A Little Witt & Wisdom

On Olympic ice, East German Katarina Witt was a ferocious (and glamorous) competitor, the only living woman with back-to-back gold medals for singles figure skating.

Off the ice, the 37-year-old has a nice sense of humor and a warm laugh.

We have been hooked up for a phone date so she can do publicity for the Smucker's Stars on Ice show that hits the First Union Center Friday.

She responds with a deep, long laugh when I ask, "If I call you a Smucker's Star on Ice, would you slap my face?"

"You know it's a good excuse to be a foreigner right now, because I don't know if I should slap you or not," she says in lightly accented English.

All I really know about figure skating is that it is elegant and sexy with ice spray to cool you off. Salkows? Double axels? Toe loops? It's all Fruit Loops to me.

Katarina admits to being nervous before a show "because I want to give my best because people mostly remember the Olympics, they remember you from big competitions, so they expect you to be in shape and they expect you to do good job." Call it pride in her craft.

The clean-living fraulein admits to no bad habits except one:

"I'm just so straightforward. And I'm not diplomatic at all. I just say what I think."

With Germany acting pacifist, I ask her take on the situation with Iraq.

"I think to go to war anywhere in the world should be the last option you have," she says.

Would that be her advice to President Bush?

"No, I'm careful with advices," she laughs.