Remember Salt Lake City? The down-to-the-wire match-ups between deadlocked rivals in the men’s and ladies’ competitions, and especially in the ultra-close pairs event, where a judging scandal (remember the French judge?) produced intense scrutiny of the ice dance competition.

The figure skating competition, the marquee event in Turin, gets started Saturday night with the pair short program and spans the length of the Games, culminating with the ladies final, which has been known to draw Super Bowl-sized audience. On top of the competition is the character-driven drama that instills it with the riveting qualities of risk and reward that have sent reality television programs to the top of the ratings.

For all its controversy, Salt Lake was a grand event – think of American teenager Sarah Hughes’s astonishing even herself with the come-from-behind skate of her young life, and Russian champ Alexei Yagudin earning four perfect 6.0s on the way to the men’s title. After Salt Lake’s fierce competition and front-page drama, Torino at first looked a little sleepy. The rap on figure skating at these Games was that they would be ruled by the favorites – all Russian – who have dominated their respective disciplines in the run-up to the Games.

But Olympic nerves are notorious. And as they say in skating, ice is a very slippery thing. One split-second hesitation, one rut in the ice, and a favorite can go down. Yes, oddsmakers see Torino as the site of runaway victories for the Russian favorites, who are predicted to achieve an unprecedented sweep of the Olympic figure skating events. The Russian team is so dominant on paper that at this point, you’d be a fool to bet against it.

But if you were going to bet against it, you would have your choice of appealing dark horses.

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In the marquee ladies’ event, for instance, there’s the favorite, Irina Slutskaya, a great jumper and fast spinner with rosy cheeks to match her cheerful personality. She’s also got a dramatic story – she nearly quit the sport after being sidelined by vasculitis, and at 27, she’s almost twice as old as the only person to beat her this year – Japanese teenager Mao Asada, who at 15 is too young to compete in Torino under International Skating Union rules. Slutskaya has a winning presence on the ice and on camera, and if she wins, it will certainly be deserved and emotional.

But there’s also American Sasha Cohen, possibly the most elegant, beautiful skater to ever take the ice. Watch for the way she carries herself – like a ballerina – and her shockingly flexible spins (how does she get her ankle up beside her ear?). It’s easy to root for Cohen – she’s extraordinary, but she’s never held herself together at the big events. This is probably among her last chances to prove that she really is gold medal material.

And most poignant of all, there is Michelle Kwan, the most famous skater never to have won the sport’s ultimate prize. Second in 1998, third in 2002, Kwan has pushed herself to continue skating to a final Olympics. Earlier this year, she was sidelined by serious hip and groin injuries, and Kwan was not even able to compete at the Olympic trials – she had to petition her way on to the team. Kwan hasn’t competed internationally all season, and she’s only been training for two months. No one even knows what she is capable of technically until she arrives in Torino, but everyone is pulling for one of the sport’s great champions to come through in what will surely be her final competition.

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On the men’s side, Evgeny Plushenko is the man to beat. The silver medalist in 2002, Plushenko has stuck it out for four more years, and he skates with the confidence of an athlete who has dominated his sport – which he has. More Europop star than Baryshnikov, Plushenko’s flamboyant Russian style won’t appeal to everyone, but his competitive fire makes every event he’s in crackle with excitement.

Only two men have a shot at beating Plushenko, but they’re two tremendous athletes. The Swiss are known for making precise things – watches, rail systems – and when it comes to figure skating, spinners. Switzerland’s Stephane Lambiel is a marvel – his speed, creative positions, and ability to change them up is simply jaw-dropping. When Lambiel spins, you wonder why people make such a fuss about the jumps, which are over in a blink and not half as fun. Lambiel also has a solid quadruple jump, which is standard equipment for a gold medalist.

France’s Brian Joubert can be counted on to light up the house. He’s skating’s version of a matinee idol – young, fun, and macho. (He once dated Miss France). Joubert is an inconsistent skater, but he has beaten Plushenko before. No one expects him to here, which is a blessing, since Joubert has been known to crumble beneath high expectations. If he can fly under the radar until the final free program, Joubert might be able to put together great jumps and powerful crowd momentum.

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Anyone who has seen the video clip remembers the terrible crash at Skate America in 2004, when the Russian skater Tatyana Totmianina was dropped by partner Maxim Marinin and hit her head on the unforgiving ice. Such accidents are not uncommon in practice, unfortunately, but few skaters have ever been caught in the glare of a TV camera during a fall. Totmianina and Marinin, who train in Chicago, came back with considerable courage, winning their first World title just five months later. They followed it up with another in 2005 and are the strong favorites to win in Torino.

But despite their compelling backstory, the Russians somehow fail to connect entirely with audiences. That skill belongs to their longtime rivals, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, the former World Champions from China.

Shen and Zhao have an extraordinary story of their own. Both grew up skating on makeshift frozen ponds in northern China, and both have endured painful injuries to get to Torino – most recently Zhao’s ruptured Achilles, which probably won’t be fully healed when he takes the ice. Zhao, who, at 32, has been waiting for this moment for more than a decade, is not giving up. Whatever happens with their free skate – if they can make it there – it should be a highlight of the entire Olympics.

Their younger compatriots, Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, have the technical virtuosity to beat anyone in the field. There are rumors of their attempting the throw quadruple jump – which has never been landed in competition but these two land easily in practice. They’re weaker than the top Russian pair in what used to be called “artistic merit,” but if their rivals falter and they are perfect, they may just have the chance to win it all.

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It’s hard to work up any excitement for the ice dancing competition, since the placements are usually predicted well in advance, but under skating’s new judging system (implemented in response to the Salt Lake debacle), there is at least the possibility of some shake-ups. At the recent European Championships, dance teams bobbed up and down in the standings during the three phases of competition – something that is rarely seen in ice dancing.

That’s a good sign for the Americans, Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, who have just the slimmest chance of challenging the Russian favorites, Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov. Without the new system, Belbin and Agosto might well be shut out of the medals no matter their merit – which was the fate of their American predecessors, who on several occasions were victims of the “bloc judging” that permeated the sport for years.

As it was, Belbin and Agosto’s biggest worry was getting to the Games at all. The attractive Belbin is Canadian, and her citizenship papers weren’t slated to go through until after the Games, but an emergency bill signed by President Bush on December 31 got Belbin her citizenship in time for Torino. If that sounds shady, consider this: At least half the top international ice dancing teams are comprised of skaters who hail from different countries.

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As for the new “code of points” scoring system, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that skating is no longer as easily “fix-able” by groups of colluding judges.(Out of the panel of 12 judges, only nine randomly selected judges’ marks are actually counted.) Moreover, a judge who wants to artificially raise up a skater has to keep track of dozens of marks he or she is giving to each skater as they pop up on a touch screen – not just the two given in the old system.

Another benefit of the new system is the idea that it ain’t over till it’s over. Whereas the old system made it nearly impossible for those who fared badly in early rounds of the competition to recover, now any skater can win an event by compiling the highest point total.

The bad news is also significant. First and foremost, the judges are completely anonymous. No one knows how each judge voted, meaning you can’t look at the screen to see that the French judge gave a lower mark, for instance. Only the ISU’s “secret computer” knows who is giving outlandish scores.

Also in the bad news column, the scoring system makes the sport more complicated for the skaters, who spend much of their “free” program fulfilling byzantine requirements, and for viewers, who can’t make heads or tails of a score of 114.72. Even in 2002, the so-called “free skate” wasn’t free. But now the skaters are stuck executing wall-to-wall mandates, which often makes the skating less satisfying as pure performance.

And finally, the death of the 6.0 is not incidental. We’ll always remember seeing those sixes on the scoreboard and the faces of the athletes who had just momentarily achieved perfection. A 114.72 just won’t mean as much. But the gold medal will be as potent as ever.