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Flawless Kwan wows in short program; Russians lead ice dance
Posted: Friday July 31, 1998 01:40 AM
UNIONDALE, New York (AP) -- By now, Michelle Kwan is so comfortable with Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 that it feels like a part of her. Just in time to discard it for something new. Blending brilliantly with the music one last time Thursday night, she seized the lead with a flawless short program in the Goodwill Games. "I might bring it back in a couple of years," Kwan said, "but that's the last time this year. The best part was the footwork. It was the thing I'll miss the most." Coach Frank Carroll said he's a little sad about surrendering the program that has served Kwan so well this season. "I really think it's special, with special feeling and impact on the audience and judges," he said. So why give it up? "It doesn't permit her to improve," Carroll said. "It's necessary for her development to do something new. It can become stale if you don't move on." Kwan was anything but stale, dazzling the Nassau Coliseum crowd of 5,581 - about one-third capacity - with a brilliant exhibition, skating the program for the ninth time. "It felt really good," she said. "The people were cheering so loud, it was hard to concentrate. I said to myself, `OK, this is the last time I am going to do this, so concentrate,' and I just enjoyed myself, let loose and let it go." Kwan, the Olympic silver medalist and two-time world champion, was the next-to-last skater. She made it worth the wait with a flawless show as one of the headliners of these games, earning a perfect score from one of the judges. The crowd, which included Goodwill Games creator Ted Turner and his wife, Jane Fonda, responded to Kwan's every move, even during warmups. And the 18-year-old gave her fans plenty to cheer about. Kwan dazzled the audience in a performance that counted for one-third of her final mark. The other two-thirds comes in Saturday night's free skate. With longtime rival and Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski gone to the pros and Nicole Bobek withdrawn because of fatigue, Kwan was left as headliner of the Goodwill competition. She did not disappoint. Wearing a red-and-pink sequined outfit, she opened her 2-minute, 40-second program with a triple lutz/double toe loop and flowed effortlessly through the eight required elements, finishing with a spiral sequence and combination spin that left the crowd standing and roaring. They littered the ice with flowers as Kwan skated off. She embraced Carroll after leaving the ice, then watched the scoreboard flash her scores, which included six 5.9s and a perfect 6.0 from the English judge for presentation. Can she skate better? "Of course," Carroll said. On Saturday, she gets a chance to in the long program. European champion Maria Butrskaya of Russia, skating to 'Fever,' was second and Viktoriya Volchkova of Russia, who was celebrating her 16th birthday and skated to Doga's Waltz, was third. Displaying a sense of joy that captured the crowd, the world-champion Russian team of Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov maintained their lead in the dance. With 'Five Months, Two Weeks,' as their music for the original dance, the Olympic silver medalists dashed around the ice with abandon, earning a sweep of 5.9 scores for presentation from the five judges. "We feel great," Krylova said. "We have so much fun skating here. We enjoy the public and they enjoy our show." The performance was worth 30 percent toward their final score following the 20 percent from Wednesday night's compulsory dance. The final 50 percent of the score comes in Saturday night's free dance. Second place belonged to another Russian couple, Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbush, who skated to 'Tuitti Fruitti.' The Ukranian pair of Elena Grushina and Rusian Goncharov, who used 'Rock Around The Clock' as their music, were third. American teen-agers Jessica Joseph and Charles Butler received a rousing reception from the crowd of as they skated to 'Great Balls of Fire,' but remained last among the four pairs. "This is our favorite program," Joseph said. "We love to do it. It's a ton of fun and it seems so short. I wish we could be out there longer."
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