Triple Threat

That chirpy little voice can be misleading. When Elaine Zayak, all of 15 and the most explosive talent to hit women's figure skating in a generation, says something, she means it. Of her quest for recognition as the world's finest in her sport, she says quite bluntly: "I don't have time to wait."

Chances are the 5-ft. 2-in., 103-lb. teen-ager will not have to. She is already the most recognizable figure in skating. The reason is simple: Zayak can do triple jumps. Until a few years ago, when Olympic Silver Medalist Linda Fratianne first began to perform those furious leaps in competition, triples were attempted by only the strongest of male skaters. Fratianne did two triple jumps in her free-skating program. Elaine Zayak does seven--and does not consider that the limit. "You have to do doubles, too, not just a triple here and there. Of course, you could do two triples in a row. That would save time."

The daughter of a Paramus, N.J., bar owner, she started skating at age four; she was attending a nursery school called Tots on Ice. When she was six, her parents gave her older brother and sister a trampoline for Christmas. A jumping jack was born. "I just started bouncing up and down, doing triple turns, flips, everything," she says, adding almost apologetically: "I was skating, too, but I didn't have triples then."

She did not have long to wait. At eleven, she performed two triples in a novice competition and was on her way. At 14, Zayak finished fourth in the National Championships, and though she did not make the Olympic team, she was selected to compete in the World Championships a few weeks later. Last month the jumping jack vaulted past more seasoned U.S. skaters and took the National Senior Women's Championship.

At last week's World Championships, she was doing well, when, in the closing seconds of her two-minute short program, she fell while attempting a flying sit spin. She skated off the ice in a rage. Her coach, Peter Burrows, understood: "Elaine's routine was clean to the last move, and then she made a mistake. You'd get mad, too."

The next night in the free-skating program, Zayak decided that having got mad, she would now get even. From her first dazzling triple-loop, double-loop combination, she was a spinning dervish. She threw one near-perfect triple after another until she had reached her goal of seven and won her silver medal --and every heart in the house. Just wait.

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