Word: kwan
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...During the break, I started thinking about figure skating, where, at the time, Kwan, the Russian Irina Slutskaya, American Sasha Cohen and Hughes stood one through four. Too bad, I mused, that the kids can't jump up in the standings if they really crank one tonight...
...question to my colleague, Alice Park, as we sat at the Delta Center waiting for the final group to skate. "Well," she explained patiently to her skating-challenged friend, "it's because if Hughes skates great and Cohen's behind her then she has to beat Kwan. But if she does that, then Slutskaya has to beat Kwan for Hughes to win, because if Slutskaya is second to Kwan tonight then the short program is brought to bear and so Hughes, even though she beat Kwan, would finish second to Kwan and Slutskaya, who lost to Kwan, would finish behind...
...Sasha had an off night and slipped behind Sarah, fair enough. Then Kwan came a-cropper. Now there was one left, or so I figured...
...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...