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By NADYA LABI

"Mom, I'm scared." The uncharacteristically anxious words came out of Tara Lipinski less than two hours before her final program. Uncharacteristic because her legend is so well known: a toddler, transfixed by the star-spangled anthem blaring from the TV, stages her own Olympic ceremony --with an overturned Tupperware container for a podium, some ribbon and dried flowers.

On Friday, over a meal of spaghetti in her parents' hotel room, the 15-year-old just wanted her mother's comfort. "It's O.K. to be scared. It's good to be scared," said Pat Lipinski. "But you can do it." After that, Tara was back in character and on the way to an upset and the fulfillment of a legend--not just the gold medal but the record as the youngest Olympic figure-skating champion ever. To do that she had to overcome a rival whose eloquence on ice had moved judges to tears. Michelle Kwan, just 17 herself, had come to Nagano for a coronation. But by finding a balance between technical perfection and blossoming artistry, a tiny confection of a girl showed the world that she would be queen.

First, though, Lipinski had to survive the short program, a 2-min. 40-sec. contest in which one misstep, one deviation from the eight required elements can mean instant elimination. Nicole Bobek, 20, was out in under a minute: she hit the ice during her first triple Lutz and never recovered, taking with her the talk of a red-white-and-blue sweep. The world offered up its best--Russian siren Maria Butyrskaya, China's comeback kid Chen Lu and French wonder woman Surya Bonaly--but one competitor, Elena Sokolova, voiced what everyone knew: "It's really between Tara and Michelle."

At a loss to articulate the mechanics of her whirlwind style, Lipinski once said, "I just rotate." In a fairy-tale blue-and-yellow frock, she flew to the Anastasia sound track, whipping through her triple flip, exploding into a grin that dwarfed her 80-lb. frame and skating circles around everyone but Kwan. Then the 17-year-old veteran showed that having soul as well as legs counts. Kwan drew out the chords of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor into a smooth legato line as she flowed, left leg extended, straight toward the panel of judges. When she emerged from that, the audience and judges had swooned, and Kwan had gold in her sights. Eight of nine judges placed her first.

Going into the final 4-min. free skate, the message was clear: just rotating wouldn't be enough. Could Lipinski rise to Kwan's level of artistry? A judicial preference for maturity on ice certainly decided the bronze, claimed by the elegant Chen, 21. Bonaly, who might have been a contender, knew that judges have little appreciation for her muscular acrobatics. "The judges aren't pleased with anything I do anyway," she said. So, in her long program, she gave the judges figure skating's equivalent of the finger: an illegal back flip. Take that! It was a mandatory deduction, relegating her to 10th place.

Chen chose a wiser route, showcasing her musical sophistication. Her 1994 bronze-medal performance, China's first in Olympic figure skating, had tarnished too quickly. Saddled with an authoritarian coach, she fell out with Beijing and in 1996 was summarily summoned back from training in Los Angeles. She gained weight and lost her balance--tumbling to a humiliating 25th place at the World Championships last year. "It was really hard," she recalls. "My heart was broken." Then, inspired by a new coach, she rallied and qualified--barely--for the Olympics. That was all forgotten when, resplendent in a gauzy plum outfit, she skated to Butterfly Lovers, a Chinese Romeo-meets-Juliet tale of tragedy and redemption. Except for a step out of her triple flip, she skated cleanly--and crumpled to the ice in tears at her own redemption. Another bronze, two for two.

In the last group of six skaters, Kwan drew the first position, often considered a disadvantage because judges tend to be reticent about giving the highest marks right away in case later competitors perform better. William Alwyn's Lyra Angelica, the score that inspired her radiant performance at the nationals last month, failed to work the same magic. Perfection is never easy to repeat, especially in a sport decided by a whisper-thin blade and the mood of nine judges. The fluidity and the grace were there, but Kwan never really left the ice, skating without her usual speed. "In Philadelphia, I was more free and flying," she said. "Tonight I didn't let go." Her coach, Frank Carroll, agreed: "I just didn't think that spark was there." She wept uncontrollably after her final pose, sobbing "Oh, my God, oh, my God," as she found a measure of release. But her earlier restraint and a minor glitch on the triple flip left the throne in question.

Lipinski didn't give the judges time to think. In her signature triple-loop, triple-loop combination, she launched herself off the back edge of her skate, shot through three revolutions in less than a second, landed on the same outside edge, and then did it all over again. No one could touch those pyrotechnics, and her interpretation of the sound track from the movie The Rainbow scored marks as high as 5.9. "When you're 15, you're filled with changes, and sometimes she's a child and sometimes she's a woman," said her choreographer, Sandra Bezic. Lipinski had to keep the child at bay to challenge Kwan's musicality, and she did. That is, until the music stopped, whereupon she ran across the ice and pumped her fists in the air before taking her bow. When six judges placed her first, she squealed and leaped into the air. She had it, the medal to match her gold metallic nails.

America's gold-silver knockout, its first since the 1956 one-two scored by Tenley Albright and Carol Heiss, proved only that champions are formed in the most variable of circumstances. Lipinski and Kwan stuck to completely different schedules at Nagano, setting off rampant speculation about whose off-ice routine would triumph. Journalists handicapped the event in favor of Lipinski because she was so carefree and relaxed. She was all over the Olympic village, taking to dorm life faster than a pre-frosh. She celebrated Picabo Street's super-G win ("Isn't it neat!"), updated her Website at Surf Shack (one entry of Tara's Diary had six exclamation points in 11 sentences) and made stickers on the day of the finals. "I know when to relax," she said. "You don't just come here to skate, you come here to have fun too." She had seen the pressure undo her training pal, Todd Eldredge, at the men's finals. "She has her day structured," said her coach Richard Callaghan. "She is a giddy teenager between some hours, and she's a hard worker in other hours." And just in case that doesn't work, Lipinski prays. She wears the likeness of St. Therese of Lisieux around her neck and says a novena before competitions.

Kwan, in contrast, watched the opening ceremonies the same way 56 million other Americans did, on the tube at home. Instead of sharing cramped quarters with Lipinski and the flu that took Germany's Tanja Szewczenko out of the running, she bunked with Mom and Dad at a hotel. (Its location was kept secret.) "I'm going to spend as much time as I can in the Olympic village," she declared firmly. "But I've got to focus on my own thing right now and do what's good for me." Conventional wisdom says that Kwan should have played it differently, a little looser perhaps. But she had lighter moments, visiting a Zenkoji temple and watching Harrison Ford kick butt in Air Force One hours before doing likewise in her short program.

Any semblance of fun disappeared Friday. "Right now I'm thinking, What can I do to be better for the next Olympics?" said a teary Kwan at a press conference. "I'll add a triple-triple and add more difficulty on the technical side, and hopefully I'll be really ready next time." It was a painful statement coming from the teen marvel widely considered the best of this decade--no matter the hue of her medal.

Once again Lipinski found life a little easier. "I'm just going to walk around enjoying being Olympic champion," she said, refusing to contemplate the next Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. For a girl who makes a yearly pilgrimage to Disney World, what can possibly come next? Multimillions in endorsements, surely, but not even a rich child-queen can reign safely in this sport of revolving crowns. Skating's next monarch-in-waiting could be anywhere in the world, hatching her own devastating coup. By 2002, who knows?

--Reported by Alice Park/Nagano

With reporting by Alice Park/Nagano