It takes a lot to be a winner. It takes talent; sometimes it takes luck; it takes dedication; it takes heart. Figure skater Michelle Kwan, owner of every medal imaginable except one, is a winner.

At last week’s World Championships in Nagano, Japan, Kwan lost her reign as World Champion, placing second behind Irina Slutskaya of Russia. I love her skating, and she does have the makings of a World and Olympic Champion. Maybe on another night she would have kept her title.

However, whether in winning or in losing, her attitude is impressive. It’s one I wish more people would embrace. It’s one I try to have. I’m competitive. There’s a long-standing joke that people shouldn’t play Monopoly with me because I’m too competitive, but it’s not just Monopoly. Any game I play, I want to win, but if I lose, I’m a good sport about it. I’m the same way with a lot of things.

Kwan is a four-time World Champion and a six-time National Champion. In many years when she didn’t win gold, she won a different medal. She also has won a silver and a bronze Olympic medal. That’s a lot of medals.

Kwan has never sold herself short. She has gone through ups and downs, and those challenges makes her a better athlete, a better person.

She is honest. She doesn’t deny the Olympic gold is her dream.

Kwan has said she wants to be a legend in the sport of figure skating, the Michael Jordan of figure skating. Some would say she is a legend. Her longevity and her long list of achievements places her as one of the best figure skaters in history. However, she does not believe one can truly be a legend without winning the Olympics.

But she is not snobby or a bad sport when she loses a competition.

Some people have said the silver is the loser’s gold, and I hate that. Winning a silver medal, just representing one’s country at the World or Olympic level, is a great achievement.

After the ’98 Olympics, Kwan talked about how she didn’t lose the gold; she won the silver. That was a great attitude, and it’s just one example of her optimistic outlook. This year she showed more disappointment, but she still has a heart of a champion.

She composes herself and handles defeat well. She didn’t talk bad about her competition at the Olympics or Worlds again this year.

One of my favorite quotes is: “Life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we handle it” from a poem called “Attitude.” We all should embrace this sentiment. Life will throw us twists and turns. We won’t get everything we want no matter how hard we work for it. How a disappointment affects us depends on our reaction to it.

Too many people put so much emphasis on winning they lose the joy of whatever they are doing. Winning becomes something they have to do. They go after something just because they want to win, not necessarily because they want it or deserve it.

Kwan loves skating; she loves competing. This love is obvious to me.

I wish Kwan had won the Olympics. I wish she had won in 98; I wish she had won this year. I wish she had claimed her fifth consecutive World title this past weekend.

I know she wishes she had won; it’s her dream. Whether she will regain her world title another year or whether she will be at the Olympics again in 2006, only time will tell.

One thing is for sure though – she will handle whatever comes her way with as much grace as she is known for in her skating, an example all of us should follow.