Saturday, February 18, 2006

Jose Antonio Vargas was on the mark in his Feb. 14 Style piece about why Michelle Kwan is held in high esteem. Americans have an affinity for people who are burdened with adversity, deal with it and seem to come out of the struggle stronger. Ms. Kwan could have bailed out and gone professional, but she did not. She kept focused on Olympic gold. She wanted to win gold representing her country, a laudable goal. Winning a gold medal would have been nice, but it is not required for my continued admiration.

The writer pointed out how perfectly Ms. Kwan's performances were timed to her music. But Mr. Vargas overlooked arguably Ms. Kwan's most moving performance, especially for those of us in the Washington area:

At the free skate following the 2002 Olympic competition, Ms. Kwan gave a beautiful performance skating to "Fields of Gold," performed by the late, locally beloved Eva Cassidy. A snippet of that performance was shown during Monday's late-night coverage of the games, but it was not so short that I didn't have time for a tear for Ms. Cassidy and one for Ms. Kwan as well.

MICHAEL BAKER

Baltimore