Thanks to too much traveling in too short a time], I felt like yesterday’s trash when I arrived in Philly, and finding that my roommate had not yet arrived, I headed over to the arena. No-one at the hotel could tell me whether practices were open, and so I wandered in and watched a few minutes of pairs practice. When I saw that there were no other spectators, I decided that if I was going to see any practices illicitly, and risk being ejected, I’d rather try the men’s.
I headed back to the hotel, met up with Carol, began the first in a long series of run-ins with the not-exactly-four-star hotel, and had my mood altered for the better by a run-in with Alexei Urmanov, who I asked to sign a photo I’d taken at ‘92 Worlds. Even our inability to get into practices, no matter what we tried, failed to entirely dampen my mood. ( I did grow to resent this lack more later; I’m unused to having to see performances "cold", without any idea of how the skater’s looked in practice, what he’s been working on, and an advance idea of the program’s content. And the arena lacked any electronics, so I also had to do without the running times for the programs, which nearly drove me crazy.)
Finally it was time for the men. I had been so pleased to hear of the last-minute replacement of Candeloro with Mark Mitchell; I’d just seen Philippe, and had been worried that I’d never see Mark in person again. Unfortunately for Mark, the warm-up proved to be a pretty fair barometer of the evening. There’d been a lot of fireworks, and a lot of screams for various favorites. Todd Eldredge and Viktor Petrenko attempted (and landed) the most; Scott Davis also jumped a lot, with less success; Alexei Urmanov was more reserved but pretty impressive. Mark didn’t hit any of his axels in warm-up, and proceeded to wipe out on his opening one in the program. (Carol opined that he’d have been better off not even attempting it.) He did look great in a red shirt and black pants, and used his 1993 OP, which I still like better than his more "lyrical" (read "Strauss") numbers.
Alexei also used an old program, last season’s "La Dona e Mobile." He double-footed his opening triple axel/double toe, but I found myself noticing that I liked the program a lot more in person than I had on TV. Yes, the gloves and costume were "over the top," but that goes with the mood of the music. (I still find it interesting that he was considered too conservative by the commentators at the Olympics. As Dick Button recently pointed out, he is fairly "exotic" and by all accounts follows his own drummer every bit as much as the others.) Anyway, Alexei has improved his closing spin; if he could just carry any speed into it, he’d be okay. As it stood, the couple of botched jumps left him with technicals of 5.1 to 5.5, leaving plenty of room for the others to pass him.
Todd’s swing program is a great crowd favorite, especially when skated as perfectly as it was here. He was in total control from the moment he stepped on the ice. I finally figured out what the pace and style and general attitude of this program remind me of: Orser’s 1988 short program. The swing music, the fast footwork, the cocky attitude--they’re all there. When combined with the only triple axel/triple toe of the evening, they were an unbeatable combination (pardon the pun). The audience started screaming right from the start, and rewarded him with a standing ovation when he finished.
Poor Scott Davis had to follow that with tired old "Zorba." Although he’d decided to do fewer early-season competitions, he didn’t look at all rested (we later found out he was still recovering from an earlier injury). Although the audience was very much behind him, he seemed a little sluggish and, like Urmanov, double footed his triple axel. He also had a bizarre loss of balance coming out of his death drop, and touched his hand down on the double axel, leaving him in third.
The audience was ready for the last skater, Viktor Petrenko, in his black, with ruffled cuff and v-neck, and velvet trim. He used his "dance contest" rhumba to good effect, and, if anything, seemed a little too psyched. The triple axel would have been huge--if he’d landed it. The music went out briefly near the end of his program, and seconds later he singled his double axel. Cause and effect? Who knows? At any rate, the judges really landed on him, with one giving him a 4.3 and another 4.7! The rest were 5.0 and 5.1s. He and Mark were fighting for last place.
With our favorites in Dance and Man in first place, we retired (with a new friend) to the bar, where we spent some enjoyable hours dissecting the evening, trading stories, and watching skaters--a very pleasant evening. What to do the next day with practices being closed? My vote was for hanging out and watching skaters; Carol’s the more active type, so we went shopping instead. Many purchases later, we got back to the hotel rather later than we’d wished, and went racing for the (slow) elevator. With our arms full and me on the elevator, Carol and I would have been separated had not Alexei Urmanov kindly held the door for her. He smiled at her attempts to juggle several large bags, and she instantly became a fan. (If you’ve seen that charming grin, especially close-up, you’ll understand!
Having dressed for that evening’s reception, which Carol had been told was with the skaters, we arrived at the arena to find out that we’d been (once again) misinformed. If you thought Pittsburgh was bad you should have gone to Philly. Just getting the appropriate tickets took an incredible amount of patience and persistence, as TicketMaster seemed totally unaware of the event, and unable to explain (or sell!) the tickets if they somehow managed to locate them! Besides our little problem with the reception, others were told that the highest price tickets included practices (they didn’t!), it was difficult to locate the t-shirt and programs included in the deluxe tickets, and to add insult to injury, people from the upper levels were encouraged to come down to the front for the freeskates (to make the event look better-attended for television). Then the start of the final night’s events was inexplicably delayed for some time (after the dancers had been waiting to take the ice for their warm-up for quite a while), with no explanation ever given! The last proved to be fortuitous, as it gave Dick Button the opportunity to start the wave! No, I’m not kidding--he worked quite hard to get it started, and kept it upgoing for some time, joined by both Peggy Fleming and Julie Moran! It was indeed a sight.
I find it hard to imagine a nicer way to begin the final event of the final night of a competition than by looking at Mark Mitchell. Dressed all in black with a single line of silver beadwork, he skated his Rachmaninoff number beautifully, and this time landed the triple axel.
Before we could recover from one perfect performance, another followed as Viktor "saw" Mark’s axel and "raised" it--just about to the ceiling. His was one of the hugest I’ve ever seen--and after years of watching Boitano, Browning, Stojko and Eldredge I’ve seen some pretty big ones! Sitting down near the front made the height even more evident. I’d never seen his Olympic program live, and was delighted at this opportunity. I originally hadn’t looked forward to seeing Viktor at this event--I’d liked little he’d done recently, and categorized his chosen style as "smarmy." But this reminded me of why Viktor had previously been one of my favorite skaters. It was clear that someone would have to go a long way to beat this program with its elegance and technical strength, and the top guys’ only hope was that Viktor was having to move up from his last place in the OP. His marks were 5.7 to 5.9--hard to beat.
I pitied Alexei following that, but he didn’t seem especially nervous, all things considered. He once again had a lot to prove, as he has had every time he performs or competes since the Olympics. There were the required groans at his costume, which we found quite appropriate to his "Swan Lake" (black pants, white shirt with very full dolman sleeves with flame-shaped black, gray and silver appliques). The new program looked rough, was far from clean despite his great opening triple axel, and by comparison with Viktor, I found myself occasionally wishing he’d tone down some of his arm movements--but he does seem to feel the program, which I find very important. The marks left him clearly behind Viktor in the free (but ahead of him overall). There was plenty of room for Todd ahead of Alexei, less (but still enough) ahead of Viktor.
Without practices to watch, I could discern no changes to "Gettysburg," billed as a work-in-progress. The opening was certainly skated better than it had been at Skate America, as he landed the triple axel/triple toe (which even Viktor hadn’t done). And the split flip was starting to look better--I’d rate it all the way up at "acceptable" now. But the rest of the program was not up to its usual standard, and I began to wonder if Alexei would beat him. (The marks were so close I wasn’t sure for some time that they’d tied, so Todd held first place overall.)
Scott Davis had to skate last, and looked a little unnerved. The new program, to "Dick Tracy" and "Untouchables," showed some promise, and I look forward to seeing it under better circumstances--although I must admit to finding it very unimpressive at the time; it was skated so badly that I couldn’t concentrate on the choreography. I liked the "Dick Tracy" portion best; it allowed him to show strength, whereas the "Untouchables" section suffered by comparison to Wylie’s grace. (The costume is black pants and black button-down shirt, with pale grey tie and black beaded vest.) Like Nicole, he looked exhausted and unfocused, and his marks of 5.3 to 5.7 were the lowest of the evening.
It was over. I was totally drained. I managed one more burst of enthusiasm, as Todd was presented with the Korbel award (and mimed shaking it up and pointing it at Claire Ferguson). Then it was back to our lovely hotel, to find that they were just closing up the bar, before the skaters could even get back! (It was pitiful to see people’s faces as they wandered in and discovered that piece of bad news!) To top it all off, it was after midnight, on a weeknight, in a remote part of town--where did one go to eat? We watched Scott wait, all forlorn and dejected-looking, on a couch in the lobby with Renee as Gorsha tried to locate an open restaurant and arrange for transportation. I hope they pulled that one off--Renee certainly needs to eat!
