- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E_T A L K Riders share their experiences and thoughts on traveling by motorcycle in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Flying away By Cintra Wilson I sold my soul to the scalpers to watch mechanized super-teens Michelle and Tara kiss ass? (02/20/98) Flying away By Gary Kamiya Triumph on the slopes -- and parties all night long (02/19/98) Scalpers, skiers and cultural schizophrenia By Cintra Wilson Our woman in Nagano checks out deluxe slopeside port-o-lets, "child hornet" snacks and other Olympic oddities (02/19/98) Cold war By Gary Kamiya The Czechs battle the Russians on ice (02/18/98) The Christlike and redemptive powers of ice hockey By Cintra Wilson Our second Salon correspondent in Nagano reflects on Olympic evolution, personality cults and Russian mafiosi (02/18/98) Browse the Feature archives		Figure skating shocker Lipinski UPSETS KWAN TO TAKE THE GOLD. WHAT HAPPENED? SKATING EXPERT CHRISTINE BRENNAN ANALYZES EVENTS ON -- AND OFF -- THE ICE IN NAGANO. American Tara Lipinski jumps for joy as her scores are posted in the figure skating final Friday. Lipinski's nearly perfect scores pushed her past favored teammate Michelle Kwan for the gold medal. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY JONATHAN BRODER | In a stunning upset at the Nagano Olympic Games, 15-year-old Tara Lipinski, skating with a maturity and grace beyond her years, captured the gold medal in the women's figure skating competition, edging out her favored rival, fellow American Michelle Kwan, 17. Lipinski's exuberant performance Friday makes her the youngest Olympic figure skating champion ever, beating Sonja Henie's Olympic record by only 32 days. Her margin of victory over Kwan was not quite as narrow. Kwan had finished first in the short program on Wednesday, with Lipinski in second place. On Friday, during the free skate, Kwan gave another strong performance, winning four near-perfect 5.9s for her artistry. But when Lipinski racked up the same marks for her artistry, plus six more 5.9s for technical merit, the crown was hers. Kwan, the favorite, won the silver medal, and Lu Chen of China won the bronze. "There is nothing that could be better for me," Lipinski told reporters after crying for joy and dancing a jig when the numbers on the scoreboard signaled her victory. "Knowing against all odds, under all that pressure, you did it. I will always remember it." Kwan was stoic about the upset. "I knew this competition was not a piece of cake," she told reporters. "I came out of the rink feeling like I had done my best, there is nothing more I could have done. I truly know that. It may not be the color medal I want, but I'll take it." Among the thousands of journalists who witnessed the women's figure skating competition, perhaps no one was more surprised than veteran sportswriter Christine Brennan, an authority on the sport and author of "Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating's Olympic Gold Medal." The book, which traces the daily lives of Lipinski, Kwan and other Olympic hopefuls over the past year and culminates with the figure skating event at Nagano, will be rushed into print by Scribners next month. A stunned Brennan spoke to Salon from Nagano shortly after Lipinski's victory: Everybody had Michelle Kwan as the gold medal favorite and Lipinski as the silver medalist. What happened? We're still trying to figure it out. It's the biggest upset in the history of figure skating. We're all still in shock. We sure didn't see this coming. We all thought Michelle Kwan did what she needed to do. She was a little slow and deliberate. A little playing it safe, but that's understandable since she was the gold medal favorite. She just did her job. Tara Lipinski came out and just grabbed those judges by the throat and said, "Hey, look at me!" What did Tara Lipinski do that put her in front of Michelle Kwan? What did she do? She just stole the evening. She got four 5.9s on the artistic part, which was surprising. This is an upset of immense proportions. We're still analyzing it. They both did seven triple jumps. It's not like one of them did fewer. You have spoken in the past about the tremendous qualitative difference between Kwan and Lipinski, that Kwan was a much more mature skater than Lipinski. I guess now you can call me your former figure skating expert ... Seriously, that difference was evident in the short program Wednesday. One Hungarian judge said he could have placed 12 people between Michelle and Tara. But something happened between Wednesday and Friday. Was Lipinski's program suddenly more sophisticated than usual? It's hard to say. Look, this is figure skating, and there's always going to be a lot of gray area. Tonight, we've got the biggest gray area ever. I wish I could give you answers. I really cannot say why, except that tonight, Michelle was a bit tentative. But when you watch the replays, I don't think you're going to see a really tentative performance. It was a very good performance that Michelle put out there. The judges left a little more room than I thought they would, and Tara just ran away with it. She filled the gap and did it, did everything she had to do and more. She stole the show. She won tonight. Tomorrow, if they put on their skates and went through their performances again, maybe Michelle would win. N E X T+P A G E+| Did Kwan blow it? 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