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                                                                                1992 WINTER OLYMPICS, Page 51

The Empire's Last Hurrah


Former Soviets celebrate in the men's and pairs' figure skating,
while an American silver stirs the crowd

By JILL SMOLOWE -- With reporting by Susanna Schrobsdorff/
Albertville


    Chalk it up to injuries. Or hard ice conditions. Or the
elimination of the compulsory school figures. Whatever the
explanation, the 1992 Olympics will be remembered for laying to
rest one of skating's favorite axioms: all medals are
preordained.

    Coming into the men's competition, the odds-on favorite
was Canada's Kurt Browning, a level-headed and energetic
three-time world champion. But a disastrous tumble early in his
short program effectively took Browning out of gold-medal
contention, throwing the field open to a crop of skaters who
have been perennial best men but never the bridegroom. The
suspense was compounded by a rash of injuries that threatened
to derail not only Browning's medal hopes but also those of his
two main rivals, Victor Petrenko of the former Soviet Union and
Todd Eldredge of the U.S. In the end, Petrenko capitalized on
difficult jumps to take top honors, though his stiff finale
offered more stumbles than magic. He didn't win the gold medal
so much as he didn't lose it. Far more satisfying were the
performances of the runners-up. Defying smug expectations, two
lyrical skaters -- Paul Wylie of the U.S. and Czechoslovakia's
Petr Barna -- claimed the silver and the bronze, respectively.

    Considering the outcome of both the men's and the pairs'
events, spectators could hardly tell whether they were
witnessing the birth or the death of a golden era of skating
among the former Soviets. For Petrenko, a Ukrainian, the
accomplishment carried a special distinction, since the Soviet
Union had never achieved an Olympic gold medal in the men's or
women's competition.

    By contrast, the pairs' competition was a skate-away as
the two top couples performing under the Unified Team banner
demonstrated what truly uniskating is all about. Natalia
Mishkutienok and Artur Dmitriev captured the gold medal, flowing
from one move to the next with such grace and precision that
even two technical errors on her part did not detract from their
artistry. It was the eighth consecutive win by a Soviet-trained
pair. Now that state-sponsored training has undergone a meltdown
in their homeland, there is a question whether this latest
pampered pair will be the last of the line for a long time to
come. For the honor of runner-up, only Canada's Isabelle
Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler could have wrested the silver from the
Unified Team's Elena Bechke and Denis Petrov. But two falls by
Brasseur dashed their hopes.

    Petrenko, 22, did not exactly stumble into his gold medal,
but his long program was hardly the stuff dreams are made of.
Early in his routine, Petrenko flailed his arms wildly to save
a triple combination, then barely held on to a triple flip. From
there he lost conviction, succumbing to his chronic habit of
sagging in the final minutes. Wylie, by contrast, resisted his
tendency to choke in major competitions and finally delivered
a performance that enabled the judges to reward his brilliant
artistry. A relative old man at 27, the gracious Harvard
graduate capped his amateur career with the evening's only
standing ovation.

    Wylie's upset performance may herald a new era in judging.
"It's getting more fair," says 1988 gold medalist Brian Boitano.
Still, there were plenty of peculiar marks. Of the 12 top
finalists, only Canada's Elvis Stojko did not tumble, falter or
step out of a jump. While Stojko's routine lacked elegance and
polish, the low scores that left him in seventh place drew
justifiable boos. His stylistic teammate Browning held on to
sixth despite three technical errors. And Christopher Bowman,
the Peck's Bad Boy of U.S. skating, finished a surprisingly high
fourth. After delivering a snooze of a short program, he skated
a cautious free routine even while mugging shamelessly for the
camera.

    As for the pairs' finals, one can only hope that former
Soviets from the Caucasus to the Bering Strait took a break from
the store lines to savor this bittersweet reminder of one of
their fractured nation's proudest traditions. Performing to
Liszt's Liebestraum, the same music that had earned the
Protopopovs gold in 1964, Mishkutienok, 21, of Mensk, and
Dmitriev, 24, of Norilsk, Siberia, claimed their rightful place
in the pantheon of legendary Soviet pairs.

    As they took their opening positions on the ice --
Mishkutienok's cheek pressed gently to Dmitriev's chest, his
head tilted at a downward angle -- it was evident that a
different caliber of skater was about to perform. While
Mishkutienok double-footed a triple toe loop and singled a
double Axel, those errors were lost in the spell cast by this
vision of pink and lavender, gliding in exquisite unison. Even
as they entered and exited the most gravity-defying twists and
jumps, their attention to epaulement -- the balletic positioning
of shoulders, head and legs -- never wavered.

    While the women tend to garner the attention as they
catapult dangerously through the air, on this night Dmitriev was
the more spellbinding partner, his every move and facial
expression evocative of the music. Trained, not coincidentally,
by the same Kirov Ballet that produced dancers Mikhail
Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev, Dmitriev demonstrated that a
poised arm and a graceful hand need not threaten any male
athlete's masculinity. Mishkutienok, wonderfully lithe, if a tad
chunky, also delivered a performance worth phoning home about;
in fact, she borrowed a German journalist's telephone credit
card to do just that.

    The rest of the competition was largely given over to
aggrieved gasps as skaters landed on two feet instead of one,
touched hands to ice, or fell in ungainly heaps. Spills aside,
there was an edge of control lacking in even the most basic
elements. The top U.S. pair, Natasha Kuchiki and Todd Sand,
finished sixth after Sand faltered several times and stumbled
on simple footwork. America's sentimental favorites, waitress
Calla Urbanski and truck driver Rocky Marval, may have to keep
their day jobs. To finish 10th, Marval hurled Urbanski around
the rink with all the delicacy of a discus thrower.
Bronze-winning Brasseur and Eisler will be remembered for their
multiple spills and garish costumes (white bodysuits stitched
with glittery pastel zigzags that looked like an EKG printout).
Some critics felt that the graceful fourth-finishing
Czechoslovak pair of Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotny was
finer, but the Canadians had the big point-winning tricks.

    Purists fret that such derring-do will squeeze out
artistry now that Soviet skaters -- like amateur athletes the
world over -- must go begging for dollars. Tamara Moskvina, who
coached the two top Unified Team pairs, counters that her former
nation's tradition of excellence will persist because "it's in
our blood and our culture." After spending 4 1/2 enchanting
minutes with Mishkutienok and Dmitriev, enthusiasts of the sport
must hope that she is right.