WINTER OLYMPICS: Keith Duggan watched as Michelle Kwan bid farewell to Olympic gold

For all athletes the Olympics seem to pass by at the speed of light, but for American skater Michelle Kwan, Torino has left her bruised and dizzy in a way two decades of obsessive work on the ice never could.

Through the last decade, the sunny and tough Californian cast an iron spell over the spangled, unforgiving world of women's figure skating. With five world championships and nine world medals, Kwan's invincibility places her among the three most decorated skaters of this and the last century.

All that was missing from a perfect honour roll was Olympic gold. A disappointing bronze medal in Salt Lake City had followed her silver podium in Nagano back in 1998, when Kwan was regarded as a sensation and gold deemed a matter of when.

In the meantime, the figure skating judging system has changed and Kwan has moved into her mid-20s, an ancient age for ballerinas of the ice. She spent most of the past year on the treatment table, was not selected in the original US Olympic team, and made it to Torino only after submitting a petition to be chosen. Now, she must wish they had turned her down.

For years, Kwan had been the US's media darling, but in the run-up to Torino America had grown bored with Kwan, and now Sasha Cohen, destined to take Kwan's place as the first lady of American skating, has appeared on Leno and Letterman and the cover of the glossy magazines.

Kwan's pushiness and insistence on being in Torino did not endear her to the American press, and on Saturday morning a huge crowd showed up at the practice rink, where Kwan ran through a brief and troubled series of turns and jumps before leaving the rink deeply upset.

She made light of that trouble during an interview on Saturday afternoon, but yesterday, as the crowds gathered high over the city in Sestriere to watch the main event of the day, the men's downhill skiing, Kwan made another appearance. This time she wore funereal black and announced that her Olympics were over before they even began.

While Torino slept, Kwan had paced through the Olympic village on Saturday night. The US team doctor had told her a recurrence of an old groin injury meant he could not advise her to compete.

"To be honest with myself, I had to make a decision and at 2.15 in the morning, that is what I did," she said. "I think when I evaluated it my body just wasn't up to it. You don't have to hear it from somebody else. And I respect the sport. It is all about the United States sending out the best team, and I didn't want to be in the way of that.

"The best thing for me to do is to go home and get better. I don't want to be a distraction."

That remark drew a series of muffled guffaws. Kwan's entire presence had been deemed a distraction and the indulgence of a prima donna. Now her withdrawal, just half an hour before the US poster boy Bode Millar was due to ski for downhill gold, could not have been more dramatically timed.

"When I left Los Angeles I felt ready to compete," she said. "Yesterday at practice, my groin felt sore and stiff. But I had the obligation to do interviews. And the injury was not the same as when I left, but I was trying to stay positive."

So, walking with the team through the fireworks and pageantry of the opening ceremony on Friday night becomes the highlight of Kwan's games. Her departure means surely her last chance of Olympic gold has passed. And America's obsession with first place means this lone failure will overshadow a decade of greatness.

"It is something you guys have to deal with," she had responded on Saturday after being grilled on that very point.

"Tarnished. Medals . . . The way I think of it is that everything else is extra. Since I was 15 and won my first world championship, well, everything else is like a cherry on a perfect sundae. That's how I see it. You don't take your sport for granted, you work hard and if you don't medal, you don't medal."

Glancing around the crowded auditorium, it was hard not to be hit by the absurdity of the situation. A roomful of mostly white, middle-aged folks, many of whom had struggled to make it down the stairs without being out of puff, could see but failure as Kwan's epitaph now she had finally broken down, without Olympic gold.

Twenty-four hours later, she voiced what sounded like her farewell note, summoning the grace and poise that distinguished her through the good years on the ice.

"No matter what, it is always pretty great to be at the Olympics. And it is always an honour to represent your country. My parents are here, they arrived last night, and they always want me to be happy, but I have no regrets. I tried my hardest, and if I don't win the gold, it's okay. I had a great career."

They gave her a half-hearted applause as she disappeared from the stage, and then trooped off to find the latest hero.