Michelle Kwan to petition for spot on Olympics Team...

[joeybee12]

...she has a groin injury, and has pulled out of Nationals. They'll obviously accept her petition and put her on, but--geesh--with all her injuries lately, I doubt she'll do well in Turin.

[greenbriar]

1. I feel so bad for her that she is so good

and then has little teenie boppers show her up every olympics!

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

2. It's not like it hasn't been done before, Todd Eldredge went to

Albertville in 1992 because of injury after not competing at Nats and in 1994 Nancy Kerrigan got to Lillehamer by the same process. In fact, in 94 Nancy knocked Michelle out of Olympic competition.

It's not a given that the USFSA will put Michelle on the Olympic team. She's been hurting all season long. First with a hip injury and now this groin problem. She hasn't had any real competition since last March at the Worlds in Moscow, where she finished 4th.

That aside, I love Michelle's skating and wish her all the best. If she does get to Turino, my only hope is that she skates two absolutely brilliant programs and gets all her naysayers to STFU.

BTW, if anyone is interested, tonight ESPN will be showing the short and long programs from the Grand Prix Final in December at 7:00-11:00 pm CST. There's a 15 year old Japanese girl Mao Asada who actually beat Irina Slutskaya for the "ladies" crown. Ms Asada is too young to go to the Olys for Japan, but she's a skater to keep an eye on.

And don't forgot, the US National Championships will be televised next week during the week on ESPN and on Saturday Jan. 14th ABC will have live coverage of the men's finals in the afternoon and the ladies that night.

Let the skating begin and may the best skaters make the podium.

[joeybee12]

3. Didn't know about Todd Eldregde, but an intersting fact is that

when Nancy got on the team, Michelle got the boot.

I think they'll put her on--there are 3 spots and can't see who they think anyone other than Sascha Cohen would be competitive at the Olympics.

Yeah, I hope she finally puts it all together--the problem si that she has so little practice with the new scoring system that she probably won't do it.