American Beauty

Well, it isn’t all just fairy-tale face-off. We know it in sport as the slugger vs. the boxer. Or the front runner and the closer. The volleyer and the baseliner. And, best of all: the athlete and the artist. At the ladies’ figure skating, the North Star of the Olympics, that is precisely what we had. Indeed, we had it on two levels: Midori Ito, athlete, vs. Kristi Yamaguchi, artist, for the gold; and Tonya Harding, athlete, vs. Nancy Kerrigan, artist, for the bronze.

Oh, truth be told, it wasn’t all that neat. The athletes weren’t quite that klutzy, and the artists weren’t quite that wimpy, but let’s not louse up a good fairy tale. Unfortunately, too, it essentially turned out only to be a one-act fable, because barely into their original programs, on their first jumps, both the athletes, Ito and Harding, fell. And there they were, one after another, down on their rear ends, scrambling to get up, hoping somehow to outrun the white shavings that marked their bottoms and their ignominy, so they could catch up with the music that was already one jump too far.

Just like that, Yamaguchi had the gold, and Kerrigan was tough for the bronze, and the only good news for the stronger, more daring skaters was that this is the shortest Olympiad ever, and Lillehammer is only two winters away …

Shortly before she went on the ice Friday, Yamaguchi was visited by Dorothy Hamill, the last American gold medalist. Hamill went round clean in the free skate when she won in 1976, but the women weren’t doing more than double jumps then. Friday, every one of the contenders stumbled on triples, illustrating again how excruciating the heightened athletic component has made the sport. Notwithstanding, the message from Albertville was not only that the grace of skating still counts very much indeed, but that temperament probably matters just as much.

Certainly, it was no coincidence that, of them all, Yamaguchi was the only skater able to remain so contained and within herself-focused, in the favorite word of these Games. On the last day of the competition, when Yamaguchi knew that the gold was hers for the taking, that only she could lose it, she idly mentioned to her coach, Christy Ness, that she was “just getting to the point” where she believed that it really was the Olympics. She lay down that afternoon and peacefully took a nap, and when she finally made a mistake that evening, missing her easiest triple, the loop, late in her program, it was because she was too relaxed rather than too tense, and “I didn’t fight for it.”

But now, just at this instant, suddenly, the gold was at risk. Her bete noire, the triple Salchow, was only nine seconds off, and another fall would break the spell. Christy Ness thought: she’s tired; a smart move would be to play safe. And, in the stands, Yamaguchi’s mother, Carole, saw the Salchow coming and thought to herself: “Do a double.”

Sure enough, on the ice, with extraordinary presence of mind, her daughter checked off at the line of scrimmage and dialed it down to the double-bingo. Revived then, she put the smile back on, polished off a wonderful triple lutz, and the gold was hers.

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. All the other pretenders would tumble about even more when their turns came on the ice. Yamaguchi outscored Ito on seven of the nine judges’ scorecards after being a unanimous winner on the original program; it was a clean knockout.

For all that jumping has changed the emphasis of the sport, Albertville showed that the leapers-even Ito-have to be perfect in the air to win. Yamaguchi-and Kerrigan nearly so-are simply on a different artistic level, so elegantly dressed, gliding so stylishly, seamlessly, weaving the jumps naturally into their music, rather than pausing to exhibit them as some kind of jarring athletic photo op.

At that other extreme was the Frenchwoman, Surya Bonaly, the European champion and a former gymnast, who seemed to stalk the ice rather than address it. Bonaly is nothing if not nervy, though. Back flips are banned in the sport, but Bonaly almost landed one on top of Ito Wednesday, when she was practicing her routine. This hot-dog action drew an official reprimand. One should also have been applied to her voluminous press package, in which claims were made that Bonaly’s Olympic wardrobe “will underline France’s role as uncontested world fashion leader. " If so, after Bonaly appeared in outfits that appeared to come from a garage sale at Hugh Hefner’s mansion, Paris couturiers must have already retreated to the safety of Milan. Rivals took an undisguised delight when, at the opening ceremonies, Bonaly, who had been chosen to recite the Olympic oath, stumbled nervously through it.

But stutter she did not in her original performance, and with the home crowds stomping and cheering from her first move, Bonaly pulled off a surprisingly impressive skate that bumped Ito out of third place and all but ended any lingering hopes that the tiny Japanese might catch Yamaguchi in the Friday finale.

Harding, the other great leaper, was victim more to her own careless and desultory ways, arriving (from Portland, Ore., nine time zones away) barely 72 hours before the competition began, sleeping in for 16 hours, then, even taking to the ice late for her own practice music session the morning of the free skate. It was hardly any surprise, then, that she missed her triple axels on both Wednesday and Friday. She was lucky to sneak into fourth place only because the judges soured on the Bonaly jumpmania in the free skate. Kerrigan also botched her long program on Friday, gasping for air and nearly crying afterward, but her lovely original skate comfortably saved the bronze for her.

Kerrigan’s appearances were all the dearer because her mother, Brenda, virtually sightless since her vision was affected by a virus 22 years ago, was at rinkside, peering out as best she could, absorbing the scene, listening for the applause and pressing her face against the large TV set that had been provided for her there, trying to make out the fuzzy image of her beautiful daughter. CBS had been ham-handed in pushing the families of American athletes upon us-the poor relatives of speed-skater Dan Jansen, through no fault of their own, came out to be some sort of dark Rockwellian parody-but the network handled the Kerrigans wonderfully, mostly just by letting us see Mrs. Kerrigan try to see-and letting us see her tears, and her embraces with her stalwart husband, Dan, and the kisses for Nancy, and letting us see the love.

Ito struggled terribly. She is so special, and it’s not even uncommon now for the experts to rate her the best jumper in the world-that’s including the male species. But injuries that may be explained by all the jumping, and an insatiable home press, have dogged her. At Albertville her every spin and comment was monitored by the Japanese media, which ran endless “Midori Today” features in the tabs and on TV. There has never been a female athlete to approach her in Japan. Ultimately, it was too much for her to bear, and after she failed on the second half of a combination in practice one day, she broke down and sobbed by the boards.

Even Ito’s luck came up bad in her draw for the original program. By the time she skated that night, the two American artistes had already posted their high scores, and Harding had bombed out. So Ito and her advisers chose to substitute the easier triple lutz for the triple axel. She was skating to finish at least third-from there she would be in position to beat Yamaguchi head to head in the final round. Katsu Hisanaga, the Japanese-team leader, maintained that the decision to go with the lutz was actually made earlier in the day, but, whenever, the change came after Ito’s last practice, the shift unnerved her in some way, she soared up at a tilt and fell on a jump she simply never misses. “I skated very bad,” she said frankly afterward in English. And, in Japanese, to her country that had placed such demands upon her, she said: “Sumimasen,” which translates roughly into some subtle amalgam of “I’m sorry” and “I feel bad.”

Ito’s troubled practices continued, too, and, grimly, she opened her free skate with another fall. But if her powerful legs can never allow her the exquisiteness of her Japanese-American rival, Ito is no less … well, focused, and she has made herself over into a vastly improved stylist. She glided with grace as much as purpose into the next jumps. And so, three minutes into her program, when she only had one more big jump left, and everybody-including even her coach and close friend, Machiko Yamada-assumed she would go for the lutz, Ito knew what she must do. She went for the home run, and she hit it-the first woman to throw a triple axel in the Olympics. And, at last, the smile came out on her pixie face and redemption and the silver she deserved were hers.

The ladies’ figure skating has surely become the single most compelling event in the Olympics-both Summer and Winter-and Lillehammer is only two years ahead for Yamaguchi and Ito and all the other young challengers who carry such bold resolution in such frilly pretty vessels. This rivalry is not concluded. Even fairy tales can sometimes be a work in progress.

title: “American Beauty” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-15” author: “Jarrod Lopez”

title: “American Beauty” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-08” author: “Raymond Jaramillo”

For a window on more tasteful times, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is throwing open Jackie’s closets on May 1 with a fashion exhibit called “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years.” On April 23, a gaggle of Kennedys–Caroline and Teddy in the lead–were expected to turn up at a gala opening benefit, along with Jackie’s fashionable sister, Lee Radziwill, who has a new book out, “Happy Days,” which is full of family photos. First Lady Laura Bush was also on the invitation list, as well as Gwyneth, Renee and Sigourney. Meanwhile, at least one other Jackie book–about her signature look–and even a cosmetics line called the Camelot Collection are about to hit the stores. Jackie’s style never goes out.

But don’t look for Jackie O at the Met, in big sunglasses and capri pants. Here instead is Mrs. Kennedy–and a powerful sense of official history shapes the show. (Without the approval of the family and the JFK Library and Museum in Boston–where the clothing from the White House years is preserved–the exhibition would have been impossible.) “For me, the biggest revelation was the level of Jackie’s involvement in constructing her image as First Lady,” says guest curator Hamish Bowles, the European editor of Vogue. She referred to her official wardrobe as “state clothing,” and her fashion instincts turned out to be an effective political tool–though at first it seemed her clothes would be a liability. During the 1960 campaign, Women’s Wear Daily reported that she and her mother-in-law, Rose, spent $30,000 a year on Paris couture. (Jackie’s famous retort: “I couldn’t spend that much unless I wore sable underwear.”) Then David Dubinsky, head of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, complained to JFK about his wife’s foreign wardrobe. After that it was au revoir, Givenchy.

And hello, Oleg Cassini, who’d once designed costumes for Hollywood. The look was still Parisian–she often bought American copies of French designs, and sometimes sneaked in the real thing–and the effect was powerful. For official trips, Jackie mapped out clothes down to every detail. Of course, she wowed the French (“I am the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris,” the president famously said), but she also melted the cold warrior Khrushchev at the Vienna summit, wearing a dazzling pink-sequined gown. Back home, it was the simple elegance of those sheaths and suits that entranced the public. Even her husband understood that. “There are going to be all those rich Republican women at that lunch, wearing mink coats and diamond bracelets,” he said to her before the trip to Dallas. “You’ve got to look as marvelous as any of them. Be simple–show these Texans what good taste really is.”