Kwan content to slide, not skate to Turin

ST. LOUIS – OK, so. Michelle Kwan.

But should she?

No, of course she shouldn’t. By all that’s American, just and holy – the spirit of competition being as close as it gets to holiness in sports – if she doesn’t show up tonight to skate the ladies short program at the 2006 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships, then she can damned well wear NBC’s uniform at next month’s Winter Olympics.

And let the three women who earn their sequins here represent the United States in Turin.

(Pause to allow sufficient horror and outrage. How dare he say such a thing about Michelle?)

This is what figures to be missing next year when Spokane gets its turn to host the championships. Skating’s harlequinade happily camps along calendar to calendar, but there is nothing quite as hysterical as an Olympic year.

This one went into a death spiral last week when Kwan, America’s skating sweetheart for seemingly ever, dropped out of the St. Louis championships because of an injury – a pulled right groin muscle. The news wasn’t so much the withdrawal itself but that ice princesses come equipped with something as icky as a groin muscle.

Oh, and also that Kwan had decided to avail herself – quite within her rights – of a codicil in the U.S. Figure Skating fine print that allows an injured or ill skater to petition for nomination to the Olympic team without actually having to, you know, beat someone.

This is as predictable as it is preposterous. After more than a decade of lethal blows to skating’s rickety credibility – Nancy’s kneecapping, Tonya’s skatelace, the Russian mob, the crooked Frenchy in the fur coat and now completely anonymous judging, to name a few – what does USFS do to select its Olympic team?

Retreat to the smoke-filled room! Of course!

See, only the winner of this week’s championships automatically qualifies for the Olympic team. The other two spots are selected by the International Committee – which numbers a mere 36 members, just to make it as shady as possible – basing their deliberations on “placement and competitive field” in six events: this one and the 2005 Grand Prix final, World Championships, Four Continents, Junior Grand Prix final and World Junior Championships.

Simple? Of course.

Except that Kwan, whose competitive profile is starting to resemble Bobby Fischer’s, has appeared in just one of those: last year’s Worlds, in which she finished fourth.

She did participate in some American Idolish nonsense last month in which she was clearly outskated by Sasha Cohen but was voted the gold medal by the audience, as shocking as Bush taking Florida in 2000. This despite her failing to cleanly complete a single triple jump, though she was still on the mend from a hip injury she insists is healed.

The Gang of 36 will make its call Saturday night after the free skate, but they’ll be flying blind about Kwan’s fitness – her doctors won’t clear her to even attempt a jump in practice until Friday.

Meanwhile, Cohen and Alissa Czisny and the rest of the ladies will be here sweating out the pressure, dealing with the vagaries of the new judging system and actually having to stand up or shut up. Competing. Yet so revered is Kwan that even Czisny, among those who stand to lose out if Kwan is freebied onto the team, won’t call it unfair.

“Michelle Kwan has done so much for the sport,” Czisny said Wednesday. “She’s been a champion for so many years. I’m guessing they’ll give her a spot on the Olympic team – I don’t think they wouldn’t.”

Lori Nichol, who choreographs for men’s world bronze medalist Evan Lysacek among others, was more expansive.

“She’s been the face of women’s skating for 13 years,” Nichol said. “She’s worked very hard and set standards everyone else is trying to achieve. Both artistically and technically she’s given so much. If this was Las Vegas, I’d put my money on Michelle Kwan.”

Swell. Except it’s St. Louis, and Michelle Kwan isn’t here.

“I feel like I’m one of the three best skaters in America,” she said on a teleconference last week.

Then she should have to prove it, no matter what her impeccable record – five world titles, nine U.S. championships, USFS team player extraordinaire – or her importance to the marketing efforts of the IOC, USOC, USFS, NBC, Visa and Coca Cola.

This is how it’s done here in the states, at least in the Olympic events worth caring about. Dan O’Brien was the world’s greatest athlete of the 1990s and won decathlon gold in 1996, but when he came up lame at the trials in both 2000 and 2004 he was not grandfathered in based on his Atlanta highlight tape. Swimmers show up and swim or they go back to lifeguarding at Santa Monica beach. Same deal in pro sports. Donovan McNabb quarterbacked the Eagles into the Super Bowl last year, but got hurt this year. Why not let them into the playoffs a la USFS rules?

Willis Reed couldn’t walk, but he played, and the Knicks won the NBA title. Because that night, he had to play.

It was actually written last week that Michelle Kwan belongs in the Olympics simply because she is, well, Michelle Kwan.

And Gandhi should have won the Nobel Prize because he was, well, Gandhi. But he didn’t.

The USFS loophole is, of course, insurance – against an injury, or a favorite falling on her butt, or even crackpot judging, and probably as much that as either of the first two, just another reason to dismiss skating as a charade.

In this case, however, even the loophole has a loophole – the USFS can name Kwan to the team and still replace her by Jan. 30, or even later if the IOC agrees, if she’s not ready to go.

Though she contended that won’t be necessary.

“If I don’t feel I’m 100 percent,” she said, “I will pull myself off the team.”

Sorry. Somebody can make that call, but Michelle Kwan’t.