Emily Hughes Gets a Makeover

Feb. 15, 2006 — -- Figure skater Emily Hughes will leave for Torino Thursday to compete in the Olympics, replacing Michelle Kwan, who pulled out on Sunday due to a groin injury. Before she left, a few final practice sessions and a new haircut were in order.

"When you look good, you feel good and you skate better," Hughes said. Her older sister Sarah Hughes won the gold medal in the figure-skating competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Vincent Roppatte, the style director of the swank Red Door Salon in New York City, cut Hughes' hair. He also did her sister's hair before the 2002 Olympics.

"How about to make it a little bit different -- besides making it a little bit lighter -- we do some some long, some tendrils or some bangs?" he said to Hughes.

Hughes, who has reputation for being poised, sat calmly in the chair.

"Oh man, I'm telling you. I'm more excited than you are. I'm ready to do pirouettes myself," Roppatte said.

But, despite her composure, Hughes said she was excited, too.

"I'm more excited than nervous," Hughes said. "I just can't wait to get there and be part of the whole Olympic experience."

Hughes finished third at last month's nationals but was bumped from the team when Kwan, the five-time world champion, got a medical bye.

Is she nervous for her big chance?

"I think there are always nerves," she added. "It's the Olympics. It's more of a pressure that makes you want to do better."

The women's competition begins Tuesday. On Saturday night, when she was out for dinner with her family at a sushi restaurant near their home in Great Neck, N.Y., Hughes learned that she would have a shot at an Olympic medal.

"We were having dinner. Me, my parents and actually Sarah was there too," Hughes said. "It was Saturday night -- we weren't allowed to tell anyone 'til Sunday, so it was a little hard. So we had to leave the restaurant right away."

"We were so excited," she added.