Francesca Gaskell:People used to call them “24 Karrett,” cause they always got gold.
A video montage shows Katarina and Garrett standing on podium after podium: collecting gold at three consecutive U.S. National Championships, silver at two World Championships.
Veronika Volkova:They were good together, I will admit. But not good enough to take the world title from Yelena and Nikita.
Francesca Gaskell:Bella and Zack, though—they had a tougher go of it.
A clip of Lin and Branwell’s free dance for the 2002–2003 season: they skate to selections from the score of the popular filmTitanic,in Jack and Rose–inspired costumes.
Inez Acton:It made sense Bella would want to do more romantic programs, since she’d been skating with her brother for so long. But this was…not it.
In a closeup of some steamy choreography from theTitanicprogram, Bella tries her best to connect. Zachary barely makes eye contact with her.
Ellis Dean:She had more chemistry with her brother.
Paparazzi shots show Bella and Zachary out on the town in Los Angeles, wearing party clothes and bored expressions. Katarina and Garrett walk a few steps behind them, arm in arm.
Ellis Dean:After their first season, Bella gave up on trying to convince everyone she and Zack were a couple. No one was buying that shit. Everyone knew he was still hung up on Paige.
Garrett Lin:It was hard for Zack, being away from his family. Especially when he was doing all that rehab for his injured knee.
Ellis Dean:Sometimes I wonder if he hurt his knee on purpose, to have an exit strategy. It was some real old Hollywood shit, the way the Lins insisted on hushing up Zack’s love child.
Jane Currer:I don’t particularly like this metaphor, but people often say an Olympic cycle is like a political campaign.
In a photo montage spanning the first few years of Katarina and Garrett’s partnership, they greet fans, sign autographs, and pose for pictures.
Jane Currer:There are years of preparation required, then an intense push to the finish. And it takes far more than athletic prowess to be successful.
Garrett Lin:There was so much pressure on Kat and me going into the 2005 World Championships. In our three years together, world champion was the one title we hadn’t won yet. And we were competing in Moscow—home turf for our biggest rivals. Not to mention this was one of the first major events using the new scoring system.
Kirk Lockwood:In the 2004–2005 season, the International Skating Union introduced a revamped scoring system. The goal was to make skating fairer and less subjective.
A graphic explains the new metrics: levels from one to four assigned to each element based on its difficulty, then a base value that can increase or decrease with the “Grade of Execution”—that is, how well the team performs the element.
Jane Currer:It was an adjustment, certainly, but it was necessary.Ialways judged objectively, but the old system was rife with opportunities for corruption and collusion.
Veronika Volkova:The Americans could not defeat us, so they changed the rules.
Ellis Dean:The new scoring system was a pain in the ass. I knew how to work a crowd and put on a good show, but all this “level” and “GOE” shit? Hard pass. Josie and I had become a total afterthought anyway, ever since our shit-tastic showing in Nagano. Sheila kept taking our money, but she never showed the slightest interest in our progress.
Garrett Lin:People think my mom put all this pressure on us, to win or to be perfect or…but the truth is, she didn’t need to. I pressured myself. I knew it wasn’t normal. But I told myselfweweren’t normal. We were Lins. We were supposed to be extraordinary. And with Bella and Zack struggling so much, it was all up to me. I had to win.
Chapter 27
“Our final skaters, from the United States of America: Katarina Shaw and Garrett Lin!”
Hand in hand, Garrett and I glided to the center of the ice. We hadn’t watched Yelena and Nikita’s free dance, but based on the collective gasp the crowd in the Luzhniki Palace of Sports had let out halfway through theirSwan Lakeprogram, I knew our rivals had made at least one obvious mistake.
Garrett and I had taken the lead after our flawless Midnight Blues compulsory, and we’d extended it with a season’s best performance of our energetic original dance to selections from the musical42nd Street.Now all that stood between us and our first world title was the four minutes of the free dance. Skate clean, and we’d be heading into the upcoming Olympic season as reigning world champions.
Our free was set to a Tchaikovsky piece too: his symphony inspired by the Shakespeare playThe Tempest.This was Sheila’s idea of subtle psychological warfare: showing up our competition by outskating them to music by the same composer (and a Russian legend, no less).
Garrett’s costume was dyed with a delicate oceanic swirl, while mine had bedazzled lightning cutting across the chest. We were meant to be the sea and the storm, colliding in a passionate clash of raw, natural power. The conceptual elements seemed a bit over the top to me. But in comparison, Volkova and Zolotov’s traditional balletic choreography seemed downright tired. We’d already bested them at the Grand Prix Final in Beijing.
And our other biggest rivals were already out of the running. I hadn’t spoken to Bella since the night before, when she and Zack officially withdrew after a lackluster original dance that left him limping off the ice. They’d already had to simplify their programs significantly to accommodate his worsening knee issues; even if they had been able to finish the competition, they wouldn’t have medaled. He was scheduled for knee surgery after Worlds, and his doctor thought he should be able to return to the ice by the fall. But there was no guarantee.
I assumed my starting position: embracing Garrett, my head tilted to rest on his shoulder. After three seasons of skating together, I still felt as if I barely knew Garrett Lin, but I knew this: he was petrified when we took the ice, every time. From a distance, he came across as serene and confident, but close up I could smell his sweat, feel his quickened pulse against my temple. Somehow his panic made me calmer, as if we were a pendulum swinging into stillness.
