Hail and farewell, Michelle, a wider world awaits

It was hardly a surprise when Michelle Kwan announced Friday today that she would not compete in 2009-10, which means, of course, that her competitive figure skating days are over.

Kwan, 29, will move on with her life by enrolling this fall at the renowned Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where she will seek a master's degree in international affairs.

That intellectual enhancement is fitting for a Chinese American from Southern California who competed on a global stage but whose vistas once were circumscribed by ice rinks and hotels in the many countries where she skated. Since she left competitive skating at the 2006 Turin Olympics, Kwan's world view has dramatically widened through her role as a public diplomacy envoy for the State Department and her studies at Denver University, where she received a bachelor's in international studies this May.

As Kwan seizes her future, the best way for me to assess her past is something I already wrote.

Given the uncertainty over her physical condition as she prepared for the 2006 Olympics, I had prepared a story summing up her career to appear either after the Winter Games skating ended or any time before that if circumstances dictated.

That is what happened, as pain in her groin forced Kwan to withdraw before the competition.

The story in question was published Feb. 13, 2006. I reread it after receiving Kwan's statement from U.S  Figure Skating and decided the old story would be the best valedictory for the sporting phase of her life.

You can read it after the jump:

Illinois runners chase future, Kwan goes back to it

Ten things I know, and you should:

1.  Angela Bizzarri will take a shot at running fast enough to qualify for the August World Championships at a July 15 meet in Liege, Belgium.  The rising senior at the University of Illinois, a surprise third-place finisher in the 5,000 at the U.S. Championships last month, needs to top her personal best (15 minutes, 33.02 seconds) by 8.02 seconds to make the team.

2.  Algonquin's Evan Jager, in a similar position to Bizzarri after his surprise third at the same distance, is waiting for his Oregon Track Club coach, Jerry Schumacher, to pick a meet where he and OTC teammate Matt Tegenkamp can shoot for the time they need to assure participation at worlds in Berlin. Schumacher told me by e-mail, "We are still working out the details.'' Jager (13:22.18) and Tegenkamp (13:20.57) barely missed the qualifying standard (13:20) in the 5,000 final at nationals.

3.  Good to see Michelle Kwan plans to return to skating for an audience after three years, even if it is only for a show in August with South Korea's Kim Yuna, the reigning world champion, in Seoul.   Both Kwan and Sarah Hughes, the 2002 Olympic champion, got their undergrad degrees this spring: Kwan from the University of Denver, Hughes from Yale.  In an e-mail Monday, Hughes said she has "no plans at this moment'' to skate in shows.

4.  I have yet to comment on what happened when the music stopped (for now?) in the California skate coach musical chairs game: Caroline Zhang joining Coach Charlene Wong, whose previous star, Mirai Nagasu, left to work with Frank Carroll, who coached Kwan through most of her brilliant career.  My first thought: good for Wong, who has -- like Carroll -- always been refreshingly honest in her interaction with the media. In two years, Wong helped Nagasu improve from a skater who could not get beyond the first level of qualifying for novice nationals to senior national champion.  Wong deserves another shot at having a skater in the 2010 Olympics, and Zhang definitely gives her that.

Kwan says no thanks to chef's role -- and other skating food for thought

Thanks to Sasha Cohen’s comeback and the continual nonsense perpetrated (and perpetuated) by the sport’s international leaders, even in May there is figure skating news deserving of comment.
So: Three things I know, and you should.

1.  Michelle Kwan could have had a guaranteed spot with the U.S. Olympic delegation at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

As assistant chef de mission, an essentially honorary position.

The U.S. Olympic Committee asked the three-time Olympic figure skating team member if she would be interested in filling the role, but Kwan declined out of uncertainty over her future plans.

One thing seems certain -- there’s an oxymoron, seeming certainty -- about those plans:
Unlike Sasha Cohen, who confirmed last week she would try to make a third Olympic team, Kwan has not replied affirmatively to U.S. Figure Skating’s invitation for a place at the Skate America Grand Prix event this November.

Kwan has until May 30 to tell USFS whether she would like to skate on the 2009 Grand Prix circuit.  Her agent, Shep Goldberg, said the skater had yet to rule anything out.