, she felt the pressure and expectations weighing on her.

It proved to be too much. She fell twice in her free skate at last year’s nationals, stumbled on another jump and wound up second to Lipinski. She blew her jump combination in the short program at the Champions Series final and worlds - uncharacteristic mistakes for her - and finished second to Lipinski each time.

Defending a title is much tougher than getting to the top, coach Frank Carroll said.

“The holding off of the dogs is the hard thing,” he said.

Kwan’s body was changing, too. As she gained weight and filled out, her center of gravity changed. The jumps that once came so easily now left her sprawling on the ice.

She couldn’t see what was happening, but Carroll could. She was growing into a young woman, and she was just going to have to weather the changes.

“I never expected Michelle to be on top all of the time,” Carroll said. “If you’re realistic about the sport, you’re going to have the ups and downs.”

Easy for a coach to say. For the skater going through those ups and downs, it’s a nightmare.

“It was such a burden to skate,” Kwan said, frowning at the memory. “Troublesome.”

She likened herself to a stuffed animal. It’s so cute and perfect, and you want it to be able to talk and move and be alive. But it just sits there, she said, stuffed and lifeless.

Not anymore. Last year’s stuffed animal is now a real tiger.

“I put that life into it,” she said. “I lightened up skating.”

The turnaround came at last year’s worlds. In tears after botching her short program, a lace broke and hit her in the face while she was untying her skates. Kwan started laughing, realizing just how silly she was being.

Carlo Fassi, who coached at Ice Castle, the same Lake Arrowhead, Calif., rink where Kwan trains, had just died. Her friend, Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton, had just been diagnosed with testicular cancer. And yet here was Kwan, getting to do the thing she loves most and not enjoying it.

She changed her attitude that day, and hasn’t looked back.

“I’m like a little kid going to the rink, enjoying myself instead of thinking what will happen or anything,” she said. “You just go out there and skate. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

That’s exactly what she did at last weekend’s nationals in Philadelphia. Although she was competing for the first time since November after aggravating a stress fracture in her left foot, Kwan was nearly perfect.

Not only was she the first woman to earn a 6.0 - the perfect mark - in the short program at nationals, she got seven of them. When the marks flashed, even Kwan looked shocked.

Two nights later she was even better, floating across the ice in a swirl of ice-blue velveteen to “Lyrica Angelica.” On her triple toe loop jump, the one that’s been so painful because of her injury, she soared high above the ice, then touched down so easily she looked weightless.

The judges rewarded her with eight 6.0s for artistry - the most ever for a free skate at nationals.

Not only does she have her title back, but she’s on her way to the Olympics. Sure, she went as an alternate in 1994 because of the whole Nancy-Tonya fiasco, but this time it’s for real.

“Michelle wanted to come back this year with a vengeance,” Carroll said. “She wanted to be special.”

So she is.