The queen is very much alive, thank you.
In fact, Michelle Kwan seemed more animated than ever, before, during and after she skated to a convincing victory in the short program Thursday night at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
“It depends on the mood I’m in,” Kwan said. “I was in a zone.”
Kwan goofed with a couple of young fans who were screaming “Michelle!” as her warmup period ended, asking them to tone it done with a finger across her smiling lips. She sped around the rink during 2 minutes 40 seconds of skating to Near Eastern music synthesized by Peter Gabriel, with a combination spin faster than any she has done in several years.
And waiting for marks she knew would be good–a low of 5.7 to five of 5.9–Kwan laughed and grinned and gestured happily at Scott Williams, who became her coach this season.
“It was adrenaline,” Kwan said. “You can feel your heart beat. It felt like it was in my mouth. I guess it’s a love-hate relationship with competition, the turmoil it gives you, the satisfaction it gives you.”
Her rivals, Olympic champion Sarah Hughes, 17, and the ever-prodigal Sasha Cohen, 18, wound up hopelessly overmatched in this opening phase of a championship that ends with Saturday’s long program. If Kwan, 22, skates as well again, neither Hughes nor Cohen likely can prevent her from being the first woman to win six straight U.S. titles since Gretchen Merrill in 1948.
“Michelle is a great competitor,” Hughes said. “I’ve admired her since I was 10.”
Cohen wound up second despite a sloppy jump combination that included a two-footed landing. Hughes was simply lackluster, skating like someone who had missed the entire fall Grand Prix season with a leg injury and had no serious competition since February’s Olympics.
“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Hughes said. “It was very difficult for me to compete tonight. I felt wobbly.”
Hughes had sloppy landings on two jumps, poor leg extension on her spirals and seemed to be struggling throughout. Cohen recovered from her poor start to finish with the flair that marks her spins and footwork.
The women’s short program had several compelling performances, including that of Yebin Mok, fifth with a dazzling interpretation of Saint-Saens’ “Swan.”
The men’s short program was the warmup act. Only Johnny Weir rose above in a moment he’d awaited the last two years.
(The headline as published has been corrected in this text.)
“I thought my time started when I won the (2001) world juniors,” Weir said. “But to come here and do such a strong program after all the troubles (injury and illness) I’ve had, now it’s definitely my time.”
With the most polished performance if not the most difficult short program, Weir found himself in second place behind favorite Timothy Goebel but ahead of two-time U.S. champion Michael Weiss.
Weiss did not take his fourth-place finish well, even though he made two significant mistakes. He had a two-footed landing on a quadruple jump and utterly botched his triple axel.
“I thought that should have been good enough for second place,” Weiss said. “What the other guys were doing is what we were doing in juniors.”
Neither Weir not Matt Savoie, who was third, attempted a quadruple jump. Goebel had the only successful quad of the four men who tried them.
