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Olympics Blog

A woman for all seasons

By Helene Elliott
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Figure skater Michelle Kwan, who competed in two Winter Olympics and withdrew from the Turin Games because of an injury, will go to the upcoming Summer Olympics -- but not as a competitor.

Kwan, 28, will attend the closing ceremony of the Beijing Games as part of an official delegation sent by President Bush, the White House announced today in a statement.

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Kwan, a Torrance native who still lives in Southern California -- and whose family operates the East West Ice Palace in Artesia -- has made several trips overseas as a public diplomacy envoy. She will join Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Olympic Commitee President Peter Ueberroth, among others, at the Beijing finale on Aug. 24.

-- Helene Elliott

Olympics Blog
Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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