Kwan is still the one

ATLANTA -- There have been so many nights like this one, all in a row, that she has lost track of her place in skating history.

"Is next year the record?" Michelle Kwan wondered after she'd won her eighth US women's title (and seventh straight) before 13,787 at Philips Arena last night. "Somebody told me it was this year."

The record belongs to Maribel Vinson, the Boston area legend who won nine between 1928 and 1937 and likely would have won 10 straight had she not skipped the 1934 championships.

But unless she loses interest, loses her skates or loses her plane ticket, odds are that the 23-year-old Kwan will cruise past Vinson before the Olympics come around again in 2006.

"I had so much fun out there," said Kwan, after she'd outpointed Sasha Cohen and Newton's Jennifer Kirk with a flawless and graceful long program that earned her seven perfect 6.0s for artistry, running her career total at nationals to 35, 26 more than runner-up Brian Boitano. "The crowd, the energy. . ."

It's the crowd that nourishes her, even more so now that Kwan competes so rarely. This was her first serious outing since she won her fifth world crown last spring, and nothing was guaranteed.

On her heels were the 19-year-old Cohen, who'd finished second twice to Kwan, and the 19-year-old Kirk, who'd skated brilliantly in Thursday's short program.

Had Kwan cracked, both of them had the goods to beat her. But except for 1997, when she fell apart in Nashville and Tara Lipinski lifted her crown, Kwan had kept her feet under her and her crown on top of her. "She always delivers," said Richard Callaghan, Kirk's coach.

And Cohen, again, did not. She was fourth at the 2002 Olympics after sitting in medal position. She was fourth at the last two world championships. And last night, midway through a magnificent program that could have put the big squeeze on Kwan, Cohen came unhinged again.

She had nailed her opening pair of triple-double combinations, hit a triple loop, landed a double axel, then knocked off a triple salchow-double toe. Then, inexplicably, she tumbled on her triple toe, the easiest jump in her program. "My timing was a little off," she said. "I was crooked in the air."

When Cohen staggered out of her ensuing triple lutz, she'd left the door wide open for Kwan and she knew it. "Not what I wanted," said Cohen, whose one 6.0 for artistry couldn't make up for a bunch of technical 5.7s. "It's sad to say, but every program I've done in practice has been better than that."

Kwan's program -- with only six triples and but a single combination -- was the easiest of the three contenders, but she attacked it with deliberation and craft.

Once she'd knocked off her triple lutz-double toe combo, Kwan was in gear and she knew it. When the second lutz was behind her, she grinned hugely and set off on a joyous footwork sequence. "I was going, `Yeah!'," she said. "I just let it be whatever it was going to be."

When the music stopped and Kwan saw the crowd rise out of their seats and litter the ice with stuffed animals, she began sobbing. "I was laughing and crying at the same time," she said. "A lot of emotion."

Another night, another challenge, another title. "How does it feel to be champion?" someone asked her. "Well, Jennifer still has to skate," Kwan observed, nodding at the nearby TV monitor.

But Kirk had arrived at the arena feeling queasy. "A little bit of the flu," she said. Kirk began well enough, hitting her triple toe-triple toe. But as the program wore on, her legs began wobbling and she went down on her triple salchow.

Still, Kirk managed to hang in for bronze and a place on the team for the March world championships in Germany. "I'm very proud of the way I was able to handle myself tonight," said Kirk, who's the first Boston-area woman to win a medal since Nancy Kerrigan took gold in 1993. "I'm thrilled to make worlds and to be on the podium for the first time."

Bronze is the one color missing from Kwan's national trophy case. She has won so many golds now -- only Dick Button and Roger Turner managed seven straight in singles -- that she's lost count.

"I don't think it's about stacking medals," said the woman who's now collected 11 in 12 attempts. "For me, it's about the performance."