The next morning her throat felt like strep; her ears were blocked. And worst of all, as she warmed up at noon, she was sure her ““skates must be on the wrong feet.’’ But beneath the spangle and tinsel, there’s steel. Out she skated, and once again the crowd roared its approval. Tara beamed. ““I love touring,’’ she said without a trace of irony. ““You get to see so much.’’ But that weekend, she had seen little other than hotel lobbies, locker rooms and 400 miles of yellow line.
Next February Lipinski expects to skate for glory at the Olympics in Nagano, Japan. But skating’s off season is about razzle and dazzle, grit and cash. Over three months and 59 cities, this Campbell’s Soups Tour of World Figure Skating Champions will test the endurance of the most accomplished skaters - and possibly even determine the futures of America’s Olympic hopefuls. It has been almost one full Olympic cycle since the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan episode transformed the skating world into must-see TV. The champions tour, once a small, sporadic event that attracted large crowds only in Olympic years, now fills arenas coast to coast with a cast that includes virtually all the top Olympic hopefuls and former Olympic greats like Brian Boitano and Oksana Baiul. Its success has forced figure skating’s elite to revamp their Olympic game plans with yet-to-be-seen results. Contenders used to dedicate the off season to rest and then a slow, steady embrace of their new programs. Now skaters will barely pause between the tour and fall’s competitive season. ““Call it the great American experiment with our skaters’ Olympic dreams,’’ says Linda Leaver, Boitano’s longtime coach.
To salvage a semblance of a training regimen, coaches like Richard Callaghan, who handles both Lipinski and U.S. men’s champ Todd Eldredge, often tag along on the tour. They work with their stars between rehearsals and bus rides. ““I keep looking anxiously at the calendar ‘cause I know we don’t have too much time,’’ he says. ““But I also understand that today this tour is a livelihood.’’ The performers earn $2,000 to $20,000 a show, so head- liners can make more than $1 million for one tour. Kerrigan marvels at the new economics, which enables Olympic-bound skaters to summon their coaches or agents (and helped lure Nancy, whose son is 5 months old, back for half the tour). ““In my day, I had to fix my problems on the phone,’’ she says.
The tour does have its advantages for competitors. ““The chance to go out and perform before a live audience night after night is such a good thing for these skaters,’’ says Tom Collins, who has run the tour since its inception in 1967. Michelle Kwan, a world champion at 15 and a veteran of four tours, credits much of her success to her first tour. By skating the same routine each night, she could concentrate on artistry - the facial expression, the arm movements and the emotion. Tara now is on the same learning curve. ““Every night she’s learning big-time to cope with all different obstacles,’’ says her mother, Pat, one of six parents on the Florida swing. Like in Orlando, where the narrow rink is ringed by flowerpots. Tara crashed over one, toppling with the flowers onto the ice. As she skated off, her one concern was ““How long did I lie there?’'
The performers arrive at an arena up to four hours before the show, during which time each will appear for less than 10 minutes. At every stop, Collins’s crew unloads weights, exercise and pinball machines, a Ping-Pong table and darts. Absent the competitions on which they were raised, the skaters create their own. One afternoon before a show, Boitano challenges Lipinski, Kwan and French star Surya Bonaly to see who can do the most sit-spins without falling - and wins with 38. Collins likes to say his tour is ““like one big family.''
Just like a family, agrees one skater - ““after a month together, nobody can stand each other.’’ Lipinski endured an icy reception, the collective resent- ment of her success at such a young age. By Florida, though, she appeared to have won over her elders. When she tumbled over the flowers, a couple of former U.S. champions were waiting to calm her with tales of their own spills. And it’s a sweet sight when the tour’s two youngsters, Kwan and Lipinski, are sprawled across their bus seats, asleep only inches from each other. ““If Tara gets too tired, we’ll pick up and go home,’’ says her mother. But they likely won’t. Skating has leaped with all its axels and lutzes into a new age. This week the road to Nagano goes through Texas, where the ice is fresh and the cash is cold.
