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                                                                                1992 WINTER OLYMPICS, Page 54

Spinning Gold


Japan's queen of the ice will face off in a sublime showdown
with a trio of American women skaters, possibly the best the
U.S. has ever fielded

By MARTHA DUFFY -- With reporting by Barry Hillenbrand/Nagoya
and Ellie McGrath/San Francisco


    Lucky the sport that the camera smiles on. Television's
appetite for photogenic action is insatiable, and pursuits that
were once mere cottage industries of athletics have been
streamlined and glamorized for the diversion of millions of
viewers.

    Take figure skating. It used to be an arcane discipline
that grew out of skating on frozen ponds and swamps, where the
ice was black and people could trace their names -- or
grapevines or Maltese crosses -- on a winter evening. Those
innocent exercises gradually evolved into amateur competitions
in which painfully exacting school figures counted for much of
a skater's score, the rest being determined by the more
spectacular free skating.

    The camera did not like the slow, nearly invisible school
figures, and neither did the skaters who, in the 1980s,
performed them with declining skill and panache. This year,
however, just in time for the Olympics, the sport is reborn with
the banishment of the dreaded set patterns. What is left is an
effortlessly pleasurable sight for the spectator. Don't know a
Lutz from a Salchow? The TV commentators will tell you, or you
can ignore the voice-over and just watch graceful young athletes
interpret the music in wonderfully tricky ways.

    The elimination of school figures, which required years of
concentration to perfect, has revitalized the sport in another
way. Now anyone in the top talent pool can win any given
competition. Says American coach Carol Heiss Jenkins: "It will
be more like tennis -- the winner will be whoever is good on
that day." She should know: her pupil Lisa Ervin, a mere 14
years old, leaped her way into fourth place at last month's U.S.
national championships. Another two points and she would have
been the youngest competitor at Albertville.

    Ervin was competing in the strongest field of U.S. skaters
since 1956, when the Olympic women's team was Tenley Albright,
Heiss (both future gold medalists) and Catherine Machado. This
year's trio could sweep the medals, as they did at last year's
world's championship in Munich. If they do not, the reason will
probably be Japan's Midori Ito, 21. She is 4 ft. 9 in. and built
like a fireplug. But can she fly! At Munich her image was set
indelibly, warts and all, when she took off and whirled,
airborne, into the stands. That was the embarrassing part. Then
she went back out again, her radiant smile lighting up the
arena. Among the Americans, the national champ is Kristi
Yamaguchi, 21, a 5-ft. sprite from Fremont, Calif., known for
her precise, delicate artistry. Runner-up is Nancy Kerrigan, 22,
of Stoneham, Mass., a Kate Hepburn-style beauty whose elegance
carries over into her performing style. Third -- but national
champion in 1991 -- is Tonya Harding, 22, of Portland, Ore., a
bold, natural athlete who pays little attention to nuance, less
to music. Tonya gets out there and jumps.

    These four skaters, by most assessments, will be competing
for just about the most glamorous gold medal in winter sports;
the winner will be the reigning Ice Queen. There is a
temptation among some followers of the sport to see the Olympic
conflict in terms of athleticism (Ito) vs. artistry (Yamaguchi).
This face-off would give Ito the edge. As ex-Olympic champ
Dorothy Hamill puts it, "Kristi is graceful and musical. But
when Midori skates, she has me on the edge of my seat." The
excitement comes from the power of Ito's leaps. No skimming
above the surface -- her jumps pop. She could execute all the
categories at age 11, and had perfected them at 12. As Canadian
choreographer Sandra Bezic says, "She blows away most guys in
the field."

    Ito lives in Nagoya, Japan's fourth largest city, working
with just one coach, Machiko Yamada, and even living with her
since Ito's parents separated 11 years ago. Albertville will be
the culmination of 17 years' work for both women, and they are
planning a program with somewhat more focus on artistry. It is
unlikely, though, that they will try to imitate the lithe and
pretty Yamaguchi. Says Yamada: "I always stress with Midori that
this is a sport."

    Experts agree that Ito has set new jumping standards in
the sport. Dick Button, a TV commentator and former Olympic
winner, marvels at an Ito special: a triple Axel followed
directly by a camel spin. Says he: "What's amazing is that she
lands the jump at tremendous speed, arrests the forward motion
and creates a rotation." Inevitably, others are catching up.
Says Ito wistfully: "I cannot make a mistake because people not
quite so good as I am can win since they have some higher
artistry." It may not say so in the rule book, but smiles do
have a way of counting, and Midori Ito has set some standards
in that department too.

    Tonya Harding has not been as consistent a performer as
Ito, but they have a lot in common: ice is native ground to
both, and they take to it without fear. Harding's story is a
rare one: she is a scrappy kid from the wrong side of the
tracks who has had to battle herself, her family and the high
price of skating mastery to become an international performer.

    Figure skating is not really a rich man's sport. Most
families of successful competitors have had to make sacrifices
and seek outside help. But skaters usually have backgrounds more
stable than Harding's. Her father, a laborer, was her mother's
fourth husband; there have been two more since. A coach took
over in Tonya's teen years, but the girl rebelled and entered
what has been an off-again on-again marriage. That alone makes
her unusual. So deep is their dedication that many female
competitors could be called the Skating Nuns. A married Ice
Queen is a very rare creature indeed.

    At last month's U.S. national championships in Orlando,
Fla., Harding was several pounds overweight, and she sustained
an ankle injury in practice. But with typical grit she stuck to
her program, which includes a triple Axel, a 3 1/2-revolution
trap of a jump that only Ito and she have landed in
competition. In the short program she fell. In the long program,
she tumbled again and lost any chance of catching Kerrigan. Was
she foolhardy to try? Maybe, but she gave notice that, win or
lose, she means business.

    Triples are now the yardstick of the sport. They range in
difficulty from the toe loop and Salchow, through the loop, flip
and Lutz to the Axel, the ultimate challenge. Senior male
competitors do triples routinely, but they are very tough for
women who lack sufficient strength. One difference between
watching on TV and seeing a competition is that at rinkside,
spectators see all 20-odd contenders, not just the top handful.
Among the lower rankings the number of falls is shocking.
"There's a big element of risk," says Don Laws, who coached
Scott Hamilton and knows that you cannot hold back and win.
"They're not out there doing 60% in a polished way. They're
doing 100% of their capability, and it's not quite under their
belts."

    Of all the top ladies, Nancy Kerrigan is the closest to
having a cult. Purists love her. She does graceful jumps,
finishing them with an open, ample spread of her arms. She
doesn't have a triple Axel and doesn't jar judges or spectators
by trying one. She just skates as if annealed to the music. In
some respects she is a throwback to Peggy Fleming, who gave the
impression that she would skate with exactly the same purity if
she were alone on a pond. To Kerrigan, the great advantage of
her elevated status is that she usually gets to practice on an
empty rink. "You can get artsy and try things out," she says.
"Maybe what you really want is to show the music off." Spoken
like an artist.


    Kristi Yamaguchi