Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260110
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: PHIL HERSH CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: PHOENIX LENGTH: Medium
YAMAGUCHI STILL CAN DOMINATE SKATING
Kristi Yamaguchi, who weighs 90 pounds, still is big enough to dominate figure skating in two places at the same time.The 1992 Olympic champion performed Saturday night in Detroit, where she was the hot attraction of the Stars on Ice show.
She was a simultaneous hot topic in Phoenix, where the women's final at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships looked like Flops on Ice.
Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olympic, world and national champion, could have won in Phoenix with her skates tied together. That, by the way, was how her successor as U.S. champion, Nancy Kerrigan, and the other 17 competitors seemed to be skating in the national meet.
The impressions left by Kerrigan and nearly everyone else were made mainly in the ice by their behinds. U.S. women's skating appears to have bottomed out only one year after Yamaguchi became the first U.S. woman in 16 years to win the Olympic gold medal.
"It was a little hard to sit there watching," Yamaguchi said Sunday from St. Louis, where the tour had moved for its next show.
Yamaguchi, 21, skipped the nationals after deciding in August to concentrate on a professional career for at least one season. She left open the possibility of seeking reinstated eligibility to compete in the 1994 Olympics.
All her recent public utterances had implied she was leaning toward not trying for a second Olympic gold. But that may have changed after what she saw Saturday, when Yamaguchi caught glimpses of the nationals on a backstage TV monitor in Detoit.
"If all the skaters had been perfect and the competition terrific, I would have thought, `This (pro skating) is where I should be,"' Yamaguchi said. "What happened definitely made me think I can go back and make the Olympic team, but I still wouldn't base my decision on what they did at nationals."
Yamaguchi said she would not wait to see the results of the World Championships on March 9-14 before announcing her decision. She must apply for reinstatement by April 1.
The consequences of reinstatement would be a considerable short-term loss of income. The conditions for reinstatement prohibit her from competing in the DuraSoft pro competitions, for which she earned $150,000 last month. The time needed to train for another Olympics would keep her from a full-time ice show commitment, for which she is making an estimated $750,000 this year.
Yamaguchi's advisers and family have expressed concern that a loss in 1994 - unlikely as that seems, given the competition - would permanently damage her reputation.
"No matter how easy it might look for Kristi to win again, it isn't that easy," her coach, Christy Ness, said Sunday from her home in Edmonton.
"I don't think Kristi really sees herself as being the completely dominant skater. But her show programs are better and have more (technical) content than what I saw (via TV) this weekend at nationals. The women didn't seem like they had the fight in them."
Kerrigan fell on a triple lutz, klutzed the landing of a second triple jump and reduced two other planned triples to easy doubles. Since earning the 1992 Olympic bronze and world silver medals, both with flawed performances, she has gone like Wrong Way Kerrigan in two of her three competitions.
Lisa Ervin, 15, finished second by virtue of staying on her feet throughout the four-minute free skate. Tonia Kwiatkowski, 21, placed third in a split decision over 1991 U.S. champion Tonya Harding Gillooly despite one fall and another botched jump.
"I was shocked," Ness said. "I could hardly believe it."
The results cost Harding Gillooly not only a spot in the 1993 world meet but the income she would earn from the Tour of World and Olympic champions. Harding Gillooly and 1991 men's champion Todd Eldredge, who appear in current ads for the upcoming tour, were dropped by promoter Tom Collins after their performances in Phoenix, where Eldredge was sixth.
Either men's champion Scott Davis, who has never been in a world meet, or runner-up Mark Mitchell, who was fifth a year ago, must finish in the top three this year if the United States is to have a full complement of three men's entries at the 1994 Olympics.
Yamaguchi, world champion in 1991, could earn legendary stature by becoming the first U.S. woman to win two Olympic singles titles. That achievement inevitably would lead to favorable comparisons with Sonja Henie, the only three-time Olympic champion, since the 1994 Winter Games are in her homeland of Norway.
"That is definitely an incentive, but I wouldn't want to base my decision on wanting to become a new Sonja Henie," Yamaguchi said.
The old Kristi Yamaguchi would be fine.