Kwan drama keeps skating world spinning

ST. LOUIS – The thrill of victory. The agony of being voted off the island. The human drama of backroom politics.

This is U.S. Figure Skating’s “Wide World of Situational Ethics.”

All’s right in the kiss-and-cry universe this morning. Michelle Kwan’s on the U.S. Olympic team and Emily Hughes has gone home to weep private tears, an Olympian in deed but denied by a nation’s preoccupation with gold medals, celebrity and hero(ine) worship.

Nearly unnoticed amid Kwan’s appointment and Hughes’ presumed disappointment Saturday night was flu-sapped Sasha Cohen actually skating superior programs back-to-back that, on level ice, could have beaten Kwan herself. The leap of 16-year-old runner-up Kimmie Meissner onto the international stage was a happy sidelight, too.

But achievement was never going to be the story at the 2006 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Unless, of course, it was lifetime achievement.

That’s what will send Kwan to Turin and her third Olympics next month, not anything she’s done over the past 52 weeks.

Well after the medals in ladies skating had been awarded to Cohen, Meissner and Hughes at the Savvis Center, USFS’s International Committee voted 20-3 – 12 members absent or recused – to approve Kwan’s petition to be placed on the team, filed after she decided that a pulled groin muscle would not allow her to compete here. This bumped Hughes, the IC having cribbed all its other Olympic selections directly from the St. Louis results. That meant leaving behind men’s fourth-placer Michael Weiss, who was attempting to make his third Olympic team.

But then, Michael is no Michelle.

And making the committee’s call easier was the fact that none of the youngsters – including the 16-year-old Hughes, younger sister of the reigning Olympic champion – went out and skated a statement.

“The committee felt Michelle would probably have a better chance for a medal,” said the chairman, Bob Horen. “The mission of the International Committee is to win medals.”

Sure it is. But if one spot can be determined by committee, why not all of them? Is a messy competition even necessary?

Heck, why can’t Kwan just petition for the gold medal she’s let get away the past two Olympics?

Kwantroversy took over these national championships like plaid and polyester once overpowered good taste. Even outspoken Johnny Weir was cloaking his elation Saturday night with the caveat “if I’m selected to the team,” when it was pointed out to him that, as the men’s national champion, he’d already qualified.

“Oh, yeah,” he brightened. “Then I’m going.”

Likewise, until the final pronouncement the females were all unsure of their bearings, the exception being Cohen, who was an Olympic lock as long as she didn’t crash every triple. Staying upright – she did balance herself on four fingers after one combination – clinched her first nationals, although she’s finished ahead of Kwan at the past two worlds.

“I’ve always wanted a national title,” Cohen said, “and it’s great to go home with one. I’ve got a lot of silvers in different shoeboxes and in storage units all over the place. The gold one will have a special place.”

But earlier she acknowledged that, “Whoever it is that doesn’t get to go would be devastated – especially since Michelle’s been to a couple of Games already.

“Then again, it’s the United States’ job to send the best team – the strongest skaters.”

Savvis was a tabernacle of the irresolute all week.

The kids who stood to be hurt by Kwan’s selection stood behind her, more or less, with brave smiles and I-just-want-to-skate-my-best mantras. Because of her competitive record and her Girl Scout image, Kwan invites – and deserves – universal acclaim from her peers. If no one much endorsed the political machinations, they at least accepted them as part of the weird charm of the skating world – in which any sniping is seen as bad form (see Kerrigan, Nancy).

“Whatever decision they make, I think it will be a good one,” Hughes said with flawless diplomacy.

No one expressed the general inner Kwanflict quite like Scott Hamilton, the gold medalist-turned-TV anyalyst.

“Should she or should she not go? Absolutely,” he laughed, again and again.

“The fact she hasn’t really competed internationally all year under the new (scoring) system, that’s a hard thing to put on somebody going into the Olympic Games. At the same time, who’s been more successful in the sport than Michelle? There’s no answer that will avoid disappointment, no answer that will avoid debate – honest, solid, heated debate.

“In a perfect world, you want your team to be decided at the national championships.”

But this is a highly imperfect world – hey, it’s skating – of the USFS’s own making. At least Kwan made a graceful gesture to bail them out – offering to have a USFS team (Horen, an athlete and three judges or technical officials) to monitor her long and short programs on Jan. 27 and decide whether she’s ready to compete in Turin.

“I’m very happy that U.S. Figure Skating approved my petition,” Kwan said. “At the same time, I know how Emily must be feeling – I was in the same position in 1994 when Nancy was named to the team (after missing nationals in the off-ice attack by associates of rival Tonya Harding).”

Yet it seems altogether probable that Kwan will go off to Turin, skate either her normal too-safe program or be unable to pull off a more difficult one and not win the gold she so covets – or, even more likely, finish sixth or seventh, a few irrelevant rungs above what Hughes might manage. And next time, it’ll be easier for another skater anxious about his or her health to take their chances with this system.

Would that throw a little mud on the fine polish Kwan’s put to her image?

“People really respond to integrity and effort,” Hamilton said. “If she puts her best program down, the best she’s got, and she’s just working and representing and doing all the things you want from an Olympian, regardless of the results, you’re going to embrace it. The high road is always respected.”

Well, this may not be the high road so much as a back-door play, but it hardly matters.

“This is not an average athlete,” said Frank Carroll, who coached Kwan until 2002. “This is a great athlete. This is someone America loves.”

True enough. But skating loves the melodrama even more.