Kwan on NBC team at skating worlds
Michelle Kwan and Vice President Joe Biden cheer athletes at the Special Olympics earlier this month in Boise, Idaho. Credit: Greg Kreller / AP-Idaho Press Tribune
Michelle Kwan will be part of NBC's broadcast team for the upcoming World Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles, according to Chicago Tribune sources.
The five-time world champion will be joining Bob Costas and Dick Button in giving overviews and reflections during the live telecast of the women's free skate final March 28. This will be Kwan's debut as a TV commentator.
Kwan had declined an opportunity to work for NBC after she withdrew from the 2006 Olympics with an injury because she said she would have felt uncomfortable commenting on skaters against whom she had been planning to compete.
If her NBC debut goes well, and Kwan decides not to attempt a comeback for the 2010 Winter Games, count on her being a part of the broadcast team in Vancouver as well.
-- Philip Hersh
Good job NBC. Now I will watch the World Figure Skating. I am very sure that there are a lot of people who would tune in to see MK. When she left Figure Skating, her fans her in Jacksonville, Fl who all worked for the biggest bank in US stop watching the game.
Michelle Kwan should always be in public eyes because there are not a lot of well known people who is a real role model in every way. She has the beauty, intelligent, and the most respected well known person ever.
Good job NBC.
Posted by: Leonora Bigelow | February 21, 2009 at 11:38 AM
Michelle will be competing in Vancouver thank you very much:)
Posted by: KwanIsCOMINGBack | February 24, 2009 at 08:52 PM
Oh I doubt she will be competing. Time for her to report on OGM skaters, not compete against young American women making their way up the ranks. We are deep in men's talent and women's too. If Senior skaters who leave the sport keep on popping in, how will our other skaters ever get a shot at the OGM if they can't get on the team because previous Olympic medalists, under rules, get a bye! No no no! The USA needs to bring fans back into the skating loop and bring skating back in demand by viewers so we don't have to watch those stupid specials with singers like Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons! OMG. We need young pro's like 5X World Champ Michelle Kwan to commentate on grades of execution and technical mark downs under the new system that the public isn't understanding,. It's easy to tell the difference between a 4.5 vs. a 5.9 by a judge! But nearly impossible to understand why someone attempting a quad and falling walks away with a gold medal in an event when another skater skated clean without it. The penalties for attempting and failing to properly execute are harsh! But who'd know? Dick and Michelle would. She's right where skating fans and diehard skaters and fans for years want her!
Posted by: leza | February 26, 2009 at 08:07 PM
Skating is boring since Michelle Kwan left, I'm sorry but there is nobody out there with the grace and dignity that she has. Her gorgeous presence on the ice, She was a gift that we treasured for so many years. She is Figure Skating, and I will be surprised if anyone will ever measure up to her in the future. Okay maybe they will be doing octotriples, but you know jumping to me does not make figure skating. I wish we the fans could tell the stupid judges that jumping is only a small part, its the way a person skates to the music, if they can make you feel like you are out there skating with them, then welcome to Michelle Kwans way of skating, when a skater can make you feel like you are right there skating on the ice like her and that my friends is why skating is not the same. Any good skater and have a perfect moment and win a gold medal, any one of them, but who has lasted as long, won as many overall medals, who out of all the young ladies in the last 12 years stayed after they won the big one, no one has more dedication to her sport then Michelle, and I thank her for being in the sport as long as she had been, and if she wants to skate in the Olympics next year, I for one will have something so wonderful to look forward to! Thank you Michelle Kwan for all the wonderful years of figure skating.
Posted by: Susan Prange | March 13, 2009 at 03:41 PM
NOOOOOOOOOO! Not a good call NBC!!!! We need a skater with excitement! A real role model that tells the female skaters of tomorrow that hard work will take them all the way, not to a silver and bronze and multiple excuses. I'm sorry but I will never buy that she was hurt in her previous Olympic appearance, she withdrew because of nerves. Nobody I know in the skating community wants to hear her talk, much less see her blow it again for our country.
Posted by: Shaia Levin | March 17, 2009 at 04:37 PM