by LOIS ELFMAN
ach Christmas three-time U.S. pairs champion, World and Olympic bronze med- alist Peter Oppegard and
wife Karen Kwan Oppegard, a former U.S. ladies competitor, take daughters Olivia and Sophia to spend the holidays with members of his family in Oppegard’s hometown of Knoxville, Tenn. Although he’s lived in California for much of the past three decades, he still craves connection with his Southern roots. “We have a big gathering,” said
Oppegard, who has five sisters and two brothers (he’s second oldest). “Tere are 30 cousins. Tey [Olivia and Sophia] just love it.” It is precisely those Southern roots
that ground Oppegard, 53. He recalled a moment with his father during a home- town celebration after he and partner Jill Watson won the bronze medal at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary. Te mayor said to Oppegard’s father that he must be proud of his son’s accomplishments. “He said, ‘I am very proud of my
son, but I have eight children and I’m proud of all of them.’ Tat’s always given me perspective,” Oppegard said. Oppegard’s mother loved the arts, so he and his siblings all played musical instruments, and because she had fond memories of growing up skating in Min- nesota, he wound up ice skating. Even- tually, skating took him away from home to train, but he always stayed connected. Kwan Oppegard, 34, grew up in
Southern California skating alongside sister Michelle (they also have a brother). She first met Oppegard during the years he coached at the Ice Castle Internation- al Training Center in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., where she and Michelle trained. He shared his thoughts on coaching and choreography, and it was a natural tran- sition to working together. Today they both coach at EastWest
Ice Palace in Artesia, Calif. Tey deftly balance schedules — subbing for each other when one heads off to competition — while also making sure Olivia, 8, and Sophia, 6, get their full attention. “It’s a little bit nutty, but Peter
and I take it in stride,” Kwan Oppegard said. “We love skating and we love the kids that we work with. It is really, really tough especially now that our girls are starting to get their own schedules (gym- nastics for Olivia and dance and music for Sophia), but we make it work. “Our kids are quite used to having
one parent away for five days,” she con- tinued. “Tey kind of like it because they get a lot of attention from the parent
who’s home. Tey also love the presents when we get home.” Tey do use babysitters, but don’t
have a full-time nanny. Kwan Oppegard’s parents, Danny and Estella Kwan, help out in a pinch, but she prefers to let them be doting grandparents rather than pa- rental disciplinarians. Te girls have distinctly different personalities. Olivia is organized and rule-driven, while Sophia dances to her own tune … literally. She will spend hours making up songs. On a family va- cation in Mexico she begged Oppegard to dance with her as a salsa band played. During their break, the band leader asked if she’d dance again during their next set. “She was a soloist already,” Op-
pegard said with a laugh. In addition to helping out with each
other’s students, Oppegard and Kwan Oppegard work together when possible. “I love collaborating with my wife
when we’re doing choreography,” Op- pegard said. “Unfortunately, recently we just have not had the time to both be with the same skater because of our schedules. I’ve done almost all of my pairs’ choreography this year and she’s working mostly with the singles, but generally we collaborate when we can and really enjoy it.” “It always helps to have a different
perspective,” Kwan Oppegard said. “I love music. I could listen to music all day. I find these concepts. I never had any pairs experience; however,
I’ve worked
with his pairs. I always find it interesting to choreograph pairs because you can kind of create stories and emotions. “I’ve learned a lot from him,” she
added. “I have helped him when he gets stuck. For the most part he’s amazing at creating characters on the ice.” One of the things Oppegard said
he promised himself early in his coach- ing and choreography career is that he wouldn’t repeat music and choreography choices if at all possible. He wants each program to be uniquely memorable. His own greatest critic, he strives to challenge himself to keep evolving in his work and also challenge his skaters to keep reach- ing new levels in their performances. Just before this interview, Olympic
champion Yu-Na Kim decided she would train at home in Korea for this season, but prior to that she spent time over the past two years working with Oppegard at EastWest. During that time, he worked on helping her find joy in the training process. “Yu-Na loves to skate and loves the
process of ice skating and performing, but in her day-to-day training it was challenging for her to find new motiva-
tion,” he said. “For her, it was the idea of what would make her happy that day. What small improvement could we make in the program or the general technique to help make her better that day and not think long-term.” Kwan Oppegard has worked with
Olympic men’s champion Evan Lysacek on his competitive comeback. It began with her occasionally subbing for Frank Carroll, who also coached her when she competed, and segued into a more consistent thing. Just as Oppegard had to do with Kim, she’s dealing with a skater who’s already won a World title and Olympic gold. “Evan is the type of skater who sees
faults in even the most perfect skate,” she said. “He’s always trying to push himself. It can always be a little bit cleaner or a little bit bigger, a little faster. He’s also done a lot of growth in his artistic side.” When it comes to their own nerves
as coaches, Oppegard said he may get a bit more nervous than his wife. “I tend to put pressures on myself with each lesson that there’s a clock tick- ing and I have a certain amount of time to improve that skater,” he said. “Te thing that I can learn from Karen is to appreciate the process a little bit more. “I appreciate the sometimes pas- sionate, sometimes intense work that I do,” he added. “It’s the most fun when the music is loud and I’m trying to reach down for something new choreograph- ically and I feel completely involved in the music.”
Tat appreciation of the day-to-day
process and creative flow is what Kwan Oppegard says keeps her from remem- bering much about specific competitions either from her own competitive days or for her students. One moment that does stand out is at the 1996 U.S. Champion- ships in San Jose, Calif., when she skated after Michelle in the free skate and her sister came to join her in kiss and cry. For Oppegard, while winning an
Olympic medal (the last by a U.S. pair) was certainly memorable — particularly being draped in the U.S. flag and sharing the moment with family — his standout moment came in the warm-up for the free skate at the 1987 World Champi- onships in Cincinnati. He and Watson were in the final group with Soviet pairs Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov and Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev. “Te stands were filled,” he recalled.
“Before we skated I felt like I had made it. I felt like I was where I wanted to be and where I’d worked for my whole life. Ten the performance on top of that was just icing on the cake for us. Te Ameri- can crowd treated us like rock stars.”
SKATING 9
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