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First, though, Lipinski had to survive the short program, a
2-min. 40-sec. contest in which one misstep, one deviation from
the eight required elements can mean instant elimination. Nicole
Bobek, 20, was out in under a minute: she hit the ice during her
first triple Lutz and never recovered, taking with her the talk
of a red-white-and-blue sweep. The world offered up its
best--Russian siren Maria Butyrskaya, China's comeback kid Chen
Lu and French wonder woman Surya Bonaly--but one competitor,
Elena Sokolova, voiced what everyone knew: "It's really between
Tara and Michelle."
At a loss to articulate the mechanics of her whirlwind style,
Lipinski once said, "I just rotate." In a fairy-tale
blue-and-yellow frock, she flew to the Anastasia sound track,
whipping through her triple flip, exploding into a grin that
dwarfed her 80-lb. frame and skating circles around everyone but
Kwan. Then the 17-year-old veteran showed that having soul as
well as legs counts. Kwan drew out the chords of Rachmaninoff's
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor into a smooth legato line as she
flowed, left leg extended, straight toward the panel of judges.
When she emerged from that, the audience and judges had swooned,
and Kwan had gold in her sights. Eight of nine judges placed her
first.
Going into the final 4-min. free skate, the message was clear:
just rotating wouldn't be enough. Could Lipinski rise to Kwan's
level of artistry? A judicial preference for maturity on ice
certainly decided the bronze, claimed by the elegant Chen, 21.
Bonaly, who might have been a contender, knew that judges have
little appreciation for her muscular acrobatics. "The judges
aren't pleased with anything I do anyway," she said. So, in her
long program, she gave the judges figure skating's equivalent of
the finger: an illegal back flip. Take that! It was a mandatory
deduction, relegating her to 10th place.
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