Kwan wins world pro skating title

WASHINGTON— Put the words world championship on an event and Michelle Kwan will win it. So will Alexei Yagudin.

Kwan and Yagudin, the 1998 world winners on the Olympic-eligible level, added the World Professional Figure Skating Championships title Saturday night. Kwan, of Torrance, Calif., did it a bit more emphatically — with five perfect marks.

Although she’s still an eligible skater, Kwan took advantage of a rules change by the International Skating Union that sanctioned 10 open competitions this year. On Saturday, she easily won the most prestigious of those events, becoming at 18 the youngest world pro champion.

“It was one of my best performances,” said Kwan, who has had so many already at her tender age. “When I skated, it was magical.”

Skating majestically and maturely to “East of Eden,” Kwan was greeted with a warm, loud ovation after nailing every element of her artistic program. The judges were just as impressed as the crowd at the MCI Center, particularly Germany’s Sissy Krick, who gave Kwan 6.0s for skating technique and for presentation.

She also received 6.0s from the American and Australian judges for presentation and one from the Italian for technique.

“I didn’t expect much from this competition coming in,” said Kwan, the two-time national and world champion on the eligible level. “Tonight, I felt really on. I enjoyed myself. I felt very confident when I stepped on the ice.”

Russia’s Yagudin, also 18, got no perfect marks. He didn’t even win the artistic program, which went to three-time defending champion Kurt Browning of Canada, who had the crowd in an uproar with a hilarious clown routine that received four perfect marks.

But Yagudin was second in the artistic event, worth 50 percent of the total score. Combined with winning the technical program the previous night, he wound up first, ahead of Browning, Todd Eldredge and Rudy Galindo.

Browning wore a happy-sad face, in keeping with his character.

“These pro titles mean a lot to me,” Browning said. “When I became champion, it meant almost as much as the (Olympic-eligible) world championships. This is the one I hold in my heart every year.”

While Saturday’s program wasn’t as significant for Kwan — her routine for the technical program on Friday night, to “Lamento d’Ariane,” will serve as a free skate for the U.S. championships in February and the ISU’s world championships in March — it was particularly noteworthy for its unpretentious beauty.

Even Kwan sensed that she was sharing something special with the crowd.

“I felt really connected to the audience,” she said. “This time they were with me and it felt different than any other performances.”

Japan’s Yuka Sato, winner of this event in 1996, finished second, followed by Nicole Bobek, who has steadied herself after an horrendous performance in the Nagano Olympics, in which she was 17th.

Sato had the misfortune of skating directly after Kwan.

“It really wasn’t easy for me tonight going right out after Michelle’s performance,” she admitted.

“The whole atmosphere, and the crowd going crazy and, on top of that to hear the 6.0s. I put myself right back in the (Olympic-eligible) world championships in the last group and I was not really used to it. I was shaking.”

But she shook it off to move up from third, even though Bobek was scintillating while skating to “I Will Survive,” “Natural Woman” and “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”

“I’ve done that program a million times, on tour for three months,” she said. “It was just attack. I would rather go for it and pop a jump.”

China’s Lu Chen was fourth, followed by the only Olympic champions in the women’s field, Katarina Witt (1984-88) and Oksana Baiul (1994).

Maya Usova and Yevgeny Platov won the dance, edging five-time U.S. champs Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow. Platov won the last two Olympics with Pasha Grischuk, who now skates with Alexander Zhulin — Usova’s former husband and partner — and wound up third.

The winners received two 6.0s for presentation.

“I am so happy to get that mark, 6.0, from an ISU judge,” said Usova, who has been skating professionally since 1994.

Olympic champions Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev won the pairs, sweeping the judges with their playful “Sad Waltz.”

Associated Press