Ambition, Talent Refuse to Play by These Age Rules

CLEVELAND —  Naomi Nari Nam fell on her first jump, barely landed her second, stumbled out of her third.

This was Nam’s first chance to practice her long program in front of the fans at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships Wednesday. Hundreds of them were pressed around the boards of the rink in suburban Lakewood, eager to see the little girl who had caused such a big sensation last year.

But as Nam’s music kept playing, the 14-year-old figure skater from Irvine threw up her hands, gave up, and glided to the boards where her coach, John Nicks, pulled her head toward his and whispered. Nam fiddled with a loose skate lace and gestured with her arms. It was the loose lace that was causing her to fall, not her loose nerves.

“I was telling her it was OK,” Nicks said afterward. “She was a frustrated young lady.”

Nam comes to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships as the defending silver medalist. Because she gave a spectacular performance in last year’s long program, a beguiling four minutes of breathtaking spins, mature music interpretation, body-bending twists and leg lifts topped off with a smile to melt hearts, Nam has been burdened for a year now with great expectations and even greater pressure.

Because even though Nam was judged the second-best women’s figure skater in the nation last year, and even though the top three U.S. skaters were to earn berths at the 1999 World Championships, Nam stayed home, antsy and a little frustrated, while the girl who finished fourth, Sarah Hughes, a girl who is only two months older than Nam, got to go to Helsinki, got to experience a World Championships, got the exposure you need to become an Olympic contender, got to see what big-time international competition is all about.

And Nam watched on TV in Irvine.

For there is a rule, a year-old rule, which won’t allow a skater to participate in world and Olympic competitions until after her 16th birthday. Hughes snuck in under a grandfather clause last year. Because she had medaled at the 1998 Junior Worlds, she was eligible for the 1999 Senior Worlds. Nam had been five days too young for that competition too.

So this precocious skater took the world by storm last February and now she suffers. This rule that is supposed to protect young skaters, is supposed to keep them from putting too much pressure on their bodies and their psyches, is doing just the opposite.

“I want to go to the Olympics and I want to go to the World Championships,” Nam says. “It’s just going to be harder to do it this way.”

For Nam, and her 15-year-old training partner at the Ice Chalet in Costa Mesa, Sasha Cohen of Laguna Niguel, the only path to the 2000 World Championships is a grueling, three-step process. Nam and Cohen, along with Hughes and 16-year-old Deanna Stellato, are considered the four skaters most likely to stand on the awards podium with defending champion Michelle Kwan.

To make their World Championship dreams come true, Nam and Cohen, who is the defending U.S. junior silver medalist, must finish among the top three after Saturday’s free skate here at the Gund Arena. Assuming such a finish would get them selected to the U.S. Junior World Championship team, Nam and/or Cohen would have to finish among the top three at the Junior World Championships in Germany. Then, 10 days later, and with the approval of U.S. Figure Skating Assn. officials, Nam and/or Cohen would hurry off to Nice and skate a totally new program, with different required elements, at the Senior World Championships.

That’s an exhausting schedule. An unnecessary burden. Instead of keeping a 14-year-old girl like Nam at home, this rule is sending her on a world-wide odyssey.

You can’t legislate away talent.

You can’t make a 13-year-old who can perform better than 20-year-olds not push herself. You can’t tell Nam to sit down, shut up and ignore her talent because, well, darn it, she is just too young.

A year ago, Nam was wide-eyed and fearless. She took a hard fall during her short program, slammed her head on the ice, got up and kept skating.

Now a practice rink is jam-packed with people who know Nam. They whisper about her. “I hear she’s having trouble jumping.” “I hear she’s overrated.” “I hear last year was just a fluke.” “I hear she’s being pushed too hard.”

“I hear all the stuff that people say,” Nam says. “It’s been a lot harder this year because so much is going on.”

Nam’s mother, Connie, who does not push her daughter and who worries about not spending enough time with her two other children, says she wonders if too much happened too quickly for Naomi. “Maybe last year came too fast,” she says. But Connie also says that there is no stopping Naomi. “You can’t tell her not to do things.”

The last two women’s Olympic figure skating champions are Oksana Baiul, 16, and Tara Lipinski, 15. Both Baiul and Lipinski competed in at least two World Championships before their Olympic triumphs. The conventional wisdom is that international judges need two years of watching and critiquing before they consider a girl Olympic gold medal-worthy.

It is the fear of missing out on that experience and exposure that has Nam and Cohen working hard on separate junior and senior programs and committed to trying this most exhausting quest. At least Cohen will be old enough next year to compete at the Senior Worlds should she medal at the U.S. Championships. Nam will still be too young.

“I feel like if the judges think I’m good enough, then why should it matter how old I am?” Nam wonders.

Since Nam won her silver medal in Salt Lake City last February, she has been invited to participate in ice shows, has signed a deal with a South Korean financial resource company for what sources say is a six-figure contract, has made two trips to South Korea, has performed in an exhibition in Germany on New Year’s Eve and has had disappointing second- and seventh-place finishes on the Junior Grand Prix competitive circuit this fall.

Nam has struggled with landing her toughest jump, the triple lutz, all year. During her first practice session here, it was, she told her coach, a badly-tied lace which left her ankle wobbly and her jumps so unsteady that she quit halfway through her long-program run-through.

Because she has chosen to fight for the chance to skate at the Senior Worlds, Nam knows that some skating people shake their heads, point to her jumping problems this season and say, “See, she’s too young.”

But Nicks thinks part of Nam’s problem is pressure. The pressure of having one skate in the junior world and one skate in the senior world.

“I believe,” Nicks says, “that artificial age restrictions are useless. Let the judges decide. If you’re not good enough, no matter what your age, let the judges mark you that way. If you are good enough, what’s the point of holding back?”

Indeed, there is a new 13-year-old who has qualified for this year’s Senior Nationals. Her name is Elizabeth Kwon from Arlington, Va. If she wins a medal here, she’ll be wanting to make the trip to Senior Worlds as well.

Talent is not governed by age. Ambition is not governed by age. So let’s give up the rule and let the judges decide who is good enough and who is not.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com