Lipinski, Tara Kristen

▪ 1999

      The tiniest American competitor at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, was a powerhouse when it came to both competing and breaking records. In winning the women's figure-skating title at the age of 15 years 255 days, the 1.47-m (4-ft 10-in), 37.2-kg (82-lb) Tara Lipinski broke Sonja Henie's 70-year-old world record by 60 days to become the youngest female to capture Olympic figure-skating gold. This was not her first world record, however. In 1994 Lipinski was the youngest female Olympic Festival gold medalist; in 1996 she was the first skater to successfully land a triple loop-triple loop combination in competition; and in 1997 she became the youngest world champion ever, a record that—because of new International Skating Union age limits—might never be broken.

      Lipinski, born on June 10, 1982, in Philadelphia, had been planning for Olympic gold for most of her life. Watching the 1984 Summer Games on television when she was two, she was quite taken with the awards ceremonies and conducted her own by singing the national anthem atop a Tupperware podium as her father draped a homemade gold medal around her neck. At age three she began roller-skating classes and soon was taking private lessons; she won her age group's gold medal at the national championships when she was nine. By that time Lipinski had been ice skating for about three years, and when her family moved to Houston, Texas, in 1991, she focused on that sport. Most mornings she was on the ice by four, and she spent her summers training with coaches in Delaware. She and her mother moved there in 1993 so that she could get the coaching she needed for competing at the highest levels; her father visited on weekends. The move paid off with her Olympic Festival victory the following year. In late 1995 Lipinski and her mother moved to the Detroit suburbs, and Richard Callaghan became Lipinski's coach. Six weeks later, competing at the senior level at the U.S. championships, she placed third. Though she was only 15th in the world championships the following month, a year later she came in first.

      Following her Olympic victory in February, Lipinski decided not to participate in the 1998 world championships in March, and in early April she announced that she was turning professional so that her family could be together. Later that month she won her first professional competition, Skate TV, with a score of all 10s. Among Lipinski's future plans were the Stars on Ice tour and TV specials on CBS.

BARBARA WHITNEY

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