Skating on Thin Ice

I know this is a little after the fact, but I can’t believe that the US Figure Skating’s International Committee choose Michelle Kwan for the Olympic Team, bumping off Emily Hughes. Well, let me restate that: yes I can believe they choose her, but I don’t think that they should have.

All throughout the coverage of the Nationals, commentator Dick Button went on and on about how the committee “had” to pick Kwan, because of what she’s meant to the sport. And while I agree that Kwan has been at the pinnacle of US Ladies Figure Skating for quite a long time, she is just not there right now. We’ve scant evidence that she will be able to perform in a few weeks in Turin, the approval of the “monitoring panel” notwithstanding. I’d like to believe that this panel will be fair, but the trend in US Figure Skating over the last several years is to anoint Kwan the champion before she even skates out onto the ice. The last time we’ve seen Kwan skate was at 2005 World Championships, where she came in fourth. Since then, she’s had hip and groin injuries that have kept her from doing triple jumps. In fact, this recent groin injury has kept her from jumping at all until just after the Nationals.

Granted, Emily Hughes might not be able to get the job done, either. She is young and inexperienced, essentially a rookie on the senior level. And her long program was not stellar, including missteps and mistakes. But, Hughes competed this year, where Kwan did not. We know what Hughes has done in the past twelve months. We don’t know what Kwan has done in the past twelve months. And, quite frankly (and as much as it pains me to say it, since I really do admire Kwan), Kwan has choked at the Olympics twice before. Yes, of course she is a two-time medallist, and that is a great accomplishment. But when all the hype leading up to those previous Games was “it’s time for Michelle to receive her Olympic accolades,” well, it is hard to see her silver and bronze medals as anything but a let-down.

Michelle Kwan finished fourth at last year’s Worlds, behind the two women regarded as her biggest rivals in Turin: Irina Slutskaya and Sasha Cohen. Over this past year, we have seen both Slutskaya and Cohen skate well. We’ve seen Hughes surpass some observers’ expectations. However, we’ve seen Kwan skate in one event – the Marshall's US Figure Skating Challenge, an exhibition judged by fans, not judges, where Kwan managed only double jumps.

Is this really the skater we want to put on our Olympic Team?