Word: medalists
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...longtime, supportive pal, 1992 Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie, agrees: "It helps that she knows the whole country is behind her." She has only to enter her family's home in Stoneham, Massachusetts, for reassurance. The dining room is filled with tubs of unopened mail. Her close family has always been her mainstay, the lump of gold Harding never had. But the struggle to vault their daughter to the top has been tough on the Kerrigans; father Dan is a welder, mother Brenda is legally blind. When Nancy began lessons, the family thought she might follow the path...
...strengthen the upper body. Finally, there are ballet or jazz classes. Scott Davis, 21, rebelled against these extra lessons until his Colorado Springs-based coach, Kathy Casey, told him to pack his bags and head back home to Montana. He surrendered, and is now a two-time U.S. gold medalist...
...either Kerrigan or Harding does not skate for the U.S. Olympic team, the alternate is Michelle Kwan, only 13. As gold medalist and TV commentator Dick Button observes, she is already "beautifully put together," and she is equally adept at putting together her life. When her coach, Frank Carroll, advised her to spend another year maturing in the junior division, she waited until he went away for a few days, and successfully applied for senior status by herself. Placing second in the Nationals in Detroit two weeks ago was a triumph. On the ice she shows the kind of bravura...
...says, "especially in an Olympic year." Button is skeptical of the demands made by the three-month-long, 59-city Tom Collins tour (April 11 to July 12), but in fact this is the ambition of every first-class competitive skater. Collins, the impresario, picks mostly Olympic and national medalists, along with some other favorites, and he treats them well: good hotels, flights rather than bus hops for distances of more than 200 miles and, best of all, good money. The pay varies - reportedly $5,000 for an Olympic bronze winner, ascending to $15,000 a gig for a gold...
...with these money trees to be shaken, why are major professionals like Boitano (gold medalist in 1984) and Britain's Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (also 1984 winners, in dance) returning to the upcoming Olympics? After all, their show-biz routines are smooth and easy, very scant on triple jumps. Possibly it all goes back to those patches; the new rules have reopened the doors to onetime champions who let their mastery of school figures lapse long ago. But they may feel nostalgia for the old discipline, for the satisfaction of finding, in devotion and repetition, the perfect triple jump...