Hughes rises to the occasion

American Sarah Hughes moves from 4th to take the women's figure skating gold.

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 22, 2002

SALT LAKE CITY -- Michelle Kwan's medals collection still is incomplete. The gold she came back to win belongs, once again, to another American teenager: Sarah Hughes.

Hughes, with the performance of her young life, soared from fourth to the women's figure skating gold medal Thursday night.

Hughes had by far the night's most difficult program, landing seven triples, including two triple-triple combinations -- the first woman to do that. She also had the only clean routine among the top group of skaters.

"I've never skated that well in my whole life," Hughes said. "If there's any place to do it, this was it. I'm always so focused and worried about my jumps. I just thought, "Heck, I'm in fourth. I just went out and had a great time."'

Kwan made two major mistakes to fall to third behind Russian Irina Slutskaya.

Hughes received five first-place votes to Slutskaya's four.

As the ordinals were flashed on the scoreboard, Hughes, who was backstage with her coach, Robin Wagner, fell to her knees and yelled, "Oh, my God!"

Wagner went berserk.

"You just won the gold medal in the Olympics!" the coach yelled into her pupil's ear. "Oh, my God!"

Slutskaya sobbed nearby while Hughes could not stop laughing.

"It's something I've always dreamed of," Hughes said.

Hughes, 16, of Great Neck, N.Y., set the tone for the final group of skaters with a near-flawless routine. With nothing to lose, Hughes went all out, nailing four triple jumps in the first 90 seconds.

As she slowed from her final spin and struck her final pose, a giant smile spread across her face and she shrieked with joy.

The judges gave her technical marks that were all 5.7s and 5.8s and artistic marks ranging from 5.6 to 5.8.

The smile on Hughes' face grew along with the crowd's din, and she nearly doubled over in joy when she finished. Wagner, meanwhile, practically jumped over the sideboards to hug the youngster, who responded magnificently in the biggest moment of her life.

Kwan did not respond nearly as well. She fell on a triple flip, two-footed another triple jump in combination and didn't skate with the passion and fire that has become her trademark in world and U.S. championships.

The judges were harsh on the technical scores, giving out mostly 5.6s and 5.7s.

"I heard the audience try to lift my spirits when they started clapping in the middle of my program," Kwan said. "I made a few mistakes, but I kept on going strong. It just wasn't meant to be tonight."

It was eerily reminiscent of how she lost to Tara Lipinski at Nagano.

That left Slutskaya with a wide opening.

But she skated conservatively. She didn't do the difficult triple-triple combinations she had planned, and her jumps weren't as solid as usual. She leaned way forward on her triple flip and had to fight just to stay on her feet.

And there wasn't much else to the program besides her jumps and spins. She seemed so focused on doing everything right that she didn't have her usual spark.

When she finished, she squeezed her eyes shut and nodded her head.

But as she skated off the ice, there was a sign of what was to come when a picture of Hughes flashed on the scoreboard.

The crowd roared, and Slutskaya looked around, confused.

When she figured out what was happening, she seemed startled. And when the marks flashed that showed she had lost the gold to Hughes, that look turned to stunned anger.

"Interesting thing about these Olympic Games," Slutskaya said. "I'm obviously not the only Russian who has suffered here."

The difference was a tiebreaker with the judge from Finland, who gave Hughes the edge in artistry.

"I didn't want to skate for a gold medal," Hughes said.

"I went out and had a great time. I said, "This is the Olympics. I want to do the best."'

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