Venue How It Works 1994 Golds Critical Moment How It Works

History Glossary Schedule U.S. Outlook

Others to Watch Looking Back at Lillehammer Medalists Trivia

Venues: The smooth, soft contours of "White Ring," named for the shape of its roof, were designed to symbolize the beauty and grace of figure skating. On the inside, bright lights encircle the roof while the cozy elliptical arena is ringed by spectator seating. During the first 10 days of the Olympics, the arena will see figure skating competitions for the pairs, men and dance. During the final five days, ladies figure skating will share time with short-track speedskating. In the 1600s, legend has it, two famous samurai warlords fought a series of brutal conflicts for supremacy of the Nagano region. They met in hand-to-hand combat just four kilometers from the venue.

1994 Golds: Alexei Urmanov of Russia (men's); Oksana Baiul of the Ukraine (women's); Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov of Russia (pairs); Oksana Gritshuk and Yevgeny Platov of Russia (ice dancing).

Critical Moment: Considered the most difficult jump to perform, the Axel is sought by skaters and regarded by judges. A clean triple Axel has been landed by only two women in competition; a quadruple has yet to be, by man or woman.

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1. Starts off in a forward direction.
2. Leg swings past body in a kicking motion for lift, rotation.
3. Springing into the air, the skater turns 1½ times for a single Axel.
4. Landing is backward.

How It Works: There are four divisions in Olympic figure skating: women's and men's singles, pairs and ice dancing. Each is a combination of related basic skills and techniques with differing rules and guidelines. At Nagano, the U.S. team will have three slots for women's singles and two for men's singles, and two slots for pairs and ice dancing. Olympic slots for competing countries were determined by their finishes in the 1997 world championships.

Rules: The singles and pair events each have two parts, the short program and the free skate. In the short program (which used to be called called the original or technical program), the skaters must execute eight required elements (jumps, spins and footwork sequences); there are mandatory deductions for failures, and skaters are not permitted to retry missed elements or insert extra elements. In the free skate, there are no required elements, and falling or omitting elements counts against the skater only as far as it reduces the overall difficulty of the program, or if it disrupts the program's overall flow.

Skaters get two marks. The technical mark (for required elements or technical merit) is supposed to reflect the difficulty of the program and the clean execution of the elements. The presentation mark is supposed to reflect the choreography, flow and balance of the program, the ability of the skaters to interpret their chosen music and other factors such as making good use of the ice surface, skating with speed, sureness and effortless carriage and unison for pair skaters.

The two marks from each judge are added together and used to assign skaters comparative rankings, called ordinals. (In the case of ties, the technical mark has more weight in the short program, and the presentation mark in the free skate.) If you think of the judges marks for a particular skater as forming a row of the scoring sheet, the ordinals are computed by looking at the columns; each judge's ordinals are assigned independently of the other judges.

Then the ordinals from each judge are combined to determine the overall placements; the skater with the majority of first-place votes places first, etc. There is a complicated procedure for breaking ties and determining placements when no skater has a majority of votes.

The placements from each part of the competition are multiplied by a weighting factor, and then added together to get the final placements in the competition. The factor for the short program is 0.5, and the factor for the free skate is 1.0.

Scoring for ice dancing is similar, except that skaters do two compulsory dances selected from a set that rotates yearly and an original dance to a rhythm that also changes each year as well as a free dance. The weighting factors are .2 for each compulsory dance, .6 for original dance, and 1.0 for the free dance.

History: Figure skating can trace its origins to Jackson Haines, an American who is credited with adding elements of ballet and music to the sport. A master of ballet, Haines found little American interest in his art after the Civil War and moved to Vienna in 1863, and began teaching ballet movements to skaters and setting their figures to music. Haines also was the first to construct a one-piece boot and blade, allowing greater freedom of movement. Still, it was not until the first decade of the 20th century that the "international" style was accepted in the United States.

One of those influenced by Haines was Louis Rubenstein, one of the first to recognize the need for organization in a sport that had largely existed as an informal collection of skating clubs. In the late 1880s, Rubenstein was the force behind the formation of the Amateur Skating Association of Canada, now known as the Canadian Figure Skating Association, as well as the National Amateur Skating Association of the United States and the International Skating Union of America, both of which were forerunners to the United States Figure Skating Association.

While Rubenstein laid the groundwork for a future governing body, it was George H. Browne and Irving Brokaw of Cambridge, Mass., who staged the first U.S. championship in the new international style.

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The United States has produced a long string of female figure skaters who set new standards for the sport. Tenley Albright of Newton Center, Mass., fell during training two weeks before the 1956 Games and badly cut her ankle. Her father, a surgeon, stitched her up and she won the gold. Carol Heiss won the silver in 1956 and filled Albright's vacated title in 1960.

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In Calgary in 1988, Witt held off American Debi Thomas, known for her treacherous triple Salchow/double toe loop combination, in one of the most eagerly anticipated confrontations in Olympic history. Both Witt and Thomas skated to Bizet's "Carmen," but Witt's rendition left the Saddledome crowd unmoved and the judges had allowed plenty of room for Thomas, who skated last. Twenty seconds into her program, however, Thomas two-footed a landing on a triple-triple combination and began to unravel. Her performance was enough to drop her to third place behind Canada's Liz Manley.

Albertville's competition had been billed as a showdown between the athleticism of Japan's Midori Ito vs. the atistry of Kristi Yamaguchi of the United States. Ito was the favorite but fell while trying a triple Lutz during her short program. Yamaguchi had a near-perfect short program and raised the prospect of a sweep by the Americans, as they had at the 1991 World Championships. In the long program, though, all six of the top competitors fell. Ito fell attempting an early triple Axel, but landed her second try. Yamaguchi made two mistakes, falling on a triple loop and scaling down a planned triple Salchow. Both Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding had shaky programs, too, allowing Ito back into the medal picture. In the end, it was Yamaguchi with gold, Ito with silver and Kerrigan with bronze. Harding finished fourth.

The men's category has provided quite a few multiple winners, including Gillis Grafstroem of Sweden (1920, 1924 and 1928), Karl Schaefer of

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Button, who initiated a number of jumps with his athletic style (double Axel, triple loop, Button camel and three consecutive double toe loops), was succeeded in 1956 by Hayes Alan Jenkins and in 1960 by Hayes Alan's brother, David Jenkins. The United States swept all three medals in 1956, with David Jenkins earning a bronze and Ronald Robertson taking the silver.

In the aftermath of the '61 plane crash, no American male won Olympic gold and only one placed as high as second. That dry spell ended in 1984, when Scott Hamilton fought off an ear infection to win. Four years later, in Calgary, Brian Boitano skated flawlessly, a rarity for the Olympics. Canada's Kurt Browning entered the Albertville Games as three-time world champion, but a back injury opened the door for his longtime rival, Viktor Petrenko of the Unified team. Paul Wylie, thought by many to be the third best American in Albertville, won the silver medal.

Soviets have dominated the pairs and ice dancing events in recent Games. No Soviet had ever won a figure skating medal until Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov finished first in the pairs at Innsbruck in 1964. They went on to win again in 1968, then turned the crown over to Irina Rodnina, who won in 1972, 1976 and 1980, although with different partners. Yelena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev extended the Soviets' winning streak in pairs to six with a gold in Sarajevo, beating Kitty and Peter Carruthers of the United States, whose silver medal was America's first pairs medal since the Carruthers' coach Ron Ludington and his wife Nancy earned a bronze in 1960. The Soviets won their seventh consecutive pairs gold in Calgary, where Yekaterina Gordeyeva, only 16, and her partner, Sergei Grinkov, easily defeated Valova and Vasiliev, the defending champs. In Albertville, the innovative lifts, spins and death spirals and elegant style of Natalia Mishkutenok and Artur Dmitriev beat out another former pair from the Unified team, Yelena Bechke and Denis Petrov.

Ice dancing, which relies on precise footwork, coordination and creative flair, was added to the Winter Olympics in 1976, but was brought to life in Sarajevo by Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Great Britain, whose interpretation of Ravel's "Balero" on Valentine's Day, 1984, was so inspired that all nine judges rewarded them with perfect 6.0s for artistic impression. Natalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin won for the Soviet Union in 1988, and the Unified Team's Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko won the gold in Albertville in a performance that ended with a classic mid-ice kiss.

Glossary: Terms common in figure skating:

Axel: One of the most difficult jumps and the only one taken from a forward position. The skater glides forward on one foot, takes off from the forward outside edge and lands on the back outside edge of the opposite foot. A single Axel consists of 1½ revolutions, a double is 2½ revolutions, and a triple is 3½ revolutions. Named for Axel Paulsen, its inventor.

U.S. Outlook: U.S. figure skating, which netted only one medal in Lillehammer, proved it was back in a big way last season. Both Todd Eldredge and Tara Lipinski earned gold medals at the world championships in Edmonton, giving the United States two titles for the first time since 1986, when Debi Thomas and Brian Boitano completed the double.

For Eldredge, the championship was the most significant chapter in his remarkable comeback. In 1991, Eldredge won his second consecutive national title and earned a bronze at the world championships. Not even 20, he was tabbed by many as the sport's next great star. But for the next four years, Eldredge's career went backward. Plagued by back problems, he could do no better than 10th at the Albertville Olympics, didn't qualify for Lillehammer, and even quit the sport for a few months.

"I had hit rock bottom," Eldredge said.

All that changed in 1995, when Eldredge made a triumphant return to the world stage with a surprising silver medal at the world championships.

"It definitely means a lot more to me with what I've gone through," Eldredge said.

The United States has its strongest contingent in years in the women's singles, the showcase event of the Games. Lipinski and Michelle Kwan finished one-two at the 1997 World Championships.

Among the men, Michael Weiss of Fairfax gives the United States a solid No. 2 skater for Nagano. Weiss, runner-up to Eldredge at the 1998 U.S. championships, finished seventh at the worlds.

U.S. pairs champions Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen and runners-up Jenni Meno and Todd Sand will have tough going in Nagano. Ina and Dungjen were fourth at the world championships, just ahead of Meno and Sand, who had won three consecutive U.S. titles before this year.

The top U.S. team in ice dancing is Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow, who this year won their fourth U.S title and were sixth at the world championships, their career best.

Others to Watch: The top challenges to Lipinski and Kwan will come from Russia's Irina Slutskaya, the 1995 and '96 European champion, and Olympic veteran Chen Lu of China, the bronze medalist at Lillehammer in 1994 who was second at the 1996 World Championships.

Canada's Elvis Stojko, the 1997 world champion, is considered the favorite for the gold over Eldredge, primarily on the strength of his combination of a triple jump followed by a quadruple jump. No other skater has attempted such a move.

Defending Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov is struggling to come back from a serious groin injury in time to compete in the Russian nationals in early January.

Russians Marina Eltsova and Andrei Bushkov took the European pairs title over Mandy Woetzel and Ingo Steuer of Germany and are aiming to continue a Russian/Soviet dominance in Olympic pairs that has swept the past nine gold medalists.

Russians also are favored in the dance competition. Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov, the 1994 gold medalists, won their fourth consecutive world championship in 1997. Other top contenders are Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Osiannikov of Russia and Shea-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz of Canada.

Looking Back at Lillehammer: It was no surprise when the showdown between Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, who turned the Olympics into a ghoulish sideshow for two months, ended in yet another controversy.

Kerrigan had made a quick recovery from an assault at the 1994 national championships 50 days before the Olympics that had damaged her knee and forced her to miss the competition. Harding, whose ex-husband confessed to planning and executing the attack, had to sue in order to compete in Hamar, where, in the finals, she missed her first jump, then skated weeping to the scorer's bench, hoisted a skate on the rink wall and convinced judges that she had broken a lace and deserved another try. They gave it to her, but she wound up deep in the pack, a woeful eighth-place afterthought to the gold-medal showdown between Oksana Baiul, whose back was still bruised from a training collision, and Kerrigan, with her resurrected knee and chiseled New England face.

The women's figure skating finals broke all television records for an nonprofessional sporting event, and viewers were rewarded with one of the most exciting — and controversial — skating competitions in history. Kerrigan, skating cleanly and elegantly to a medley of Neil Diamond tunes, hit every jump but the judges gave the gold to Baiul anyway by one of the narrowest margins in Olympic history. The judging broke along East-West lines, with officials from Canada, Great Britain, Japan and the United States putting Kerrigan ahead; while those from China, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Ukraine and the former East Germany had Baiul first.

Kerrigan was anything but gracious in defeat. While organizers searched for a tape of the Ukrainian national anthem, silver medalist Kerrigan — mistakenly informed that the delay was caused by Baiul redoing her face — muttered something to the effect that her little rival needed no makeup — she'd only smear it with tears on the podium.

Lost in the hoopla of the women's competition was the inclusion of formerly professional skaters in the Olympic competition. In the pairs competition, former professionals Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, gold in 1988, and Natalia Mishkutenak and Artur Dmitriev, gold in 1992, both of Russia, finished one-two. In ice dancing, Torvil and Dean, , by far the oldest competitors and a full decade removed from the last Olympic performance, wowed the crowd and showed the world that they could still perform at the championship level, taking bronze, to the gold of Russia's Oksana Gritschuk and Yevgeny Platov and their good-heated salute to vintage rock and roll.

The rule change involving professionals also brought back the 1988 men's champion Brian Boitano, 1992 gold medalist Viktor Petrenko and four-time world champion Kurt Browning of Canada. In the end, though, they were outdone by the artistry of Russia's Aleksei Urmanov, a virtual unknown who presented a near-perfect short program and a conservative long program that scored high with the judges on artistic impression. Stojko's athletic style landed him in second place, while Boitano finished sixth; Petrenko finished fourth.

Medalists:

Women's Singles Men's Singles Pairs Ice Dancing

Trivia: 1. Who was the Salchow named for?
2. Who is the youngest woman to win a world championship in figure skating?
3. Which segment of the figure skating competition is the most important?
Answers