Athletes or Aesthetes

FEW little girls can watch the top female Olympic ice skaters without daydreaming. Most of the skaters epitomize bodily beauty and strength, personal grace and confidence. Many have a face to match.

Katarina Witt is the most extreme example in recent memory, with a ballerina's body and a model's features; her performance Saturday night made the most of her seductive looks. Swathed in a red dress with black sequins, her face layered with an inch of rouge and at least as much eyeshadow, Witt cut a striking figure as she skated onto the ice. After a few minor spins and jumps she entered the second sequence of her program, the memorable part--she kicked, she tossed her head, she waved her arms, she smiled. She looked compelling and sexy.

But even lovely, long-haired Peggy Fleming pointed out that all of a minute-and-a-half went by without a major athletic move. By the end of the five-minute performance, Witt had executed an unambitious number of triple-jumps. But she had glided dramatically down to the ice, lying dead and beautiful, a perfectly acted Carmen. That performance won her the gold.

Ignoring the weird spasm of patriotism I suffer every four years or so, I can admit that Witt danced a beautiful program to beautiful music. In this most watched of Olympic events, however, it is ironic that dancing to beautiful music is what wins.

Witt was confident in her ability to score high on "artistic impression", she could avoid a technically challenging program. But those skaters who didn't pass the conventional glamour test had to design thrilling, athletic choreography, the kind of choreography that puts ice skating in the category of sport. No viewer can fairly say that the judges were biased against Debi Thomas--she stumbled and fell, she seemed awkward and unconfident. But it does seem that Witt won without the disadvantages Thomas and other skaters had to face: namely risky, exciting moves. While the audience waited anxiously to glimpse skaters perform a daring sequence of triple-jumps, who among the viewers held his or her breath while Witt flirted with the audience? There simply wasn't anything in her skating suspenseful enough to merit a gasp.

FOUR years ago Peggy Fleming introduced another rival pair of skaters, both Americans, to Olympic fans. Before the competition began, the network showed clips of both stars. Rosalind Summers was spotlighted waving her arms balletically in slow, elegant moves. Elaine Zayak, a short, muscular New Jersey girl who had twice won the World Championships, was shown in falls that had marred her performances in the previous year.

Fleming noted that Zayak was one of the most athletically tough skaters in Olympic history, but said she simply didn't have the refined, elegant beauty of Summers; as shown by the clips, even Zayak's athletic talent was backfiring. Zayak continued on her streak of bad luck; she fell during the Olympics and didn't place, while Summers won the silver medal. The former World Champion later criticized the sports press for according her disrespectful treatment.

I am not arguing for the elimination of artistry and elegance in the sport of ice skating. However, when athletic prowess is shown as a defect--as in the negative clips of Zayak--something about standards on women's ice skating should be questioned. In the Olympic gymnastic events athletes compete in teams, all wearing the same uniforms and little makeup. The women are judged not by their facial beauty or their "well-built" bodies, as Witt said she wished to be judged by, but by a true combination of graceful strength and athletic elegance.

To speak negatively of athletic standards in pairs' or men's skating is unthinkable. Yet when a woman gets on the ice all alone, she is expected to prove her femininity, not her strength. Thomas might have lost even without risking the exciting jumps; Witt might have won with those risks. But Witt didn't have to try, didn't have to risk falling, didn't have to exhaust herself during her competition.

Thomas and other skaters learned that avoiding athletic challenges can garner a woman the gold. Did Saturday night mark an advance in the sport of ice skating, as sportscaster Dick Button wondered? Not if woman's ice skating is to remain a sport. The Olympics, after all, are not the Ice Capades.

Some of the little girls watching the competition might go on to a career in ice skating; one might win a gold medal. I hope the sportscasters and judges she has to face will be as encouraging of athletic skill as of artistic talent.

And for those little girls who don't grow up to be Olympic champions, there is still an important message from Saturday's competition. The skating beauties who have won golds in the past--in part by pandering to the public's wish for a stereotype, be it elegant, cute, or sexy-have chosen careers consistent with their stage images. Peggy Fleming filmed commercials for Trident gum before moving on to sportscasting; Dorothy Hamill inspired a national hairstyle and represented a shampoo company; Katerina Witt is about to enter a career in acting and modeling. But things will be different for 1988's bronze medalist. A true sportswoman, Debbie Thomas plans to become an orthopedic surgeon, a positive role model in and out of the skating world.