Home

Chen won bronze and poetic redemption

Chen chose a wiser route, showcasing her musical sophistication. Her 1994 bronze-medal performance, China's first in Olympic figure skating, had tarnished too quickly. Saddled with an authoritarian coach, she fell out with Beijing and in 1996 was summarily summoned back from training in Los Angeles. She gained weight and lost her balance--tumbling to a humiliating 25th place at the World Championships last year. "It was really hard," she recalls. "My heart was broken." Then, inspired by a new coach, she rallied and qualified--barely--for the Olympics. That was all forgotten when, resplendent in a gauzy plum outfit, she skated to Butterfly Lovers, a Chinese Romeo-meets-Juliet tale of tragedy and redemption. Except for a step out of her triple flip, she skated cleanly--and crumpled to the ice in tears at her own redemption. Another bronze, two for two.

In the last group of six skaters, Kwan drew the first position, often considered a disadvantage because judges tend to be reticent about giving the highest marks right away in case later competitors perform better. William Alwyn's Lyra Angelica, the score that inspired her radiant performance at the nationals last month, failed to work the same magic. Perfection is never easy to repeat, especially in a sport decided by a whisper-thin blade and the mood of nine judges. The fluidity and the grace were there, but Kwan never really left the ice, skating without her usual speed. "In Philadelphia, I was more free and flying," she said. "Tonight I didn't let go." Her coach, Frank Carroll, agreed: "I just didn't think that spark was there." She wept uncontrollably after her final pose, sobbing "Oh, my God, oh, my God," as she found a measure of release. But her earlier restraint and a minor glitch on the triple flip left the throne in question.

Lipinski didn't give the judges time to think. In her signature triple-loop, triple-loop combination, she launched herself off the back edge of her skate, shot through three revolutions in less than a second, landed on the same outside edge, and then did it all over again. No one could touch those pyrotechnics, and her interpretation of the sound track from the movie The Rainbow scored marks as high as 5.9. "When you're 15, you're filled with changes, and sometimes she's a child and sometimes she's a woman," said her choreographer, Sandra Bezic. Lipinski had to keep the child at bay to challenge Kwan's musicality, and she did. That is, until the music stopped, whereupon she ran across the ice and pumped her fists in the air before taking her bow. When six judges placed her first, she squealed and leaped into the air. She had it, the medal to match her gold metallic nails.

America's gold-silver knockout, its first since the 1956 one-two scored by Tenley Albright and Carol Heiss, proved only that champions are formed in the most variable of circumstances. Lipinski and Kwan stuck to completely different schedules at Nagano, setting off rampant speculation about whose off-ice routine would triumph. Journalists handicapped the event in favor of Lipinski because she was so carefree and relaxed. She was all over the Olympic village, taking to dorm life faster than a pre-frosh. She celebrated Picabo Street's super-G win ("Isn't it neat!"), updated her Website at Surf Shack (one entry of Tara's Diary had six exclamation points in 11 sentences) and made stickers on the day of the finals. "I know when to relax," she said. "You don't just come here to skate, you come here to have fun too." She had seen the pressure undo her training pal, Todd Eldredge, at the men's finals. "She has her day structured," said her coach Richard Callaghan. "She is a giddy teenager between some hours, and she's a hard worker in other hours." And just in case that doesn't work, Lipinski prays. She wears the likeness of St. Therese of Lisieux around her neck and says a novena before competitions.