She's only 14, but she's already made history. Two weeks ago, Tara Lipinski became the youngest skater ever to win the World Figure Skating Championships. "I never expected it," she said after winning. "It's like a dream. But I love it!"
Maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised. The World Championship, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, was the third competition Tara has won this year. In February she became the youngest U.S. national champion, and a few weeks later she won an event that included skaters from Russia, France and Canada.
Before the competition in Switzerland, Tara, who is 4 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 75 pounds, said she would be happy if she finished among the top five skaters. But she stunned the judges by skating two nearly perfect programs filled with tricky triple jumps, including a triple loop-triple loop combination that very few female skaters even try.
The judges rewarded her with just enough points to beat last year's champion, Michelle Kwan, 16. "I skated the best I could," Tara said. "The rest was up to (the judges)."
Tara and her coach, Richard Callaghan, worked for months to perfect her short and long programs. They chose music from the movies Little Women, Sense and Sensibility and Much Ado About Nothing. Tara took ballet lessons to improve her artistry. Callaghan helped her to polish her famous jumps. Tara is a perfectionist: she practices a jump over and over until she is satisfied with it. Callaghan says he sometimes has to ask her to stop practicing!
Far From Home
For Tara, success is the reward for the sacrifices she has made to pursue skating. Her home is in Sugar Land, Texas, but she and her mom Pat live in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, so she can train with her coach at the Detroit Skating Club. Tara's dad Jack and her five dogs still live in Texas. She misses them, but she returns home for
weekends and holidays and talks to her dad by phone every night.
Being a competitive skater is not easy. Tara's day begins at 7:30 a.m. After breakfast, she and her mother drive to the rink for 4 1/2 hours of lessons and practice. Her schedule makes it hard for her to attend school, so she studies with tutors for four hours each weekday. Tara's favorite subjects are math and biology. She promised her parents that she would go to college. She wants to become a lawyer someday.
Even when she's not on the ice, Tara keeps busy. She uses her own sewing machine to make pillows and stuffed animals for friends. She also loves to cook, especially pasta. To relax, Tara watches her favorite TV shows--Friends, Party of Five and Home Improvement.
Tara realizes she's lucky to have a loving family that supports her quest to be a champion. She makes time for kids who are less fortunate, visiting sick children in hospitals in the cities where she competes. "It sounds funny to say I have fun doing these hospital visits, but I do," she writes in her online diary (www.taralipinski.com). "It makes me feel good to know that I helped brighten up someone else's day."
Becoming A Champion
Tara started skating at age three, but on wheels, not blades. When she was six, she tried ice skates for the first time. "She was flopping around all over the place," her father recalls. But in a few hours, Tara had learned to perform all her roller-skating moves on the ice.
Tara's love for ice skating grew. She would rise at 3 a.m. to skate on rinks at shopping malls. Soon her mother realized that Tara was serious about figure skating, so she and Tara left Texas to train in Delaware and then with Callaghan in Michigan. "Tara is a natural talent with a lot of energy," Callaghan told TFK.
Olympic Dreams
Since her spectacular wins this season, everybody wants to meet Tara. She recently traveled to New York City, where she appeared on TV and met
her favorite talk-show host, David Letterman ("He was really nice and funny," she says). A children's book about her life will be published in the fall, and a toy company may create a Tara Lipinski doll.
With this year's skating season over, Tara plans to spend some time back in Texas. In a few weeks she'll pack her bags again to travel across the U.S. with the Tour of World Figure Skating Champions through July. Then it's back to the rink to work on new programs.
Next February Tara hopes to compete in her first Olympics. "If I make the team, I'll be happy," she says. But no one would be surprised to see her add an Olympic medal to her trophy collection.