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Monday, February 14, 2000 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
CLEVELAND -- She has two world championships, an Olympic silver medal, several million dollars in the bank and three other national championships, but after she came from behind to win her fourth U.S. title Saturday night, Michelle Kwan wore her medal to the news conference.
It was not the accessory of choice. No one else, not in the entire senior competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, showed up in the media room with a medal around his or her neck. Not even her toughest competition, youngsters Sarah Hughes and Sasha Cohen, both of whom earned their first senior medals at nationals.
So don't get the wrong idea about Kwan.
She might not have the technical difficulty of some of her competition, and she has never replicated the artistry she exhibited at the 1998 Olympic Trials, in which she received a record 16 perfect 6.0s for presentation. She might sandwich her three training sessions a day between classes at UCLA, and she might not always look as if she's having the best time of her life.
She is not, however, going anywhere.
"A lot of people think I'm going to turn pro and go on with my professional life, but that's not where I want to be right now," Kwan said. "I think at this competition, it sort of tells me where I want to be in my life. I might not be professional ever. And you might see me until 2006. It's what I love doing. You might not see a happy smiley face all the time, but no one's always smiling."
Many female ice skaters glance toward their coach before they speak, either to receive reassurance or make sure that what they plan to say is OK. But Kwan, 19, didn't sneak a peak at Frank Carroll when she said she has no second thoughts about remaining in the Olympic eligible ranks and trying again for the gold in Salt Lake City at the 2002 Olympics.
Which is fine by Carroll, although he made clear that to be competitive two years from now, Kwan is going to have to make some changes. One, he said, begins immediately.
A constant in Kwan's training has been her approach to run-throughs of her programs in practice. Once she starts, she finishes, no matter what. But after Kwan failed to land her triple-triple combination Saturday night, and considering that her competition has landed as many as two triple-triples in one program, Carroll rethought the approach.
From now on in run-throughs, whenever Kwan misses the triple-triple, she will stop and start over again. From the top. Over and over, until she lands it.
"She doesn't like that," Carroll said. "She wants the music on, she never stops in her program, and that's one of her things, but we feel that would be a great practice thing. If she has to start over, she'll start doing the triple-triple regardless."
In preparation for the World Figure Skating Championships, March 26-April 2 in Nice, France, Kwan will devote more time to skating. She has cut back from a full course load in the fall to one class this semester, and she can essentially spend the next six weeks focusing on skating, not on schoolwork.
Kwan plans to go to summer school, and her plans for next fall's semester aren't completed. Still, Carroll thinks it is unlikely that Kwan will devote everything to skating. "We have to make this thing work," he said. "She is going to get her education."
Skater and coach agree that having a busier schedule has forced Kwan to take a more business-like attitude to her skating.
"It's like getting a pair of new shoes," she said. "The first couple days, you rave about it. It doesn't subside, you still love the pair of shoes, but you don't talk about it as frequent, right?"
That said, Kwan sounded as if she just bought a new pair. The nationals, she said, were just another step, part of a journey that she hopes will end in an Olympic gold in 2002.
"The last couple of weeks I've really been getting myself together, trying to re-invent myself," Kwan said. "Dig deep. Further. Mentally and physically, everything. I feel that I can raise the bar again. When I was the first year at the nationals, I remember everybody saying, 'She's the jumping bean.' Now it's like, 'She's artistic, she's beautiful on the ice.'
"But I want to be well-rounded. I want to be the jumping bean again. And I feel that I can. I think that's what is bugging me -- I feel like I can do it. I can do it. I just have to bring it up."
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