Olympic Champion Peggy Fleming Gives Michelle Kwan a Replica of her Gold Ice Skating Medal

MSNBC ^ | February 22, 2002 | Lester Holt

[codebreaker]

MSNBC showed footage of a press conference and Michelle had two medals on her neck the bronze and the one given to her by Peggy Fleming.

She looked liked she was about to lose it..

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Yup, she will be 30 at the 2010 Games.

21 year olds are cocky by nature.

[Utah Girl]

Actually, Michelle Kwan has done extremely well in the endorsement area for an Olympics silver medalist. Tara Lipinski received more endorsements right after the 1998 Olympics, but Michelle was right behind her, like maybe $500,000 less. The next year, Michelle was the number one female athlete in endorsements, this year she is #4. She gets over $2 million dollars a year in endorsements, not too shabby.

And I think Sarah Hughes will do extremely well in the endorsement area. She has a freshness and innocence about her that is very appealing. She just needs a new haircut.

[GussiedUp]

Aren't you falling behind in your 'Harry Browne' readings? He won't like that.

oooh someone took a whole bottle of nasty pills today! ;)

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If Cohen can consistently hit the quad by 2004 and improve her artistry, Michelle should retire right now.

[Utah Girl]

Yep, Michelle really blew it when she didn't replace her coach. And I can't believe the antipathy on this thread towards Kwan. Wow, it is a case of "The Queen is dead, long live the Queen."

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That is not an Asian-American family's way (the Kwan's) to deal with what happened to Michelle by sending her out to the cameras.

God bless em' they were cyring in the stands..

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Kristi is an all time legend..bank on it

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The hair is her tradmark now like Dororthy Hamill, its just going to get bigger..

[LaDivaLoca]

What's wrong with wanting to be a skating legend? What's wrong with having aspirations which I'm sure she is not the only one? What's wrong with wanting to compete in the sport that she loves until 2010? Besides, she never said she definitely will compete until 2010. If she believes she can still compete with the other elite skaters I say, you go girl. She will retire her skates whenever she wants to. That is her prerogative. I'm sure she will know when it's time to hang up her skates. If I'm not mistaken, there is a lady (I forgot from where) who I believe is in her 40s who competes or has competed in the women's skeleton and a man also in his 40s I think who competed in the cross-country skiing. I believe he was from Thailand. I know athletic events are mostly comprised with the teenagers and 20 somethings but what is so wrong of older athletes wanting to compete? They may come in first or they may come in last but like what Ohno said (paraphrasing),"I'm not here to win 4 gold medals. I'm here to compete." Whether they come in first or last, it's the journey to the goal that one will ultimately remember - the medals especially the gold is just the icing on the cake. Don't you think?

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That comment of 'I want to be skating's Michael Jordan' bothered me too.

And Christine Brennan of USA Today just kept feeding the hype, egging Michelle on with her columns. Michelle should win the Olympics ONCE before she says things like that..

[Frumanchu]

If Cohen can consistently hit the quad by 2004 and improve her artistry, Michelle should retire right now.

Agreed. I was blown away by Sasha's short program perfomance and thought her marks were lower than they should have been. She's a beautiful skater and I'm willing to be she'll be a medalist 4 years from now. Fourth at your first international competition is quite impressive...even more so when it's the Olympics!

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Honestly, the backlash is from the fact that Michelle was acting like she was entitiled to the gold.

Last time she played it smartly conservative in Nagano and should have won gold, but Lipinski skated great-that's fine.

This time she didn't learn and still skated conservative doubling a triple and still almost won by one point! I call that 'grading on the curve,' she is most definitely not the Jordan of skating yet...not even close

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

But is it logical to hold someone accountable to for words said when they were 5 or 6 years old and to judge their present personality for that? No.

Well... unless you are a liberal or the press and a Republican said those things as a child... Then it's just hunky-dory...

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IMHO, the last thing on Michelle's mind last night was keeping her cool after the program.

She needed a good old fashioned bawl session, and that's fine by me.