Opening night for the 1998 edition of Champions on Ice!
Todd, I was told, was skating tonight with a cold, but this was certainly not apparent from what he presented on the ice. For the opening segment, he is wearing a new shirt for the occasion, black with a kind of funky multicolored design on the front and is skating to the rather appropriate Tubthumping. He concludes the segment with a killer scratch spin that tonight had the audience absolutely screaming with delight.
Following this opening preview, one has an approximately 90 minute wait for Todd's next appearance, as he does not appear for his solo performance until the second act of the show. Right now, he is the third skater to appear following the Zamboni break, skating right after Krylova/Ovisiannikov, a position he likes because the ice is not yet too rough for the knee slides he does in his program. He is skating the new exhibition number, Il Mare Calmo Della Sera, that he debuted at the recent Worlds' exhibitions and he is wearing the costume that he wore on that occasion and which made its first appearance at Worlds as the new First Knight costume.
I realized watching the program again tonight that it is a remarkably long time into it before Todd executes his first jump, a situation that is not immediately apparent because the passion with which he skates the program and the mesmerizing nature of the gorgeous edgework he performs causes one to become totally involved in what he doing and not terribly conscious of the individual elements. The first planned jump is a triple axel, which tonight turned into a huge double, equally effective. A gorgeous triple toe loop followed, using the three-turn entry he developed for the quad toe in First Knight. The next jump, the triple lutz, was executed, but was decidedly off kilter (another one of those Eldredge "how on earth did he land that?" kind of jumps). The final jump, a triple loop, was gorgeous (one of his better ones). The program concluded to thunderous applause and cheers, without doubt one of the bigger receptions of the night.
Todd appears to be having a lot of fun with his part of the closing number, skating to Secret Agent Man (in another new shirt, a kind of button-down black) and playing to the audience. All in all, tonight was a very auspicious debut of what promises to be a very successful tour for our favorite skater!
