Michelle Kwan
Figure skating
Olympian in 1998, 2002, 2006
Silver medal, 1998; bronze medal, 2002
Fans sometimes stop Michelle Kwan on the street to say how
proud they are of her five ice-skating world championships. Others say how
sad they were during the two Olympics when she didn’t win
gold.
“Some cry,” she says. Presumably, these people rode the
emotional roller coaster of her victories and disappointments alongside
her.
At the 1998 Games in Nagano, Kwan skated well. She thought she
might have won. But fellow American Tara Lipinski captured the gold and
Kwan settled for silver.
All she remembers thinking as she stood on the podium is
“Wait—did that just happen?” She decided to see the experience as
educational: “This is just the beginning of my career,” she
thought.
And it was. She qualified for two more Olympic teams but fell
in her 2002 free-skate and ended up third. She withdrew from the 2006 team
due to injury. People assume she’s heartbroken. She’s not. “It would’ve
been really great” to win gold, she says, “but I don’t feel
incomplete.”
In 2006, the State Department appointed her the first envoy for
US public diplomacy, a role that requires her to talk to kids abroad about
her story and values, in the process bringing attention to programs
needing support. She finished a master’s in international relations at
Tufts in 2011 and has been in Washington since last July, working with the
State Department, the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports &
Nutrition, and Special Olympics.
“I hope to keep learning and keep challenging myself,” she
says, “and not be afraid.”
