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After years of upset, Lu Chen ready for next step in skating
SIMSBURY, Conn. (AP) -- In the midst of her daily treatment for a sore hip, Lu Chen thinks of how dramatic and traumatic the last two years have been. First, tears well in her eyes. Then, she smiles."It was difficult," Chen says. "But it was worth it at the end."
About to begin a new career with the Discover Stars on Ice tour, Chen has been to the peak of figure skating, and she's been through the pits. All since 1985.
At 17, Chen won the bronze medal at the 1994 Olympics, but was overshadowed by the emergence of Oksana Baiul and the soap opera of Nancy and Tonya. By 1995, she was a world champion.
The next year, she was nearly perfect at worlds, only to lose to a more perfect Michelle Kwan. Chen, by far the best skater in China's short, undistinguished participation in the sport, appeared to be a strong challenger to Kwan and Tara Lipinski for years.
Yet, by the Nagano Games, Chen had become an afterthought. Despite her beauty and grace and impressive resume, she was considered an outsider for a medal at the '98 Olympics, pushed far into the background behind Kwan and Lipinski.
"After the Lillehammer Olympics, I was thinking only of staying for another four years to try it again," Chen says. "I was still very young and if you are physically and mentally able to do that, it's not a big deal. So I decided to stay. I thought I had a chance to maybe win in 1998."
Great decision for two years. Then, disaster.
Chen began feuding with her Chinese coaches, whose backgrounds were paltry in a sport where teaching experience is a must at the world-class level. She got little support from the federation, which backed its hired hands.
She disappeared from the world scene. There were rumours of serious injury and financial problems. While Lipinski was soaring as Kwan's main challenger, Chen was, well, nowhere.
"I had very serious problems with my coaches," Chen says. "They didn't understand what I need as a skater or how I feel as a skater. In China, it is so totally different than here, and it was hard to explain to them what you need to succeed in skating.
"In the United States or Europe, they understand. It was a very hard time for me."
Chen split with her longtime coach Li Ming Zhu after the 1997 worlds, where she fell apart in the short program, placing 25th and failing to qualify for the free skate.
Out of shape because of a serious foot injury, and with no faith in Chinese skating officials, she thought of quitting.
"But I had to keep skating after the '97 worlds, even if I thought I might not get another chance," says Chen, who still is competing in selected professional events. "The federation then realized how important the sport is for our country. My coaches had left me and the federation gave me a new coach, Liu Hong Yun. But there was a lot of pressure on us."
Chen had moved to California to train. Her foot healed, and she won the Olympic qualifying event in Vienna in October 1997.
"Before Vienna, I was so scared," she says. "I was never so scared to go to a competition. I was crying. I'd never understood when people were so nervous before competitions. It was always, 'Just go and do it.' But I didn't even want to go. I questioned if I could do it, got confused.
"But my coach relaxed me and gave me a lot of confidence. He said to just try to get back what I lost and nothing more. He talked to me like a friend and it gave me a boost.
"After I qualified, I got my confidence back," says the skater known throughout the sport as Lulu. "With each competition, it got better and better."
Still, when she arrived at the Olympics, Chen had no idea where she would finish.
"I didn't think about where I would place when I began," Chen says. "This time, it was to show people I am back and I have made it.
"Every day was so exciting just to be there. I'd already done an Olympics, but this was so different, like a new experience, and I just wanted to enjoy it."
Chen was still ignored after placing fourth in the short program. With such a tight focus on Lipinski and Kwan, Chen prospered.
"After the short, I felt like I probably could get a medal," she says. "Before that, nobody was thinking of me as a medallist."
Her legs were shaking during warmups for the free skate, and she sat nervously while Kwan and Marina Slutskaya of Russia performed. When it was Chen's time on the ice, the magic of 1994-96 had returned. The bronze again was hers.
And the tears flowed. And flowed. It was as if all the ice on the Nagano rink had melted and was streaming out of her eyes.
"No matter how much sadness and disappointment there was," she says, "it was like everything is back to the way it should be. So I cried, because I was so happy."