Congrats to My Childhood Idol<3
Olympic figure skater and former U.S. Ambassador to Belize Michelle Kwan has welcomed her second child!
Photo: Getty Images CelebritiesSports
Earlier this week, my TikTok served me a video of Ilia Malinin’s recent, record-breaking (and breath-taking!!) routine at the Grand Prix Final, immediately launching me into my twice-yearly (at least) ritual of staying up until 2 a.m. and watching YouTube videos of the greatest figure skating performances of all time. We’re talking Tara Lipinski at the 1998 Nagano Olympics with a triple loop-triple loop that still makes me cry; Oksana Baiul at the 1992 Lillehammer Olympics, which is like watching a cheetah and a crane at the same time; Katarina Witt’s spicy 1988 Calgary Olympic routine; and, of course, literally every routine from Michelle Kwan ever.
So after spending an hour submerged in the world of pre-millennium figure skating, I was psyched to open Instagram on Thursday night and have a present-day reason to celebrate Kwan. She’s given birth to her second child!
“Christmas came early ❤️ I’m overjoyed to share that our baby girl — Della Rose Kwan — has arrived!” Kwan wrote in the caption. “My heart doubled in an instant the moment I held her in my arms, and watching my daughter walk into the hospital to meet her baby sister brought tears to my eyes.”
The 45-year-old Olympian and former U.S. Ambassador to Belize continued: “As an Olympian, I’ve pushed my body to its limits and been amazed by its strength — but carrying another life has left me in even greater awe,” she continued. “There were moments of frustration over how little I could control — a humbling reminder that fertility is something none of us can fully predict.”
She also thanked her doctors and emphasized how she couldn’t believe she got lucky once, let alone twice, writing, “After more than a decade of hoping, I still can’t quite believe this moment is real.” Fellow figure skaters like Lipinski, Adam Rippon, and Mirai Nagasu all commented their congratulations, and I would love to know if there’s a giant figure skating champion group chat somewhere out there.
If you’ll allow me a moment to gush—a fun fact about me is that I was a competitive figure skater until I was 14, and Kwan was one of my earliest childhood idols. I had the books, the posters, the VHS tapes, and I would fall asleep every night envisioning her world-famous spiral sequences. It’s easy to cheer when someone lands a difficult jump combination, but only Kwan could perform a spiral so powerful and so heartbreakingly beautiful that it could bring a tear to your eye. Kwan—one of the most decorated female figure skaters in U.S. history—was one of the first people who taught me what it means to do something so magnificently that it gives people chills.
To this day, “Lyra Angelica”—the program that won her the gold at the 1998 U.S. Nationals and which some argue should have won her the gold at the 1998 Olympics—lives on my writing playlist. I play it whenever I want to summon eight-year-old me, sitting five inches from the television, jaw-dropped and completely spellbound by her performance.
So congrats again to Michelle<333, and consider this a sneak peek into how insufferable I’m about to become, since the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy are less than two months away!
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