Word: kwan
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Skating after an American at an Olympics in the U.S. cannot be the most confidence-boosting experience, especially for a skater from Russia. "Oh, it was so hard to skate after Michelle [Kwan]," said Irina Slutskaya, a favorite in ladies' figure skating. Dodging the love tokens strewn on the ice from Kwan's fans was the least of Slutskaya's worries. Because of the skate order, the 23-year-old Muscovite's performance would determine whether Kwan or Sarah Hughes glided away with gold. If Slutskaya finished ahead of Kwan in the long program, Hughes would win; if she finished...
...charges toward the finish, hoping to hold on. Meantime, the Games' marquee event, women's figure skating, is well underway. The usual suspects - Irina Slutskaya of Russia and American teenagers Sasha Cohen and Sarah Hughes - are already placed 1-2-3 as the elegant 21-year-old veteran Michelle Kwan skates to center ice to begin her short program...
...When the ice chips settle all over town, Bakken and Flowers have upset the mighty Germans and set off a frenzy at Olympic Park, Parra has broken the world record and Kwan has spun and jumped flawlessly. More significantly, Flowers has become the first black athlete to win a gold medal in the Winter Games. She is joined in success on this magical night by Bakken, a former soccer player at Oregon State who was one of many U.S. National Guardsmen in attendance in Salt Lake last week; Parra, a Mexican American who had learned to skate on rollers...
...figured wrongly. Figure-skate judging had learned nothing in the last week and two judges had placed Hughes's performance this evening below both Kwan's and Cohen's. Incomprehensible. Outrageous! Moreover, the entire Russian Olympic team was threatening to pull out of the Games this very evening. They'd been hard done because some cross-country skier had tested positive and Wednesday's hockey game was called too closely and there was still that thing with the Canadian pairs and, well, they were in fifth place overall and someone had to answer to Putin. (Or so speculated a Russian...
...justice done? It wasn't, not really. Believe it or not, four judges placed Slutskaya's extremely mediocre performance Number One for the night. Five gave that honor to Hughes's stellar one, thank goodness. Slutskaya did, thus, beat Kwan, which allowed Hughes to get her due. It was a very, very, very, very near thing. It was quite close to crummy. We very nearly had Salt Lake's Skategate...