"Kristi Yamaguchi Remains a Star in Home Area"

Author: Kathleen Donnelly

Source: Knight-Ridder News Service
Date: December 7, 1993

Full text copyright Knight-Ridder Tribune Service

San Jose, California - The little boy spots Kristi Yamaguchi as she passes a Sharks store at the San Jose Arena. His eyes widen. He points. From out of nowhere he produces a baseball and a pen, weaves through a half-dozen adult legs, and makes straight for the skating star.

She signs her name and adds a quickly sketched daisy, just as she has ever since she was in sixth grade back in Fremont.

Before the hour's up, Yamaguchi would have signed her name for one little boy, two waiters and a couple of sheepish Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies, each of whom fairly shakes from excitement of meeting America's ice princess close up.

It's been almost two years since Yamaguchi has glided into celebrity at the Albertville Olympics, the gold medal in women's figure skating around her delicate neck. It's been nearly that long since she came home to the Bay Area and won the 1992 World Championships, her second in a row. Another Winter Olympics, one she will not compete in, begins in a few months.

But at the age of channel-surfing attention spans, fans still recognize Kristi Yamaguchi - our national sprite on ice only 5 feet tall and 98 pounds.

She looks up at the menu at the arena's restaurant, smiling the smile that beamed from what seemed like every cereal box and newsmagazine cover in the late winter of '92.

"I get it especially in the Bay Area," she says of her recognition. "It's kinda nice."

It it's kind of wearing, too, Yamaguchi doesn't let on. In San Jose on Monday to promote "Stars on Ice", the ice show that will take her to 30 cities this winter, including San Jose and Oakland, she says the only bad part of being a celebrity skater is the time it requires to be away from her close-knit family, who nurtured her skating career from the age of six.

That, and she can't go to the Newpark Mall, near where her mother and father, brother, and sister still live, without causing a stir.

Otherwise she takes to heart the advice of Brian Botiano, winner of the men's Olympic figure skating gold medal in 1988. In Albertville, he sent Yamaguchi an electronic mail message on the computer system the athletes used.

"He send no matter how bad your day is or how little time you have, make time to be gracious," Yamaguchi says, picking at the smoked chicken quesadillas a waiter has placed in front of her. "These people are meeting you for the first time, that's maybe their only chance to see you. And it's the only impression you'll leave with them."

The impression Yamaguchi leaves is fleeting by necessity. At 22, her life is blur of ice arenas and hotel rooms.

She estimates that she's spent no more that four months at home since the Olympics ended, including a month last year spent recuperating from a torn ligament on her ankle.

Her life is so busy perhaps even isolated, that she admits with a laugh she sometimes forgets what city she's in during a long stretch of ice-show one-night stands.

This could be a problem she jokes, because in the upcoming Stars on Ice program, she and 1992 men's Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie are supposed to welcome the guests.

"I told him he's going to have to say the city name first," she says, "So I'll know where we are."

Between shows, Yamaguchi trains for professional competitions such as the Durasoft Colors World Professional Championships, which she will skate in this weekend.

The professional competitions are no easy skate, and they're about to get harder for Yamaguchi, who was World Professional Champion in 1992.

Midori Ito, the Japanese skater whose triple jumps make her a threat to Yamaguchi in the Olympics, will make her professional debut at the competition this weekend. It will be the first time the two have competed against each other since the Olympics.

Yamaguchi admits she's pretty nervous about that, especially because she's only had about a week to work on her routine. That's a change from the hours and hours she used to spend training in Edmonton, Alberta, as an amateur.

Now she must split her time, working with Stars on Ice, which she headlines with Wylie and Olympic champion Scott Hamilton, and modeling for the makers of acetate clothing and for Durasoft contact lenses.

She has a house in Reno she has brought a year ago that she's never had a chance to live in. She plans to change that in 1994, when she hopes to take July off.

It would be the first time since Yamaguchi was a preschooler that she'd have that many free days in a row. In fact, ask Yamaguchi what she does in her spare time and she almost can't remember.

For one thing, she says finally, on her nights off she likes to go back to the arena - to watch hockey. She's a Sharks fan, and gets a glimpse of the game in between signing autographs for the fans who probably can't believe whom they've stumbled upon.

She likes to shop, Yamaguchi says, dropping her eyes as if she's slightly embarrassed by the revelation. She also reads a lot, on planes and buses between tours.

Still, it's the kind of life Yamaguchi has dreamed of ever since she saw her first ice show at the now-defunct Southland mall ice rink when she was 6 years old. And she says she loves skating more than ever right now.

"What got me into skating was seeing a show," she says. "Seeing the costumes, and all the music that they skated to, and the skater to, and the skaters in the spotlight with all the sequins. That's what I really love - the performing side."

Which may explain why Yamaguchi finds she doesn't mind that she's not going to the upcoming Olympics as a competitor, even if some of her fans mind. In March, Yamaguchi decided she would not compete in Lillehammer.

"I thought about it and thought about it," she says sighing. "Everything that happened in '92 was more than what I had ever dreamed of - doing so well at the Olympics and coming back to Oakland and defending my world title. It seemed to wrap things up so perfectly. It was a great year and I was thinking, how can I top that?"

She decided she couldn't. So, she'll be going to Lillehammer, Norway, in February as a commentator for radio.

"I don't really know much about radio," she says, just a shade doubtfully. "I'll have to do some research."

She raises her shoulders in a slight shrug. It's just another thing to fit in.

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