Panel rules Michelle Kwan is fit to compete in Turin

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Michelle Kwan has spent her life analyzing scores and trying to earn higher marks. Her skating test Friday had only two grades: pass or fail.

Kwan passed. No problem.

The five-member committee sent to monitor her fitness decided that she's not only healthy enough to compete in her third Olympic Games, but chairman Bob Horen said, "It's truly the opinion of this monitoring team that Michelle could win the Olympics and definitely could qualify to win a medal."

A groin injury had prevented Kwan from skating at nationals earlier this month in St. Louis. However, the rules allowed her to petition onto the team, and Kwan was named to the team provided she could demonstrate fitness programs that were competitive on an international level.

Kwan, 25, won a silver at the 1998 Olympics and a bronze in 2002, but remained a competitive skater to chase the gold medal that has eluded her.

"Right now, I'm just going for it," Kwan said.

Emily Hughes, who finished third at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and whose older sister Sarah was the 2002 Olympic champion, will remain the alternate behind Kwan, Sasha Cohen, the new national champion, and Kimmie Meissner.

Kwan's day began Friday with a call from Nancy Kerrigan, who wished her good luck. Kerrigan also was monitored after she was attacked in 1994 by associates of Tonya Harding, and her ability to compete in Lillehammer kept Kwan from making her first Olympic team.

She arrived at the East West Ice Palace in Artesia, Calif., at about 11 a.m., but did not wear her Olympic costumes. The only spectators besides the committee, which included athlete representative Brittney McConn Bottoms of Marietta, were Kwan's family members and people who worked at the rink.

She did her long program first, landing four triple jumps.

To the surprise of the committee, she was back on the ice again about 10 minutes later.

"I said, 'What are you doing, Michelle?' " Horen said. "She said she was ready to do her short program."

In the short program, Kwan fell on her double axel, the jump on which she had injured herself.

However, she then did a couple of clean double axels after she concluded her program.

"There was no audience, no feedback, so that was difficult," said Kwan, who recognizes that she'll have to add a triple/triple combination to increase her difficulty by the Olympics. "I have to take advantage of the seconds and the minutes before the Olympics."

Horen said the panel did not score Kwan under the new judging system. Kwan has skated under the new system only one time, last year when she was fourth at the World Championships, ending her streak of a decade of World Championships medals.

"Not every element was performed perfectly," Horen said, "but they were at a high competitive level."

Kwan's only competition this season was actually an exhibition in December in Boston, in which the audience vote declared her the winner over Cohen. Kwan did not do any triples at that event.

Hughes, who celebrated her 17th birthday Thursday at a party at a Long Island, N.Y., steakhouse, could still be called on to substitute if Kwan, Cohen or Meissner cannot compete, although Kwan likely could not be replaced if she aggravates the groin injury.

Hughes' father, John, told Newsday that Emily was content with her medal at the nationals and invitation to the World Championships in March.

"Great as the Olympics are," John Hughes said, "she was honestly more into ordering the two cakes for her birthday party today than she was about what's going to happen [with Kwan]."