Ice Queens: Stylish Duel for the Gold
by David Brand and Thomas Callahan
Reported by James L. Graff
TIME MAGAZINE
February 15, 1988

Two skaters from very different worlds, East Germany's Katarina Witt and the U.S.'s Debi Thomas, head for the great showdown.

Sensuous in a red costume highlighted by a frilly, black lace skirt and puffy sleeves, she stepped on to the ice in Prague's Sportovni stadium tense but poised, a 10,000-watt smile dazzling the cheering crowd. As silence descended and the music to Bizet's opera Carmen began, she was transformed into the passionate gypsy who meets death at the hands of a jealous lover. Fingers artfully twirled as if clicking castanets, she interspersed coquettish movements with breathtaking jumps-a triple toe loop, a triple Salchow and a double loop-and dramatically ended her performance stretched out on the ice in a pose of death. The crowd erupted. For the sixth year in a row, East Germany's queen of the ice, Katarina Witt, 22, had won the European figure-skating championship.

Five thousand miles away in Denver, another skater glided onto the ice, wearing a flowing black dress trimmed in red and silver. As the music opened, she too became Bizet's gypsy-but the interpretation was very different. Within seconds she exploded into a triple toe loop combination. Her hands were held high-a balletic gesture that became an expression of delight-as she moved into her fiery portrayal with extraordinary power, all the time saying to herself, "I'm gonna eat this one alive ... Extra energy now ... Oh God, here it comes!" American Debi Thomas, 20, was on her way to her second U.S. national championship.

The two performances last month were as different as the skaters: one a lithe beauty from the East bloc whose bubbly charm and dancer's grace make her a fabulous crowd pleaser, the other a pert pre med student from San Jose who is determined to become a physician even as she struggles to remain a world-class skater. This month the two gypsies will be dueling for the Olympic gold medal at Calgary, both repeating their portrayals of Carmen, a choice that was apparently made quite independently. And despite their grace and the inviting smiles, make no mistake: theirs is a rivalry as keen as the sport of figure skating has known since its debut as an Olympic event 80 years ago.

The East German, known as Katarina the Great, was the Olympic champion at Sarajevo in 1984. She will be trying to become the first female figure skater to win back-to-back golds since Norway's Sonja Henie, who had three consecutive wins between 1928 and 1936. Former World Champion Thomas, meanwhile, is determined to become the first American woman to win the gold since Dorothy Hamill in 1976. "I'm going to fight to bring it back," says Thomas. Then, unballing her fists, she mutters to herself, "If I can keep my head screwed on, I just know I can win the gold.

"The two skaters have totally differing approaches to life and to sport. Witt, molded by East Germany's well-organized sports system, is more outgoing and flirts shamelessly with her audiences. Her gaiety and zest for life belie a total commitment to skating. Even her boyfriend, a drummer with an East Berlin pop group, takes a back seat to her skating. "Really, I don't have much time," she says.

The quirkily humorous Thomas, by comparison, is a self-driven young woman who has more than half her mind on her studies at Stanford University. "Maybe I have different values, I don't know," she says. "But I think my outlook on life has been my advantage. Things like the importance of an education and being whatever you can be give me an inner strength to pull things off on the ice." Life for Thomas is a complex juggling act between classroom and rink, and it was totally in character when she summed herself up on her Stanford application as "invincible."

Their skating styles mirror their lives, a contrast that has been revealed as they have fought during the past four years for world honors. Thomas outskated Witt for the world championship in Geneva in 1986; Witt charged back to regain it at Cincinnati last March. Thomas' antics and expressions show a natural comic flair, although she becomes restrained and serious in competition. In the past, Thomas, a formidable jumper, has often emphasized sheer power at the expense of artistry and grace. Witt, on the other hand, is cool under pressure, while still exuding a special joy that seems to float across the ice and into the crowd. When she performed to the music of West Side Story in Cincinnati, she delighted the audience with her energy and radiance, giving the type of performance she describes as "saying a little danke schoen to the public."

Witt is nearing the end of her competitive career. She has said she will retire from competition after the world championships in Budapest next month. "Skating gets harder as you get older," she says. "It may sound funny at my age, but it's really true. The responsibility grows constantly because you have a name to lose." She is proud of her distinction as a "worker's hero" of East Germany and thinks of herself as a "diplomat in warm-ups." Says Witt: 'When I do well, coming from a socialist country like the German Democratic Republic, other countries have grounds to respect us."

Solid, gritty Karl-Marx-Stadt, with its textile mills and heavy industry, is the place Witt calls home. She has lived there all her life, and seems immersed in the air of duty and reliability that permeates the plain but functional city and its inhabitants. Says Witt: "I'm never as mortified by a fall as I am when it happens before my hometown crowd."

Although East Germany's sports system is acclaimed as the model of athletic selection, Witt ended up as a skating star for the purest of reasons: her kindergarten happened to be next door to Karl-Marx Stadt's Kuchwald skating rink. She explains, "I pressed my parents until they finally gave in and registered me for skating classes. They never thought it would go this far." Nor, perhaps, did her parents, Manfred, a director at a plant seed collective, and Kate, a physical therapist, realize that ultimately their daughter would be spending more time with her imposing coach, Jutta Muller, than with them. "Katarina's parents are proud of her achievements, and they know that my advice is part of that," says Muller. "They have accepted that, and so have other parents-always.

Life under East German sports programs is rigorous. The Kuchwald rink is cold and dreary, and Muller insists that "you have to train even if you've got a cold-that's part of the game!' When asked to describe a typical day, Witt's eyes glaze over as she says, "I get up at seven, I am usually on the ice by eight, and we train, train until evening, when I fall into bed." Not so, Muller interjects., 'We don't train from morning to night. It's a well-planned day that lets Katarina stay fresh." The supporting cast includes psychologists, masseurs, a skate custodian and Choreographer Rudolf Suchy, a Czech who was formerly a principal dancer in the Karl-Marx-Stadt Opera.

Witt thrives on adulation. Even in training she does better when there are a few strangers, preferably male, watching from behind the barrier. "Cameras," she says, "are always a spur for me!' But she also craves quiet time in "my little paradise," her $28-a-month, one-room apartment, furnished with heavy Biedermeier-style oak furniture and lace curtains.. Other possessions include a wardrobe and a white Wartburg car. Most East Germans would have to wait twelve years to get that kind of automobile, but, says Witt with a shrug, "when you do well, you simply have certain privileges. That's true everywhere!"

Gudrun Zener, a West German who knows Witt well through years of organizing her exhibition tours, contends that "in spite of all her success, Witt has remained the same as she always was-not a touch of arrogance or distance!' Witt's weakness, Zeller points out, is her cavalier approach to compulsory routines, an attitude that has cost her more than one international competition. At the 1987 world championships in Cincinnati, for example, her mediocre performance in the compulsory figures put her in fifth place, and tears flowed as she seemingly faced an embarrassing defeat. In the long program, however, she was near perfect adding a triple loop as a last-minute improvisation, the first time she had ever successfully executed the jump in competition. At last month's European championships, the athletic style of her Carmen routine disappointed some judges, who found the portrayal unconvincing and awarded 5.8s and 5.7s, and even one lowly 5.6. But in her short program, skated to Broadway show tunes, she earned an unprecedented five perfect 6s.

No wonder public adulation is so overwhelming. Fans include what she calls "U.S. boys" who write letters proposing marriage. These come, she says, from locations where you'd never think people cared about figure skating." Says former Olympic Gold Medallist Peggy Fleming. "If she were an American, her face would be everywhere. I mean, look at her." Witt has turned down several lucrative offers from the West, including one from New York City's Ford modeling agency. Instead she has enrolled in the state drama school in East Berlin, and intends to concentrate on acting after Calgary.

For now, Witt must concentrate on the Olympics, and in particular on Thomas, whom she characterizes as "hard to get along with." That opinion may be rooted in a statement by Thomas' coach, Alex McGowan, who accused Witt of milking the crowd" at Cincinnati. But Thomas holds no rancor toward the East German. "She's all right," says Thomas. "I like her. I can't exactly say we're friends. But we've been able to sign each other's programs, 'Good luck, may the best man win.' "

The sentiment is typical of Thomas' philosophy, and can be traced back to a bitter loss. 'When I was 13 years old, I did three triple jumps, and I thought, 'I can't be beat.' But I didn't even make it to the sectionals, let alone the nationals. I earned a lesson. Right then I decided I wasn't going to put the rest of my life on the line in front of some panel of judges who just might not like my yellow dress."

Thomas seems to regard the fact that she is black as the merest coincidence. Whenever she hears the term role model, she winces. "I never felt I had to have a role model," she says. "It was like, 'O.K., I want to be a doctor, and I want to be a skater, and I'm going to.' I didn't think I had to see a black woman do this to believe it's possible." Her burgeoning mail tells her that, in spite of herself, she has been an inspiration to young black women, and is about to become a nationwide, not a worldwide, symbol. "If so," she says, "I have to be glad."

In fact, Thomas had a very strong role model in her mother Janice, a computer analyst in Northern California's Silicon Valley, who divorced Thomas' father in the mid-1970s. Young Debi had a more difficult time following her passion for skating than Witt. A world-class training pro is likely to cost a skater's family $25,000 a year, including the coach's fee, and money was scarce around the Thomas household. "I'm kind of a spoiled brat," she says. "It's like, my mom didn't always have the money for something, but we'd get it anyway." She fails to mention all the dresses that she sewed and beaded personally, or the years that she made do with other people's customized boots. She does say, 'Sometimes I went without lessons for a few months until we'd catch up on the bills."

Thomas' first major triumph came in 1986, when she won the U.S. national championship. A month later she flew to the world championships in Geneva, where she upset Witt. The following year, things fell apart. Performing with two injured Achilles tendons, and clearly not trained to her peak, Thomas lost the 1987 U.S. nationals to Jill Trenary. Then came the defeat by Witt in Cincinnati. Even as her title was evaporating, Thomas was entranced by the sight of Witt atwirl on the ice. "The girl," she said, 'Is blazing."

Maybe Thomas was reacting to Witt when she boldly sought out the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. "I couldn't believe it," she says. 'Standing right there. Baryshnikov. I was so inspired. The neat thing is I think he was inspired too." Baryshnikov suggested more emotional emphasis in her routines, an exaggerated movement here, another there. "Could you do this?" he asked, and later proposed that George de la Pena, a former dancer at New York City's American Ballet Theater, work with her regularly. "I found Debi to be extraordinarily intelligent," says De la Pena, "and extraordinarily shy. A lot of people look at her as an extrovert and a bit of a comic. But I think it's a shell that hides a very soft center."

It had been 54 years since a dethroned champion regained the U.S. title, but Thomas last month brought revived confidence and a fresh sense of theater to the nationals in Denver. "Baryshnikov let me see it," she says. "George made me feel it." Trying to describe the feeling, Thomas says, "You're so high, a tingle goes through your whole body. If you've done something, and you know it's right, it's just like, 'Ahhh.' The people can see it in your face, and it reflects off them right back to you."

One of the most difficult moments in Thomas' program is when she does something called a triple Salchow-double toe loop combination. In her last two public appearances, including the nationals, she self consciously abbreviated the combination by doing a double rather than a triple Salchow. Says she: "I don't know why I chicken out. A lot of times in practice, you'll take off completely crooked on a hard jump and still land it. If you trust your nerve as well as your skill, you're capable of a lot more than you imagine. I'm going to land that one in the Olympics if it kills me."

After the nationals, Thomas packed up her 1984 Toyota Supra and drove from Denver back to Boulder, where she has been training for the Olympics. She is on a year's leave of absence from Stanford, but could not resist taking several courses at the University of Colorado. "I'm used to a suicidal load-calculus, chemistry and stuff. I whale [thrive] on it. I took German here just for fun, and I've had a blast." Of course, her study of German is not entirely idle. "I want to speak a little of it to Katarina."

On the ice at Calgary, though, Thomas and Witt will be speaking the language of the passionate Carmen, as each in her own way portrays the gypsy temptress. It is a duel that will fascinate connoisseurs of figure skating. The challenge for Thomas will be to match Witt's dramatic flair. The challenge for Witt will be to match Thomas' strength.

Inevitably, each woman's background will help shape - her interpretation of the wild and ungovernable Carmen. Achieving that expression is possibly more difficult for Witt, who has grown up in a highly disciplined system. Understandably, she gives the state full credit for her success. "I'm convinced that in another country I would not have this success," she says. "It would have cost more than my parents could afford, and that is that." Thomas, the independent spirit, perhaps has more empathy with the gypsy. Thomas' achievements, says her mother, are rooted in an indomitable spirit. 'When I look back now, it isn't the money or the miles I think of. It's all the years she skated well. All the times she quit, all the times I quit. Luckily, we never quit together. She's such a gutsy lady, tough as nails."

The Thomas-and-Witt show could be the high point of the Calgary Games. Two stars, both great, but in very different ways. Power and grace. So alike and yet unique. The sad part is that only one can win.