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Inside the Olympic Sports
Updated: Tuesday March 27, 2001 12:54 PM Glittering performances lit up the World Figure Skating Championships By E.M. Swift Certainly that was the case last Saturday night, as Michelle Kwan became the first to win back-to-back ladies' championships since Kristi Yamaguchi did it in 1991 and '92. The U.S. champion was utterly Kwanlike -- elegant, confident, smooth -- but it was her flawless triple toe, triple toe combination that allowed her to edge her nemesis, Russia's Irina Slutskaya, who'd beaten Kwan three times in the previous 13 months. In winning her fourth world title in six years, Kwan earned a psychologically important victory, since the last four ladies' Olympic gold medalists have gone into the Games as the reigning world champion. "I was gutsy," Kwan said. "I did everything I planned. No backing up, adding things, subtracting things. I just let myself go."
As for Slutskaya -- who has now finished second three times at worlds without a championship -- all she did was become the first woman to land a triple Salchow, triple loop, double toe loop combination in competition, a three-jump sequence of such technical difficulty that a collective gasp filled the building when she landed it. She botched a second three-jump combination, though, a misstep that probably cost her the crown. It was another Russian, 18-year-old Evgeny Plushenko, who gave the performance of these championships, however, capping a breakthrough year with a skate so nearly perfect that the knowledgeable crowd booed when the judges failed to award him any 6.0s. The spidery-armed Plushenko, who has dominated men's skating this season with $227,000 in International Skating Union prize money, landed his trademark quadruple toe loop, triple toe loop, double loop combination early in his program, and then built on the moment to whip the fans into a frenzy with more moves than an acre of snakes. He camped it up with his shaggy hair and gold lamé gloves and tango moves, but there is a quality to Plushenko's skating that goes beyond show. So flexible that he's the only man who can perform a Biellmann spin (in which the skater reaches back and holds his foot behind his head) with either leg, Plushenko is pushing men's skating to places it has never been. "Today was my best skate," he said. "It's been my dream to be world champion since I was four years old. I'm so happy." Nearly as tickled was 29-year-old Todd Eldredge of the U.S., who returned to Olympic-style competition after more than two years of touring and finished third, becoming the oldest man in 70 years to earn a medal at the world championships. He, too, brought the crowd to its feet each time he finished one of his spectacular spins, but without a quadruple jump Eldredge has little hope of beating Plushenko or three-time world champion Alexei Yagudin, who finished second. Yagudin was hobbled by a sore right foot in Vancouver, though he had been healthy when he lost to Plushenko three times earlier this season, and he'll be the underdog against his countryman and former training partner in Salt Lake City. "Evgeny improved a lot this year in his jumps, his technique and his presentation," Yagudin said. "I knew it would be hard to be first again." Perhaps ever again, if Plushenko continues to skate as he did last week. Issue date: April 2, 2001
For more Inside Olympic Sports see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, March 28. Click here to subscribe to SI.
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