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Canadian Press
February 4, 2002
Olympic
Flashback: Elizabeth Manley
CALGARY (CP) - Elizabeth
Manley's silver medal in ladies' figure skating will go
down as Canada's most cherished prize of the 15th Winter
Olympics.
Her inspired free skate in the
long program Saturday night topped the performances of both
East German Katarina Witt and American Debbi Thomas. The
21-year-old dynamo from Ottawa brought 20,000 cheering,
crying spectators in the Saddledome to their feet in a collective
roar of patriotism moments before her program even finished.
Witt hung on with her artistic
talent to come in second in the free skate - worth 50 per
cent of the mark - and win the gold. Thomas, who flubbed
several moves, took the bronze.
Manley stole the show with her
spunky interpretation of music from Canadian Concerto and
Irma La Douce.
The fight for the gold and silver
had been touted all week as the battle of the Carmens. Both
the graceful Witt and the athletic Thomas chose Bizet's
music in their quest for the Olympic gold.
Manley was given an outside shot
at the bronze - if she kept her cool. She was known as a
brilliant skater, but one who always blew one of the three
skating disciplines to come up just short of a medal.
Manley's win was Canada's fifth
medal at the Games - two silver and three bronze - and the
first figure skating medal by a Canadian woman since Karen
Magnussen's silver in 1972. It was also the third figure
skating medal for Canada at the Calgary Games."I knew
the crowd was behind me and I was so focused from the time
I started," Manley said. "It was so overwhelming.
"I just felt like dancing."
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