The figure skating drama never ends
Once again, Michelle Kwan finds her Olympic hopes slipping away, but not without an episode of the reality drama that is so characteristic of figure skating

	By NIKOLINA HATTON

If you watch network television, I predict you’ll hear the Star Spangled Banner in the next few days, and if you watch NBC Primetime, expect to be seeing a whole lot of Bob Costas (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

What do these predictions mean? Well, I don’t know what sort of person it takes to pay attention to this sort of thing, but in case you haven’t noticed, the XX Winter Olympic Games start today; the opening ceremony will be aired on NBC tonight at 8.

Now, if you watch the opening ceremony and think, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” that is fine, just don’t approach the entire games like that. There will be plenty of real sportsmanship, and good clean competition, despite their designer uniforms. And even if you’re not into sports, you have to watch at least some of the coverage to hear the executive card sponsor’s new slogan, “Life takes Visa,” which they’ll surely shove down our throats.

But considering this is the Winter Olympics, and the sports are things like skiing, figure skating, bobsledding, ice hockey, and speed skating, it’s a sure thing that one of the biggest reality soap operas will happen on the ice skating rink, so among other things, here are a few things a diehard American figure skating fan is telling you to expect over the next 17 days:

“Kwan…Cohen…Kwan…Cohen…Kerrigan…Harding…Pelletier….”

Here’s the lowdown: Michelle Kwan, five time world champion and nine-time national champion, hasn’t been doing too well athletically lately. She had to pull out of the Olympic trials because of a groin injury, but because of a rules loophole and considering who she is, she was given extra time and an almost private performance to prove she would be fit to compete in Turin. Her space on the Olympic team is at the expense of Emily Hughes, who finished third at the trials.

But this goes back a lot further-even to Tonya Harding, Portland’s exiled daughter. Kwan was bumped out of her first Olympics in 1994 for Nancy Kerrigan, who had received an injury from being beat up by Harding’s henchman, and as it turned out, Harding still competed, and Kwan watched.

So now she has come full circle, but still perhaps, not enough. It appears that though Kwan has made it, she may still not be fit enough for the gold medal, and that’s where Sasha Cohen, who has been in Kwan’s shadow with four national silver medals, comes in. With Kwan in less than perfect form, the 21-year-old Cohen may be the United States’ real gold medal contender.

Beyond this, there is the new point system brought on by an incident at the last Olympics when pair skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier became the victims of a Russian scandal to fix the competition and were awarded silver behind the Russian pairs who received gold. In the end, the Canadians were awarded a second pair of gold medals, and as a result, the scoring system was completely redone and is now based upon cumulated points instead of averaged “marks.”

But none of this is a surprise-it’s figure skating, the gymnastics of the Winter Olympics.
As for this fanatic, I’m a Cohen fan, and, though it would be touching to see Kwan finally win her elusive gold medal, I’ll be cool with Cohen finally getting the gold medal of her career (but I suppose I should be sorry, because they always go pro after becoming the champion of the world…).

Three San Francisco Chronicle articles and a Washington Post article were consulted for this column.