Brian Boitano, Michelle Kwan talk up skating’s worlds

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Brian Boitano, still lithe and graceful nearly 21 years after his figure skating triumph at the Calgary Olympics, glided onto the ice at Staples Center on Thursday for a news conference promoting the upcoming World Figure Skating Championships.

As he went around a mat and turned to face an audience of reporters, he stumbled, certainly a rare sight. Michelle Kwan, another featured guest, couldn’t resist making a joke.

‘That’s a little preview of what you’ll see at the world championships,’ she said, drawing a round of laughter.

The occasional misstep aside, the 225 athletes who are scheduled to compete here March 22-29 will put on a good show. Besides the prestige of being crowned a world champion, they’ll be earning spots for their respective countries at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Single tickets are scheduled to go on sale Friday. All-event and other packages also remain available. Some tickets will be available at $20, a good move in bad economic times.

Boitano, a four-time U.S. champion and two-time world champion, said he expects the U.S. women’s placements at worlds to be good enough to guarantee three spots for U.S. women at the Winter Games. The U.S. will be represented in Los Angeles by Alissa Czisny -- whom Boitano works with -- and Rachael Flatt of Del Mar.

‘That’s what’s really important about the ladies’ event, not only for the individual accomplishments but getting three ladies on the Olympic team,’ Boitano said.

Overall, he said, ‘I think it’s a really strong U.S. team. I think it’s probably the strongest that we’ve had in years.’

Kwan, a five-time world champion, nine-time U.S. champion and two-time Olympic medalist, said her competitive instincts flowed when she stepped onto the ice Thursday with Boitano

and U.S. world team member Evan Lysacek.

‘Just being on the ice, it’s like, wow,’ she said, smiling. ‘Usually I just go to Staples Center for the Lakers games. Now I’m like, it feels like nationals and worlds all over again.’

Kwan, pain-free after hip surgery, said she’s doing physical training but not skating training. ‘I will,’ she said.

She told The Times recently that she’s skating but hasn’t decided whether it will be to compete again, to skate in shows or simply to skate around with her young nieces.

‘I just got back into doing the whole thing,’ said Kwan, 28. ‘Slowly. It’s easy to jump right into it and abuse your body, but I’m going to slowly get on and not get frustrated, just take it easy.’

Lysacek, third at last week’s U.S. championships and a two-time world bronze medalist, said he’s going to adjust his schedule to allow himself more of a life than he had before the national competition.

Lysacek, who trains in El Segundo, had intensified his training, strictly limited his diet to foods recommended by a nutritionist, and worked so hard that he saw his family for only one day over Christmas and rarely saw his friends. His third-place finish at nationals has him rethinking that strategy.

‘For it to not go as well as I wanted to, I was really crushed,’ he said. ‘I felt more prepared for it than I had been for a lot of competitions where I’d done much better and wasn’t as prepared. I think it had something to do with that carrot being dangled in front of me for two months and not really seeing anything else. It wasn’t the right approach.

‘I’m trying to just forget it. It’s stuff like this that makes you look at your own heart and ask, ‘Do I have the heart of a champion athlete, to be the best, to pick myself up and dust off and move on with my head high? It’s kind of what I’m trying to do now. It’s taking some soul searching because it’s only been two days. but it was right back to training for me.

‘I became a very one-dimensional person. I know that’s what it takes, but I’ve been there and it doesn’t have to be living in seclusion and as regimented as I was. It was something I tried and it didn’t work for me. I’m going to try and get those dimensions back ... try and just live a little more.’

-- Helene Elliott