NAGANO, Japan -- This seems to be a good thing, the fact Michelle Kwan is so closely sheltered from distraction and intrusion.

Her coach, figure skating veteran Frank Carroll, is the ultimate smoothie when it comes to giving an athlete a sense of balance. At the feeding frenzy that is the Winter Olympics, Kwan is kept off-limits except for when she really is obligated to speak.

Michelle Kwan shakes off a bad warmup session to grab first place after the short program. (AP)

WERE SHE TO WALK DOWN THE STREETS of Nagano or eat in its restaurants like any ordinary person, it would be impossible. You can just hear the media analyzing her every move.

"Oh, she was jaywalking."

Or, "My, she used the wrong soup spoon."

That's basically how it was after she continued her run of brilliance at the U.S. Championships with a terrific performance in the ladies' short program Wednesday evening that left her in first place at the Winter Olympics. American Tara Lipinski, who also skated smoothly and with perhaps more maturity than in the past, stands in second. The other American, Nicole Bobek, had a disastrous program and stands in 17th.

After 160 seconds on the ice that make it likely Kwan will win the gold medal Friday night, she had to spend part of her time explaining why she seemed a little off during her warmup session.

This is what you might not know about a warmup session. The skater takes the ice with the other skaters in her block. After each block, another break is built in for the next group to warm up. In this case, each block had five skaters. And only the Rotisserie equivalent of a figure skating aficionado would recognize the names of some of the others in her group. Yulia Vorobieva ... Julia Lautowa.

During the five-minute warmup, everyone goes in circles, tries their doubles and triples, works out the butterflies, skates backwards. It's amazing more people don't crash. As Kwan warmed up, she looked less-than-stellar on a couple of jumps.

She had to answer to that, too, despite a session -- the one for real -- in which she scored 5.9s across the board for presentation. She was behind her chief rival for the gold, Lipinski, only on the French judge's technical merit score (Lipinski had a 5.7, Kwan a 5.6).

IT'S RIDICULOUS KWAN HAD TO EXPLAIN her practice skate, but she did.

"I didn't have a good warmup. But I just threw that away and thought, 'I've done this so many, many times. I can do it now,' " Kwan said.

Carroll, ever the protector and a man with perspective, chimed in with a pretty strong edge to his voice for such a reserved man.

"Things happen in a warmup and it seems that everybody likes to get very upset about it," Carroll said. "The idea is to warm up. The idea is not to compete in the warmup."

Near the corner of the ice at White Ring where Carroll would watch Kwan's session, she landed one warmup jump a little off balance. She skated toward Carroll. Carroll made a gesture with his hands and his upper torso, body language that by now is a special code between the two of them after all these years together.

Did she have butterflies, Kwan was asked. "Well, of course," she said.

Flash! She likes to eat, sleep and breathe like most human beings, too.

Kwan is a huge story at the Olympics. No secret there. It might not even be a xenophobic, self-serving American suggestion to say she is the marquee athlete of the 18th Winter Games. Regardless, the scrutiny and the frenzy around her and, to a lesser extent, Lipinski, borders on insanity.

CONSIDER THE FAMED MEDIA "MIXED ZONE" at the Olympics, which organizers must have conceived of some time ago when they had fantasies about giving reporters the appearance of pigs at a trough.

There is a metal fence, or two, that forms a line through which the athlete must pass to reach the dressing room. First the athlete moves through Radio and Television 101, with international film and radio crews. Next is Journalism Basics 101a, usually a small-to-medium sized grouping of print reporters craning to make sure they've heard the athletes' post-competition remarks correctly.

Now there are mixed zones, and then there is the one for Michelle Kwan.

The very wise people who have crafted the venue at White Ring built not one but two extra rows of elevated wooden planks on which reporters could stand to see and hear what she had to say. Kwan saw this as she came around the bend from Radio and Television 101.

"Oh, my God," she said as she saw the print crowd, which was about nine rows deep and looked like a roving convention of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Fortunately, Kwan spoke in a resonant, confident and loud voice. Loud enough to let everyone know how good she felt on the ice. It looked that way, all right. Skating to music by Rachmaninoff, she showed the maturity and grace and comfort that alluded her last year when Lipinski kept breezing by her at important competitions.

"I thought, 'Ready or not, here I go.' From then on, I was on," Kwan said. "I knew I had a job to do."

In the short program that means going through eight basic moves in a 2 minute, 40-second skate. Kwan did it smoothly and with artistry. Lipinski was not far behind. Bobek, thought to give the U.S. a chance for a medal sweep, fell on her triple lutz and doubled her triple flip. She has no chance for a medal. Her highest technical score was a 4.6. She cried.

BOBEK IS MERELY A very fine skater. She is not being made out to walk on water -- or asked to. That seems to be happening to Kwan. But Kwan is so remarkably locked in on what she needs to do, she might do that anyway.

Thing is, she is here in Nagano and competing in this event because she wants to for herself, for her own gratification. There is no reason to think she won't keep doing that when the glamour event resumes Friday night. If a kink arises in the warmup, chances are it is no cause for concern.

Really.

Mike Lurie is a CBS SportsLine staff writer.