Figure Skating: Going for Sixes

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The U.S. has yet to win its first Olympic gold medal in men's skiing, and its girls have not been golden since Andrea Mead Lawrence swept the slopes in 1952. The last bobsled victory was in 1948; the one hockey triumph was in 1960. Only in figure skating has the U.S. regularly cut the ice. Since 1948, U.S. skaters have brought home no fewer than six gold, four silver, five bronze medals. This year's team, chosen at the national championship in Philadelphia last week, includes at least three medal contenders, plus the nation's single odds-on favorite at Grenoble.

That distinction belongs to Peggy Fleming, 19, a pretty brunette from Colorado Springs, who started winning U.S. titles in 1964 when she was only 15. She kept winning them every year since, and in the 1964 Olympics, her first taste of international competition, she finished sixth. Since then, she has won two world championships—in 1966 and 1967—largely on the strength of her balletlike grace. At Philadelphia, she drew a standing ovation for her final "spread eagle-double axel-spread eagle" (after coasting along with her feet at a 180° angle, she leaps, turns 21 times around, and lands as she started). Her lowest score from any of the five judges was 5.9 out of a possible 6 points, and Peggy still was not satisfied. "I'm going for sixes at Grenoble," she promised.

Leaps & Loops. When it comes to the men, "those European judges aren't going to know who to look hard at," says Gary Visconti, 22, the defending champion at Philadelphia. First, Visconti himself was bumped into second place by Tim Wood, 19, a fellow Detroiter who barely made the U.S. national team last year. For this year's competition, Wood dropped out of school, spent seven hours a day practicing the compulsory "school figures" (loops, brackets, circle eights) that account for 60% of the score. So precise were his blade marks that he led the field when the time came for the free skating, at which Visconti excels.

The biggest surprise was John Petkevich, an 18-year-old Montanan who was competing in his second Nationals as a senior skater. Still a little ragged in the school figures, he was in fourth place when he glided out for his free-skating routine. To the ringing trumpets of Spanish music, he went through five minutes of dazzling Salchows (jump and forward turn), Lutzes (jump and reverse turn) and flying splits. Then he went off with something he calls "the Bourkey"—an astonishing leap in which he kicks sideways, twirls, arches and floats as if suspended by wires. He decided against his "triple-flip" turn because of a pulled leg muscle. But the judges had seen enough; they gave him five 5.9s and one 6, good for third place and a slot on the U.S. Olympic team. At Grenoble, says Petkevich, "that triple flip goes back in."