Kwan Is Coming Back Around

"Right now, being healthy is my main focus," Kwan said. "Right now, everything is determined by my health. . . . You never know what will happen in four years if both of us keep our eligibility."

On this tour, which runs until August, Kwan plans to present a program to Natalie Cole's remake of Leon Russell's "A Song for You," but it won't include a single jump. Her doctor, she said, advised her not to overtax her groin and hip, which also was injured last fall, so the best she can hope for is to add a jump or two by the time the tour arrives at Verizon Center for two shows April 15. (Kimmie Meissner, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, Evgeni Plushenko and others will also be performing.)

"I've never done that before, never choreographed a program without jumps," Kwan said. "When I'm feeling up to it, when I'm feeling better, then I'll say, 'Okay, it's time to jump.' . . . It's hard doing spirals and spins without jumping."

At least, though, she is back on the ice.

"It's hard not skating for six weeks," she said. "It's so much a part of me. It beats going to the gym every day. When I don't move, I feel lethargic and tired."

So there was no relief to get away from the sport?

"Competition is what I love," she said. "Being out there is what I love. Testing myself if what I love."

After abruptly dropping out of the Games, she declined to join her brother in Paris because, she said, she didn't want her pouting to ruin his vacation. NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol invited her to commentate at the women's Olympic competition. Dozens of major news shows and outlets requested interviews. She turned down everything.

She instead flew immediately home with her parents, knowing newspapers and Web sites were littered with what read like obituaries about her departure. For the next two weeks, Kwan said, she watched the Olympics devotedly, obsessively. She tuned into "Today Show" broadcasts from Turin at 7 a.m. She watched the latest events shown at night. Curling, hockey, speedskating; she did not discriminate.

She depended on her friends to keep things lighthearted, she said, but she dreaded the arrival of the women's figure skating event. Despite her anxiety, she was drawn to it. She could not skip it. Rather than watch with friends, she sought the presence of her mother and father, who briefly stood in as her coach before the 2002 Winter Games, where she won a bronze medal.

"I didn't know whether I wanted to watch the Olympics with my parents because I didn't want them to see me be emotional," Kwan said. "But I'm glad I did. . . . I needed to share it with them."

And now she wonders if she can get back. Her body, clearly, is protesting vehemently. It's pushing, even more than all those people who have asked her since after her first Olympics in Nagano in 1998: Why don't you just turn pro already?

"I've heard that since '98," she said, "Why don't you just call it quits? But look at [43-year-old] Roger Clemens and [44-year-old] Chris Chelios. They're veterans. They're probably the oldest, and still the best, or one of the best. If you can still perform, if you can still do it, why not? No one is giving you anything [in sports]. As long as you love it, why not?"

Here, perhaps, is why not: Kwan described getting out of bed every morning as an exercise in pain management. She clutched her back and moved her arms slowly to mimic the gradual unwinding. Her back creaks. Her legs stiffen. Her buttocks ache. It takes sessions with therapists and hours of just moving around to feel . . . young again.

Kwan is 25.

"By the afternoon," she said, "it's like I'm back to myself again."

Kwan said she intends to decide for certain which direction to send her life by the summer's end. She plans to finish her degree at UCLA in the near future and has a variety of acting and other options.

But she said she wants to see how she feels on the ice when not beset by injuries before even considering ending a career that brought her five world championships and nine U.S. titles.

"Some people have definite answers," Kwan said. "That's not me. But when it's a definite answer, it will be written in stone. I'm always good for my word."