What was Michelle Kwan's peak year?

[dreamsk8]

I think 1997-1998 she was such perfection :luv17:
I think after losing the Olympics it kept her hungry for that gold and her skating remained amazing she is truly one of the best women figure skater ever

 

[musicfan80]

In my opinion, Michelle was her best:

Technically: 2000-2001 - Difficult programs that were superbly executed.
Performance: 2003 - I felt like she was the most "free" at her Aranquez LP at 2003 Worlds.

 

[BravesSkateFan]

2000-2001 IMO she was at her best technically, atristry/performance was beautiful as always and her programs that year are among my favorites.

 

[skateluvr]

Just wonderful blades. Ty for all the links. 6.0 trained skaters understood gliding. She was the last of the great6.0 skaters. Irina's chugged over the ice though she was really a great skater - longevity and jumps and spins. A always awkward.

I wish Sasha and Nicole really had better work ethics. They were both stunning but so inconsistent.

Michelle deserves a lifetime award. There should be something like that for skaters who competed 10 years. She and Yuna Kim had amazing consistency. I wish Michelle had been pushed early on. Her speed should have been better. She should have had a 3/3 in every program. This was her downfall technically and she would have won both Olympics with one despite what Sarah and Irina's did technically in 2002. One3/3 would have beaten Tara I think although Tara really was a phenom comet that was meant to be.

Lyra Angelica was amazing and the only skater who floated like that was Caro Kostner in her sp Ave Maria. She shoulda won gold not bronze.

Michelle Kwan was amazingly blessed and a hard worker. Great combination. But now the Russian jumpers make everyone seem less than. It's all about that jump lol.

 

[Seren]

It's so hard to say but I think 1997-1998 and 2000-2001 were the best. I suppose I'm just happy we had so many great performances to enjoy over the years!

As for if Michelle had been healthy in 2006, I think she would have been in the mix. But it's all relative. I remember reading in an interview where she said she was able to skate without pain for the first time in years after surgery.

 

[skylark]

But now the Russian jumpers make everyone seem less than. It's all about that jump lol.

Not to me; and not to everyone. It only seems that way, I think, because on this forum the people who value jumps over everything else are rather vocal. Of course, it's true that jumps even with falls are presently rewarded over quality of skating and technique. I don't necessarily think that will last forever.

 

[Mathman]

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a8/05/1e/a8051e7f5e75fc39a0a3797db6340148.jpg

I don't know about her best year, but here is Michelle's most expensive skating dress. It was too heavy, with all those rhinestones. to wear in competition. I believe that the only time she wore it was at the opening of her family's rink.

 

[SarahSynchro]

01. Lyra Angelica, 1998 Nationals (impossible to replicate, there isn't an ounce of labor here, not a single position or edge or step out of place, everything is effortless and heavenly).

Just went to watch this for the first time in a long time. Simply amazing, ethereal, gorgeous! I had goosebumps for the entire performance. Just wow. It was such a shame she couldn't replicate that performance in Nagano.

 

[VIETgrlTerifa]

Re-watching 1996-1997 season, including her incredible exhibition to Tori Amos' "Winter" where I believe the Canadian commentator thought that it was evident that Kwan was the class of all the ladies even though she won World silver there, made me think Kwan's best physical conditioning in terms of having the ideal body to physically do demanding choreography and the technical elements was from 1996-1999. The ease and yet intricate and the supreme attention to detail with yet a naturalness hadn't been matched since those years. I do think Kwan has had great programs and even did things better later on such as skating with more freedom and abandon in the post-Lori years or heck even when she used outside choreographers during the Lori years (check out her Phillip Mills routines to "Kissing You" and "Hands" in the 1999-2000 season to see a great mix of Lori's controlled choreography and movement from the first half of Kwan's career to the more undisciplined but expressive and free body movement of her later years with Morosov and others). But there was something that changed after the 1998-1999 season and she didn't move the same way nor was the intricacy or discipline to her movement on the same level as it was before. I think her physical limitations with focusing on speed and 3/3s took its toll and Kwan could not do both the way some of her competitors could though she was still pretty much on top because she had that intangible quality and she did combine the physical with the artistic the best out of her competitors and had a competitive mental fortitude most competitors do not have.

Maybe to explain the change, we can look at Lori Nichol's comments about Kwan during the 2001-2002 season. They seem tinged with a bit of bitterness, but Lori did mention that after the 1998 games, Kwan wasn't as dedicated as she was before because of the distractions, fame, and simply growing into an adult and being hungry to explore other opportunities and interests that were being presented to her. I wonder if there's some truth to that, and if so, who knows what kind of programs and jumps Kwan could have done during the 1999-2002 season while working on things like speed and power. Not so much for the 1999-2000 season, but from 2000-2001 and 2001-2002, it's clear Kwan really had late starts to her season and had to utilize a strategy of physically pacing herself to hit at Nationals and Worlds which she didn't have to do before.

 

[Mathman]

^ +1. Especially the last paragraph.

I corresponded with Lori Nicole a little in those days. (She is a delightful correspondent.) I wouldn't say she was "bitter," but rather "disappointed." She felt that she had a lot more to give Michelle.

 

[VIETgrlTerifa]

I think we all think Lori and Michelle could have done more together too. In Kwan's TSL interview, I love how classy she was talking about understanding Lori's feelings of frustrations about how the programs in 2000 and 2001 looked in the beginning of the season and how they ended up in the end, stating how Lori and any choreographer put a lot of thought and work into making a program, and how Kwan (and probably Frank) had to retool it to fit her strengths and what she can perform.

 

[skateluvr]

Thanks to Blades for his wonderful post. There were one or two Kwan programs I had not really seen and discovered a couple more on YouTube.

Her years of dresses are a treasure trove. They deserve their own thread for best costumes.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Despite the injury/physical issues, I believe Kwan's last 2 seasons still could have been great. I wish she had better choreography and coaching at the time, nailing down the new scoring system to the best of her ability. It's entirely possible that she could have won 2005 Worlds, given how Slutskaya flubbed the SP and zayaked in the LP. Certainly she would have at least been on the podium over Kostner with better packaging and guidance. 2006 Olympics would have been more difficult because the rules were less in her favor that season and she was worse off physically, but she still could have been on the podium. 3 Olympic medals furthering her legacy even more.

Had I been coaching and choreographing for her at the time (and had the expertise at the time) I would have wanted her to skate to Musetta's Waltz for her 2006 Short Program. That exact piece of music with just a few small edits and volume modifications would have been tremendous in Torino. For the Long Program she could have used Bolero (after using The Miraculous Mandarin the previous season); a great program could have been created with Bolero instead of the confused thing that she ended up with as a result of not knowing how to handle the new system.

 

[VIETgrlTerifa]

I think Kwan's Bolero issues are all due to her not competing in front of an international panel until Worlds and getting direct feedback prior. USFS feedback, monitoring, and camps are useful and all, but they aren't sufficient on their own. She was going soldiering through physical pain by that point that would later take her out of contention for the 2005-2006 season, as quoted by Rafael Arutunian, so not many other than those in the know, knew she was going through that. I don't think even she knew the extent of it as she was doing physically-demanding programs in COI after 2005 Worlds (doing 6 triple programs a night). I think her being in the mentality of playing catch up did a number on her.

If she had been physically healthy, at least back in her 2002-2003 form, I don't think she would have avoided IJS the way she did until the last possible moment. Shame, because it gives a lot of people the idea that Kwan could not succeed under COP, and I think had it been the COP from 2008-on or if her team knew how the work the system the way coaches do now, she could have had success under COP. She would have won bronze (rightly or wrongly) had she just done like a level 2 spiral sequence in her qualifying round or not two-footed her Salchow (I think it was her Salchow) in the LP, etc.

I also think the version of Bolero she used was a bit too strident with the drum beat and a version like the one Kostner used would have been more fitting for her.

 

[Blades of Passion]

People at the time were generally confused by the new system, regardless of it being an international panel or not. Kostner won that medal at 2005 Worlds with nearly all of her spins being Level 1. A lot of people weren't doing max level spirals and only Slutskaya did the max level layback. Nobody at all did a max level flying spin or step sequence (aside from Slutskaya's flying camel in the SP, debatably, but they didn't give credit). It certainly doesn't help how the rules at the time were rather nebulous when it came to the requirements of gaining levels on most elements, plus a HUGE departure from what most everyone had been training until then.

Still, the rules were there, and I would have been poring over them like a Wizard with a prized spellbook had I been a coach or choreographer or top flight skater. I certainly would have been treating American Nationals exactly like a CoP competition as well, even though they were holdouts and used 6.0 scoring that year. Let's not forget that Slutskaya was coming back from a terrible medical condition, yet she gamed the system better than anyone that season from the very start (aside from her silly zayak issue in the LP at Worlds). Kwan just didn't have the right coaching around.

 

[Mathman]

Kwan just didn't have the right coaching around.

I read at the time that Michelle's team, along with many others, added up the points and concluded that what they lacked in spin levels could be made up in GOE. Michelle was not an outstanding spinner and did not have extraordinary flexibility. I think she felt that it was better to do a simpler spin well than a contorted one badly (plus, the contorted spins hurt her back).

As it turned out, even back then base value trumped GOE.

 

[VIETgrlTerifa]

I think the Kwan team, and many fans who assumed how COP was going to work until they saw it in action, overestimated any sort of GOE and PCS buffer she would have gotten and thought they could sacrifice levels to up the GOE potential, thinking it worked like the 6.0 presentation score. Many assumed PCS differentials in things like "skating skills" would be bigger between the top competitors if they were more-or-less close than they actually were. Plus, skaters like Arakawa, Slutskaya, and Cohen did have better spins and did deserve better GOE than Kwan in that regard. Kwan's needless giving away of points on things she could have easily done would have been avoided had she competed under IJS before Worlds, but she and her team did work to fix as many of the issues as they could have in-between QR and the LP, and she could take solace in receiving the highest footwork score (with Dryt) in the LP. I do think the introduction of level 4 on the spins in the following season and with that version of COP being more flexibility dependent to achieve that level would have made it harder on Kwan, even if she was healthy and in-shape.

 

[Blades of Passion]

I read at the time that Michelle's team, along with many others, added up the points and concluded that what they lacked in spin levels could be made up in GOE. Michelle was not an outstanding spinner and did not have extraordinary flexibility. I think she felt that it was better to do a simpler spin well than a contorted one badly (plus, the contorted spins hurt her back).

Aside from sideways position in the Layback, no contorted positions were needed to increase her levels. It's really a shame that people didn't understand the rules and that she wasn't given a complete CoP program to train for the whole season. Especially unforgivable with the Spiral Sequence, because all she had to do in order to hit max level in 2005 was her normal change-of-edge spiral, a split/stag jump or some kind of counter/rocker/bracket turn, and then a Y position spiral. Entirely within her current capability without having to to train a new technique.

I do think the introduction of level 4 on the spins in the following season and with that version of COP being more flexibility dependent to achieve that level would have made it harder on Kwan, even if she was healthy and in-shape.

The following season would be a bit more difficult but even there it was within her reach I think. For the spiral sequence the big skill that would have been key to her getting Level 4 that season (while making the sequence look great) would have been doing a Y spiral with a release into fan spiral. Then aside from that she would need to do a back inside catch-foot spiral, but that's not too difficult since a lot of flexibility on the catch-foot position wasn't required to get the level.

For the spins Level 4 combination spin wouldn't be a problem at all, there were several ways she could get that relatively easy, using backward entrance and/or edge change(s) and/or all the basic positions on each foot. Level 4 layback required sideways position, speed increase, and then a haircutter (or maybe even hands-behind-the-back, I'm not entirely sure, but it seems Suguri got credit for it at the Olympics, because her speed increase feature there was lacking). It's not like much of an actual sideways position was required in order to get the credit, I think Kwan could have done it. Likely would have ended up looking like Suguri's sideways layback; use good arm positions to help cover up that weaker sideways position! Getting level 4 on the flying spin was also not difficult to achieve if she did a flying upright spin. Nobody considered it at the time, but it was allowed!

If they focused on getting her Level 4 footwork, something she was more capable of than anyone at the time, then actually her non-jump elements altogether would have scored higher than anyone's! Kwan even could have won the SP at the Olympics with only a 3Toe as her solo jump, if she had an excellent program and max levels. Nobody considered any of this. I know, hindsight and all that, but still. The path was there.

 

[VIETgrlTerifa]

How long did it take for skaters to realize they could do 7 triples without a 3/3 if they did a 2 axel/3Toe? And if they did two of them, they could also get credit for 2 double axels!

 

[jenaj]

Aside from sideways position in the Layback, no contorted positions were needed to increase her levels. It's really a shame that people didn't understand the rules and that she wasn't given a complete CoP program to train for the whole season. Especially unforgivable with the Spiral Sequence, because all she had to do in order to hit max level in 2005 was her normal change-of-edge spiral, a split/stag jump or some kind of counter/rocker/bracket turn, and then a Y position spiral. Entirely within her current capability without having to to train a new technique.



The following season would be a bit more difficult but even there it was within her reach I think. For the spiral sequence the big skill that would have been key to her getting Level 4 that season (while making the sequence look great) would have been doing a Y spiral with a release into fan spiral. Then aside from that she would need to do a back inside catch-foot spiral, but that's not too difficult since a lot of flexibility on the catch-foot position wasn't required to get the level.

For the spins Level 4 combination spin wouldn't be a problem at all, there were several ways she could get that relatively easy, using backward entrance and/or edge change(s) and/or all the basic positions on each foot. Level 4 layback required sideways position, speed increase, and then a haircutter (or maybe even hands-behind-the-back, I'm not entirely sure, but it seems Suguri got credit for it at the Olympics, because her speed increase feature there was lacking). It's not like much of an actual sideways position was required in order to get the credit, I think Kwan could have done it. Likely would have ended up looking like Suguri's sideways layback; use good arm positions to help cover up that weaker sideways position! Getting level 4 on the flying spin was also not difficult to achieve if she did a flying upright spin. Nobody considered it at the time, but it was allowed!

If they focused on getting her Level 4 footwork, something she was more capable of than anyone at the time, then actually her non-jump elements altogether would have scored higher than anyone's! Kwan even could have won the SP at the Olympics with only a 3Toe as her solo jump, if she had an excellent program and max levels. Nobody considered any of this. I know, hindsight and all that, but still. The path was there.

We don't know what she had planned for 2006. Tarasova had a good grasp of COP, didn't she? I'm actually kind of glad we never had to see Michelle do a catch-foot spiral.