KWAN KWITS KWANPETITION!

As even non-figure-skating fans know by now, nine-time US Ladies Champion Michelle Kwan has withdrawn from Nationals due to injury but is still petitioning for a spot on the Olympic team.

Over the past 48 hours, the blogosphere, as well as the more traditional media, have gone crazy debating whether or not her petition should be granted.

The Pro-camp has one argument: She is Kwan.

The Anti have several. Most of which boil down to: Based on her performance at the World Championships last year (4th place), as well as her lack of international appearances this season, Kwan has proven herself incapable of winning a medal for the U.S. Better to send a young up-and-comer like Alisa Szisny or Kimmie Meissner or Emily Hughes who can gain some valuable competition experience and position herself for a medal in 2010.

The Pro camp does have precedent on their side. In 1994, U.S. Silver Medalist Kwan was bumped off the Olympic team in favor of a recovered Nancy Kerrigan. (The title that year went to Tonya Harding, who was subsequently stripped of it when convicted of being involved in the attack on Nancy. The national crown, however, was left blank, rather than given to Michelle. If it had been, she would currently be the record holder for most Ladies titles ever).

Two years earlier, in 1992, the same thing happened to Men's Bronze Medalist Mark Mitchell, who lost his spot on the Olympic team to Todd Eldredge. Eldredge, not fully recovered from his back injury, ended up finishing 10th at the Olympics (teammates Paul Wylie and Christopher Bowman were 2nd and 4th respectively). Mitchell was sent to Worlds, instead, where he finished 5th -- to Eldredge's 7th.

However, just to make things interesting, in 1996, defending National champion and World Bronze medalist Nicole Bobek, who had to pull out of the US Championship due to an ankle injury, was denied a bye to the 1996 World Championship despite the fact that ABC announcer Dick Button was so certain it would happen he went off the air for the night predicting it.

Yet, the United States Figure Skating Association said no. They never offered a concrete reason why. Because they didn't have to. Unlike some other sports, the U.S. Nationals are very specifically just Nationals, not World/Olympic trials. The USFSA still has utter discretion to name any team they see fit. (Speculation ran that the USFSA had decided to punish Nicole for the manner in which she received her injury. Instead of training for Nationals, Nicole accepted $90,000 to, along with Todd Eldredge, appear in a tour of "Nutcracker on Ice." The USFSA believed that their athletes should be home practicing, not on the road padding their bank accounts, and they decided to send their message, loud and clear, courtesy of Nicole.)

Whatever.

In the end, none of that matters.

Kwan should go to the Olympics for one reason and one reason only. And it's not because she's wonderful and gracious and inspirational and photogenic. It's because, while Michelle Kwan may have proven herself no longer a favorite for the gold medal, none of her potential replacements have proven themselves capable of achieving a better result. Yes, Emily Hughes is a Junior World Bronze Medalist, and Kimmie Meissner landed the first Triple Axel at the Nationals since Tonya Harding, and Alissa Czisny qualified for the Grand Prix Final.

But, a Junior World Medal is still a medal just among Juniors, and Kimmie hasn't landed the Triple Axel in competition since, and Alissa finished last at the Grand Prix, behind five women whom Michelle had, at one time or another, all beaten before.

Even though the Olympics have proven to be Michelle's Achilles Heel (2nd in 1998 behind Tara Lipinski, 3rd in 2002 behind Sarah Hughes and Irina Slutskaya), she is still head and shoulders above all the other possibilities.

So if the USFSA is still so eager to season their youngsters, send them to Worlds in March 2006. Or, better yet, send Michelle there, too. She's much more likely to earn a spot high enough to qualify three U.S. women to compete there again in 2007. Which is when Czisny, Meissner and Hughes can really start their hunt for the 2010 Olympic Gold. (An opportunity they won't have in 2007 if the Ladies' team doesn't perform well in 2006).

In the meantime, send Kwan. For, injured or not, new scoring system or not, she is still, quite simply, the Kween.

(For the record, I find Michelle's programs repetitive and overly arm-flappy. But I still stand by my argument).