In ice dance, Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio won Italy's first world title while Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France were second and Russia's Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh took the bronze. As for the Americans, this week gives them plenty of encouragement heading into the Salt Lake City Olympics, only 11 months away. Not only did Kwan become the first woman since Katarina Witt to win a fourth world title, but history says she'll have the edge in Salt Lake, too. The last four women who won the world title the year before the games went on to win Olympic gold, too. You can't go by what happens in the history books.
Next year is something different.
But in beating Slutskaya this week, Kwan rediscovered the confidence she'd lost during what has been one of the toughest seasons of her career. She answered questions about whether she could keep up technically with a beautiful triple toe loop-triple toe loop combination, and did five other triple jumps. Her artistic marks, all 5.8s and 5.9s, were far superior to Slutskaya's. I was sort of lost and didn't know what I was doing. The last month I understood this was my goal.