YAMAGUCHI SAYS OLYMPICS ARE OUT ICE SKATER KRISTI YAMAGUCHI SAYS SHE WON'T

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1993                   TAG: 9303240219
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium
YAMAGUCHI SAYS OLYMPICS ARE OUT ICE SKATER KRISTI YAMAGUCHI SAYS SHE WON'T
Kristi Yamaguchi won't be coming back to rescue American figure skating.
Yamaguchi, the star of the 1992 Winter Games at Albertville, France, will not be defending her title next February at Lillehammer, Norway. Yamaguchi said Tuesday in New York that she would not apply to have her eligibility reinstated.
"I am still skating well . . . and maybe I should take this opportunity," she said about competing in the Olympics again next year. "But I let my heart decide, and this is what I want to do."
The International Skating Union changed its rules last summer, allowing for a one-time reinstatement of eligibility for skaters who turned pro. Already, 1984 and '88 Olympic gold medalist Katarina Witt has applied. Brian Boitano, the men's champion at the Calgary Games in 1988, is expected to apply next week, while last year's men's gold medalist, Viktor Petrenko, has said he intends to compete at Lillehammer.
Yamaguchi, 22, has been touring in a show with Scott Hamilton, Brian Orser, Rosalyn Sumners and several other former Olympic stars. While two of those stars, 1988 Olympic pairs champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, have decided to come back, Yamaguchi will pass. This time.
She still could come back for the 1998 Olympics but is undecided.
Yamaguchi's decision further weakens American prospects for the Lillehammer Olympics. Coming off its worst performance at the world championships in decades, the United States will have only two men's and women's singles spots. No American skater won a medal at this month's world championships.
When Yamaguchi became the first American woman's gold medalist in Olympic figure skating since Dorothy Hamill in 1976, it capped a meteoric rise for the native of Fremont, Calif. A two-time national champion in pairs with Rudy Galindo, Yamaguchi dropped that discipline in 1991 and immediately won the world championship.
Last year, she dominated the sport, winning her first American crown, the Olympic title and a second world championship.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB