Nagano 1998: Figure Skating: Winter Of The Dueling Divas

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Only in the worlds of figure skating and Nabokov does the age of 17 seem old. But Michelle Kwan, all of 17 and already once an ousted champion, embodies fallibility and, yes, maturity as she crosses blades with her toughest competitor, Tara Lipinski, 15 (rid of her final baby molar only last year when she won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships). Hordes of sponsors and adoring young fans are choosing sides. Even bookstores are battlegrounds, with Lipinski's Triumph on Ice taking on Kwan's Heart of a Champion. A real showdown, though, took place last week at the 1998 Nationals in Philadelphia, from which only one could emerge with bragging rights as America's best at the 18th Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan.

By the end of the short program, Kwan, who spent much of 1997 in one prolonged tumble and the past two months recovering from a stress fracture of her left toe, showed no sign of faltering. Seven of nine judges deemed her presentation perfection, awarding the first 6.0s ever at the Nationals in the ladies' short program. And then, transported by Lyra Angelica, she seemed to float through every jump of her long program on Saturday night, even the triple toe loop that placed painful pressure on her toe. "I was like, I'm free and I'm gone," she said. "Cloud nine, here I come." The judges seemed giddy too, giving her eight 6.0s. She claimed the gold and the automatic top position on the team.

The ailing Kwan could have easily sat out the competition at Philly's CoreStates Center and still got to the Olympics. According to U.S. rules of Olympic selection, skaters who take first place in the Nationals are guaranteed spots in the Games. The U.S. Figure Skating Association fills the remaining positions by evaluating the past performance of all the athletes. Kwan's record made her a shoo-in.

But Kwan had something to prove, though she carefully avoids the dread R word. Rivalry, after all, doesn't have a pretty past in women's skating, thanks to the thuggery of 1994. (This year, the biggest worry is autograph seekers; top competitors are escorted to the practice rink by security guards.) When asked about Lipinski, Kwan told TIME, "We respect each other, and I don't like to focus on any one name when I compete. She's just like any other competitor." Perhaps, but she was the competitor who mattered in 1997.

Lipinski rocketed through figure skating's triple crown--the Nationals, Champion Series and World Championships--and made time to chat up Letterman and model DKNY Kids clothing on her Website. Chevrolet, Minute Maid and Campbell's soup are only a few of her endorsements, and her agent, Michael Burg, says, "Wherever we go, we see Kwan's people too." It all seems so cutthroat for a girl whose hometown is called Sugar Land, Texas.