Drama set to swirl on, off the ice

ST. LOUIS -- Minus leading lady Michelle Kwan, the show goes on this week in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

With Torino Olympic berths at stake in a sport blending athletics and theatrics, the event promises high drama. And, no, not all of it will be about whether Kwan is named to her third Olympic team without lacing up her skates. Plot lines are as plentiful as sequins:

*Will Sasha Cohen recover from the flu and get a medal to match the gold dress she plans to wear in her free skate Saturday? "I have a lot of silvers, and I want to win a gold," says Cohen, a U.S. silver medalist four times to Kwan, the nine-time national champ who's out with an injury and says she will petition for an Olympic berth.

*Can Johnny Weir win his third consecutive men's title? He had an inconsistent start this season, and 2005 world bronze medalist Evan Lysacek figures prominently in the competition, which begins with Thursday's short program.

*Can ice dancers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, the 2005 world silver medalists, three-peat at nationals? They've already cleared one huge hurdle: getting U.S. citizenship for Canadian-born Belbin in time to make her eligible for the Games.

Dancing to a new flamenco beat, they are big favorites. They were in the lead after the compulsory and original dances Tuesday night.

But the precarious balance between a dream fulfilled and disaster rests on one-eighth-inch blades. One slip could be the difference between a trip to Italy next month and staying home.

Cohen, 21, the world silver medalist the last two years, is favored, too. But several teenagers have shown flashes, among them Emily Hughes, 16, whose sister, Sarah, now retired from competition, also was 16 four years ago when she won Olympic gold.

"I don't consider myself to have anything on a platter," Cohen says.

Although skating ends late Saturday with the women's final, suspense won't. Enter Kwan, 25, the five-time world champ and the USA's most recognizable active skater. She lacks Olympic gold after bronze in 2002 and silver in 1998.

Only winners in each of the four disciplines here are guaranteed a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, which features three berths each in the women's, men's and ice dancing events and two in pairs.

Other openings will be filled by a vote of the 36-member international committee of U.S. Figure Skating. The committee includes board members, judges, coaches and athletes. The rules rank 2006 nationals as the first selection criterion, but voters don't have to go by the 1-2-3 finish.

Immediately after the women's final free skate Saturday, the committee will gather, hash it all out and vote. If Kwan is named to the team, a medalist would be bumped to Olympic alternate.

"It will be a very interesting meeting," says David Raith, executive director of U.S. Figure Skating.

The question of how U.S. Figure Skating will evaluate Kwan's health is just as intriguing. Sidelined in the fall by a hip injury, Kwan announced last week that she has had a groin pull since mid-December and won't resume jumping until Friday, the day before the vote.

She has skated once under the new scoring system that after Salt Lake City replaced the 6.0 system -- taking fourth last March at worlds.

In a teleconference last week, she said she had been jumping for only about two weeks before her only public performance this season, a Dec.11 made-for-TV event in Boston. Kwan did not execute any triple jumps -- fundamental elements for world-class women. Cohen, for example, had seven triples in her free skate at a Grand Prix event this season in Paris.

U.S. Figure Skating has yet to decide whether it will send a representative to Kwan's Artesia, Calif., training rink to assess her fitness.

Pam Gregory, who coaches Olympic hopeful Kimmie Meissner, expects Kwan to get a spot.

"We're just assuming (the waiver) will in fact get granted ... and we think that's fine," Gregory says.

Skater Amber Corwin, eighth at nationals last year, agrees: "She is the reason right now that we have such TV contracts that we do. I think people watch skating because of her, and she's put her time in."

Bumping a national medalist is not unprecedented. Kwan, at age 13, earned silver at nationals but did not get one of the two 1994 Olympic spots. Her berth went to Nancy Kerrigan, who was unable to skate at nationals after an off-ice attack linked to Tonya Harding.

"It's really up to the committee to choose who they believe will be the best three skaters in America," Kwan says. "I feel that I am one of the best three skaters in America."

The women: Cohen's moment

With Kwan home in Los Angeles, the spotlight is Cohen's to seize. "A title would be very fulfilling for me, as well as the fact that I've never really skated my best at nationals," says Cohen, of Corona del Mar, Calif.

But teens tend to come of age at Olympic time. In addition to Sarah Hughes in 2002, 15-year-old Tara Lipinski won Olympic gold in 1998.

Meissner, 16, from Bel Air, Md., landed a triple axel jump en route to a third-place finish in the 2005 nationals. The only other U.S. woman to land that jump in competition was Harding in 1991. Whether Meissner can land the triple axel this week, something she has not done this season, is a big question.

Alissa Czisny, 18, a sophomore at Bowling Green University in Ohio, was seventh in the 2005 nationals, but her elegant spins and spirals helped her to gold and silver in Grand Prix events this season.

So, too, did new two-piece hinged skates that Czisny says have alleviated an ankle problem. Though she was sixth and last in the Grand Prix final, nationals represent a fresh start.

Hughes, an 11th-grader from Great Neck, N.Y., placed sixth in the 2005 nationals and took bronze in the 2005 junior worlds, ahead of Meissner (fourth). She says being Sarah's sister doesn't add pressure.

"There's always some kind of pressure," Hughes says. "I don't really see any disadvantage, because she's someone that I could look up to."

The men: No top dog yet

The USA has not won Olympic gold in men's figure skating since Brian Boitano in 1988. It faces long odds this year. But Boitano, now 42 and doing ice shows, predicts a lively competition this week.

"Nobody has taken the reins and sort of said, 'I'm the top dog here.' I think nationals will probably be as exciting as the Olympics," he says.

The field includes a trio of U.S. champs: Weir, 2002 Olympic bronze medalist Timothy Goebel (2001) and Michael Weiss (1999, 2000, 2003).

Weiss, 29, of McLean, Va., hopes this week is a springboard to his third Olympics. The father of two has been training with Todd Eldredge, who made the 2002 Olympic team at 30.

Weir, 21, of Quarryville, Pa., has designs on his first Olympics.

In September, he reworked his programs after getting feedback from officials that the levels of difficulty weren't high enough to rack up points under the new system.

In his first Grand Prix event, Skate Canada, Weir sprained an ankle and placed a "really disappointing" seventh.

"It's very difficult to make yourself feel like you should win and that you're going to be the best when you haven't been," he says.

Bolstered by a third in the Cup of Russia, he says, "I intend on being ready for nationals and being a third-time champion."

After Lysacek's breakthrough bronze in the 2005 worlds, the 20-year-old from Naperville, Ill., began this season with a goal of getting "better and better."

He was excited about his new music from Grease. At an early-season event, he wore an imitation black leather jacket he described as "really cool." Then he discovered it was really hot and wore him out.

After a silver medal finish in the Skate America Grand Prix event, he decided Grease wasn't the right fit either. He switched to Carmen.

"I feel awesome," Lysacek said Tuesday, adding he knows he must be careful with his right hip, injured from overuse. "I've had a really strong season so far, the best of my career with two medals in the Grand Prix, and I was the only American to qualify for the finals. So that gives me a big boost of confidence coming in here."

Also in the field is Matt Savoie, 25, of Peoria, Ill., third in nationals in 2004 and fourth a year ago. He has put Cornell law school on hold to try for the podium. "I think it's always wide open," he says.

Ice dancing: Best medal hope

This year, ice dancing -- yes, ice dancing -- might be Team USA's best hope for an Olympic figure skating medal.

In the 2005 worlds, Belbin and Agosto's silver was the first world medal by a U.S. dance team since 1985. The only U.S. Olympic medal in dance was bronze in 1976.

Though Belbin was allowed to compete with U.S.-born Agosto at worlds and nationals, the Olympics require both partners be citizens of the country they represent. That's why Belbin and Agosto, the 2002 U.S. silver medalists, didn't make the 2002 Olympics.

An amendment to expedite citizenship specifically for "aliens of extraordinary ability," sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., passed in December as part of an appropriations bill. Canadian-born Belbin became a citizen Dec.31, one day ahead of a Jan.1 deadline and at least a year before she was originally scheduled.

Now it's up to them to skate their way to Torino. Or, failing to win their third national title, their fate, like Kwan's, will be in the hands of the international committee.

This week, Kwan, who has competed in every nationals since 1993 when she finished sixth at age 12, says she "will be getting therapy and skating as well. I will watch the nationals (on TV) and see how everyone does."

Then she, just as Belbin and Agosto did with legislation in Congress, will wait out the vote.

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