COMPULSORY TITLE GOES TO SZMURLO

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 1993                   TAG: 9301200182
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-11   EDITION: STATE  
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
COMPULSORY TITLE GOES TO SZMURLO
Kelly Ann Szmurlo has dominated American figure skating, with the emphasis on figure. So why hasn't she drawn much attention?
Szmurlo, of Franklin, Wis., won her third straight compulsory figures title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Phoenix. Her event, held separately from the free skating competition so familiar to the public, has existed for just three years.
Yet Szmurlo, 24, doesn't get the acclaim that Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding Gillooly receive for their triple jumps and sizzling spins. She is done before the rest of the senior competition begins.
"I don't feel as slighted as much as two years ago," said Szmurlo, 24, who finished in the top 10 three times in her four appearances in the senior division before 1991, when compulsory figures became a separate event. She was sixth overall in 1989, did not compete in 1990, then switched to compulsory figures eights and loops.
"I think as each year goes, the attitude has changed. The first year, it was so new, they didn't know how top hold an event separately from the competition.
"There has to be a distinction between the free skating champion and the figures champion. But I don't think it should be looked down on because it has been eliminated . . . I'm not looked down on that I'm just the figures champion."
Memo: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB