The question is probably a good thing for both champions. ““Rivalry forces skaters to bring out the best in themselves,’’ says Linda Leaver, who coached Boitano to Olympic gold. ““You’re not going to be able to handle the Olympics without experiencing something of a tough road along the way.’’ Next week the two teen sensations will take to that tough road again, at the world championships in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Worlds are particularly critical because they have so often proved a springboard to Olympic gold. The last three Olympic ladies champs–Witt, Kristi Yamaguchi and Oksana Baiul–all won world titles in the pre-Olympic year. ““I can’t really worry about Tara because at both competitions I beat myself,’’ says Kwan, who has handled her sudden adversity with the same grace she usually displays on ice. ““It’s up to me to get my confidence back. I’ve learned the lesson that everyone works hard, everyone wants it–and, in the end, the strongest will win.’’ Tara has the strength to laugh at the notion that she’s now on a par with her older competitor. ““She’s not my rival; she’s an idol of mine,’’ Tara says.

Skating judges, especially overseas, have been loath to embrace America’s young superstars, dismissing them as primarily leapers who lack the sport’s requisite artistry. But last season Kwan–sporting a new hairdo, adult makeup and a stylish skating program–broke through the resistance. ““Now if you look and perform like a mature young woman–no matter your age–you’ll get good results,’’ says Tara’s coach, Richard Callaghan. New rules require skaters competing at Worlds or the Olympics to be 15 by the previous July. Lipinski would actually be ineligible this year if she hadn’t competed in the 1996 Worlds at the age of 13 and thus been ““grandfathered’’ in.

The girls are skating against their own biological clocks as well as against each other. While Kwan’s coach, Frank Carroll, says he can’t explain Michelle’s recent problems, many young, female skaters have trouble adjusting as their bodies change. In the past two years, Kwan has sprouted from a tiny, stick-figure kid into a young woman. ““Right now maybe she’s not too familiar with this new body she’s got,’’ Carroll says. ““But whatever is happening, I’m glad it’s happening this year and not next.’’ Lipinski may avoid some of these problems; medical tests indicate she is very near her adult height.

A bit of adversity may have been good for Kwan at this stage of the game. ““All those folks who’ve been telling Michelle, “You’re the only one for Nagano.’ It’s such bulls— and she won’t fall for it–not anymore.’’ It’s not clear whether Michelle ever fell for it, but she certainly took a fall. At last month’s Nationals, she crashed, butt down on the ice, on a combination jump, then ““panicked’’ and crashed again. While the stunned Kwan was still catching her breath and fighting back tears, Lipinski was jumping and spinning with all the aplomb expected of Kwan. Said Callaghan, who had always pointed Tara toward the 2002 Olympics: ““Tara is bright enough to accept that she had a great night and the champion had a bad night.''

But then at an international meet earlier this month, the champ had an OK night, and Lipinski beat her again. While Tara’s second victory came by the slimmest of margins–one judge and .1 on the scorecard–it proved she was no one-night fluke. It also put added pressure on Lipinski, who now heads to the Worlds as, at the very least, a medal contender. ““I’m not worried,’’ says Tara. ““Last year I finished 15th, so I figure I can only get better.''

Lipinski has already had a taste of the pitfalls of great expectations. She was so ballyhooed as a youngster that at the 1995 Nationals, when she was 12 and competing at the junior level, she was already meeting the press. But she faltered there, taking a silver, and then finished fourth at the world junior meet. It was a bitter disappointment to her mother, Pat, who’d been living in Delaware, 1,200 miles from her husband, Jack, an oil executive in Houston, to ensure that Tara got topflight training. She fired Tara’s longtime coach and took her daughter on a nationwide audition of the country’s top skating mentors. They settled in Detroit with Callaghan, who’d just guided Nicole Bobek and Todd Eldredge to national titles.

Watching Tara skate alongside Eldredge, Callaghan quickly realized that rather than push, he had to rein in the young- ster’s obsessive competitiveness. ““Tara’s attitude with Todd was “Whatever you can do, I can do better’.’’ The coach didn’t, however, diminish her work ethic. After her national title, Tara hit the TV-talk-show circuit. But she turned down both Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien to get home and resume training.

Why change anything now when it’s all working so well? ““I just try to skate cleanly,’’ she says, ““and leave the rest up to the judges.’’ Kwan, on the other hand, arrives at the Worlds desperately seeking to change her ways. ““I’ve been skating not to lose more than to win,’’ she says. ““That’s not how I won my championships in the first place. I’ve got to start going for it again.’’ Any talk of rivalry, the two will leave to others. ““Two lovely skaters, two nice kids–what’s not to like?’’ says Carroll. For figure skating’s legion of fans, nothing at all.

What’s not to like: two nice kids skating for glory. Next week, a face-off in Switzerland.

Tara Lipinski Michelle Kwan Age 14 years old 16 years old Height 4 feet 8 inches 5 feet 2 inches Weight 75 pounds 100 pounds Key win 1997 U.S. champion 1996 world champion Training Four 45-minute hree 45-minute time sessions daily sessions daily Music for “Sense and Sensibility” “Taj Mahal” long and “Much Ado by Fikret Amirov program About Nothing”*

*Movie Soundtracks