Thursday, March 13, 1997

After an uneventful, 9 hour+ but mercifully direct flight from Washington, D.C., I arrived in Geneva and immediately hopped on the first train to Lausanne, eager to begin my next World Championship adventure. A short cab ride from the train station in Lausanne deposited me at my hotel, the Beau Rivage Palace, and after a brief pause to gawk at my palatial room and then to obtain a practice session schedule, I set off to find an answer to the first all important question -namely, the current status of the Eldredge ankle. Exactly one week earlier Todd had injured his right ankle in practice while executing a triple axel and, although it seemed to be getting better each day, the timing for this injury obviously couldn't have been worse.

I caught up with him as he was registering at his hotel. While reporting that the ankle was still a little tender, he pointed out that we still had a whole week before the men's final and hopefully it would be okay by then. After extracting the further information that he probably wouldn't be doing that evening's practice session (no surprise if he was feeling as wiped out as I was - I couldn't imagine skating in my present condition), I left him to register while I returned to my hotel to collapse.

A brief doze gave me a second wind, along with the realization that I was at the World Championships and there was skating going on! So off I went for my first trip to the Malley Sports Center, about a 15 minute shuttle bus ride away. Entering the front gate of the complex, I found myself facing a 15 foot or so barbed wire fence with a checkpost entrance to the side; to my left and down a short flight of steps was a large tent with a door at the end of a canopied entrance and to my right and up a short flight of steps was another canopied entrance to another tent. I followed a sign which directed me to enter the tent on my immediate right and found myself standing inside a huge tent with a wooden floor that tended to creak and wobble a bit when you walked on it. There was an information booth directly in front of me and beyond that, amidst a whole lot of hammering and bustle, a large open area that would shortly become the trade fair. To my left was a wooden building to which the tent seemed to have been attached and in which were contained a restaurant and a bar; a flight of stone stairs across from the restaurant (and over which the tent extended) took me up, over and into what had to be the tiniest ice arena I'd ever seen. I wasn't expecting a place that only seated 4,000 to be exactly huge, but I still wasn't prepared for the small size of this one. At least, I reflected, there didn't seem to be a bad seat in the house - you could sit in the last row and still be pretty close to the ice. The arena also had a huge moat around it - as had been the case with the arena for the Worlds in Birmingham two years ago. I concluded that this must be how they construct arenas in Europe and anticipated that once again, the photographers at the event were going to have to put up with flowers and other assorted objects raining on their heads following skater performances. When I arrived in the arena, a pairs practice session was in progress, consisting of Ina/Dungjen and Stiegler/Zimmerman, two of the three American pairs. No sign of Meno/Sand, but then it really was rather early for pairs to be in residence (unlike the singles skaters, pair and dance teams did not have to go through early pre-competition qualifying rounds). I left the arena to continue my explorations.

The arena seemed to have been built into a hill. On one side of it (the side originally open to the air, but covered with canvas once the competition started) the concourse was at ground level; on the other side, there were a series of stone staircases that led to the ground. The first of these took you to the tented public entrance and trade fair (this was the one I'd first come up); the other three led down to an open area, across from which was the practice rink and the tented media center. This open area apparently provided the only available space large enough for skaters (especially pairs and dance teams) to do their off-ice warm-up exercises. If you went down the stairway farthest from the one that led to the trade fair (stairway No. 4), you would find yourself in front of a maze of media and sponsor trailers, then pass by the 2 entrances to the practice rink, then pass by the media center and lounges (another tent and directly across from the skater/official entrance to the arena) and finally come to the open ("exercise") area which in turn was just in front of the barbed wire fence. As soon as you passed through the gate in the fence, you would be facing the Sports Complex entrance, with the entrance to the trade fair to your left. Stairway No. 3 deposited you about 10 feet from one of the practice rink entrances; Stairway No. 2 deposited you right at the open area before the fence. I came to dub this open area between the practice rink and the arena the "Yard".

After checking out the practice rink where a dance session was currently in progress, I made my way out by way of the fence to check out the tent opposite the trade fair/arena entrance. Here was set up The Village, a gigantic tent divided into a public area and a area for sponsors only, and which contained a cafeteria serving hot and cold dishes to famished attendees, tables and chairs for them to use and TV monitors for them to watch the various skating events while dining. After stoking up on coffee, I made my way back to the practice rink in time for the start of the men's practice sessions. I calculated I could probably just about make it through the first three before I'd be ready to pass out again; the fourth group was Todd's, but as he was planning to skip it, I figured I could too.

There were 47 men registered to participate in the World Championships and only 30 spots available in the competition; hence the need for qualifying sessions in order to determine who these 30 would be. In previous years, guys who'd finished in the top ten at the previous year's Worlds automatically qualified for the competition; this was the first year that every competitor had to participate in the qualifying rounds. The same was true for the ladies. At this point in time, of course, all 47 men were still in the mix and so were divided for practices into 6 groups of 8 men each (except for group 1 which had seven).

Only three of the seven guys placed in Group 1 showed up for this evening's short program practice, but the three included the skater I'd most looked forward to seeing (after Todd, of course) - Patrick Meier of Switzerland. Unless and until I can make it to a Europeans, Worlds is my only chance each year to see Patrick skate and so I planned to make the most of it. Patrick's music was up first and I was delighted to discover he'd kept last year's short program. As is usually the case with Patrick, his run-through was mainly jumpless, but then that alone was enough to remind me of why it is I like his skating so much - take away the jumps and there is still so much there to watch - originality, spins, edges, footwork, etc. In the jump department, after the run-through he started out slowly, doing doubles and working his way up. I knew he was coming off a recent injury and worried that that might be hindering him. Then, after executing some really nice triple loops and triple salchows, bam! a perfect triple axel/double toe combination. Wow! I was still trying to adjust to what I'd seen when he did it again. Last year the triple axel had still been relatively new to him and he had tended to fall on it more often than not. Now he seemed to be having enough consistency with it to tack on a double toe and to use that combination in his short program (last year he had the triple axel in the program as his solo triple jump). I took no more than a brief glance at the other two guys in this session. Margus Hernits (Estonia) seemed to have grown taller since last year and more gangly, but was still not terribly interesting; Ferdi Skoberta from South Africa I quickly judged not likely to make it out of qualifying.

Group 2 was the group with the Russians and once again, only three guys (out of 8) put in an appearance this evening, but as one of the three was Ilia Kulik I was quite satisfied. It was definitely not one of Ilia's better practices. I didn't see a whole lot of triples in evidence and he seemed to be having severe triple axel problems. He did some marvelous double axel/triple toe combinations, but I don't think that's the combination he was trying to do. Then when his music began, he started a run-through of his program only to come to disaster with the triple axel/triple toe combination, falling out of the triple axel in such a way as to wind up on his knees. At first, from the slow way he got to his feet and from the pained statement on his face, I was afraid he'd hurt himself, a fear reinforced when he then seemed to be limping. Finally I figured out it was an equipment problem - apparently he'd broken a skate blade in the fall. At any rate, he left the ice before his music had concluded, leaving me no choice but to watch the other two guys - Alexandre Mourashko of Belarus, looking much as I remembered him, and Jordi Pedro of Spain, another candidate for the non-qualifying list.

During the Zamboni break between sessions, I zipped over to the Village to fetch more coffee and returned to find Todd engaged in studying the practice rink. To my "changed your mind?" he said yah, he thought he might as well come check it out. This of course meant I'd have to postpone my collapse to tack on another session to my schedule. Ah well. Five of the 8 guys showed up for Group 3's session, including both Canadians (Elvis Stojko and Jeff Langdon) and a skater I'd heard a lot about and was dying to get a look at - Anthony Liu of Australia. Upon this initial view, I did find Liu impressive. He seems to have a lot of style and fairly good jumping ability (landing a triple axel/triple toe and a triple lutz/triple toe during this session). He's also rather attractive and somewhat tough looking (sports an earring). I could see why life in his native China probably hadn't suited him, prompting his emigration to Australia - definitely someone to keep an eye on for the future. Elvis was looking fairly strong. He stumbled a bit on some jumps during the session, but he had a flawless program run-through, complete with triple axel/triple toe. Jeff did a jumpless run-through, but definitely looked better than he had when I last saw him at Skate America, eventually landing a really decent triple axel/triple toe. Michael Hopfes of Germany was also in this group, still looking very promising (if only'd he get a triple axel!) if occasionally a bit sloppy, as was Kyo-Hyun Lee of Korea, another I nominated as unlikely to qualify.

Group 4's taking the ice was my chance to see how Todd looked skating jet-lagged. The first clue that his head was still back in Michigan occurred after his first few laps around the ice when he realized he had neglected to remove his credentials from around his neck, forcing him to skate back over to Richard and hand them over. Clue No. 2 was his discovery, after removing his warm-up jacket, that he had neglected to tuck his shirt tail into his pants, a procedure that had then to be accomplished on the ice. Not surprisingly, his short program run-thru was not one of his best, with the jumps a bit wobbly in the extreme, but what really amazed me was that the quality of his spins were as phenomenal as usual, jetlag notwithstanding. Amidst all this, I did manage to sneak a peak at the other four guys who'd shown up for this session. Dan Hollander seemed to be having a few problems (especially during his run-through), and Marcus Leminen of Finland seemed the same as usual - some nice qualities, but not really to my taste. Apart from Todd, the big attraction of this group for me was that it was my first chance to see the legendary Konstantin Kostin of Latvia, he who was landing quads back in 1992 and who had been kept largely away from the skating scene in recent years (and thus out of my sight) by a series of injuries. Now he was back and being coached by the Scotvalds. I decided he'd definitely been worth waiting for. Very enjoyable to watch and with absolutely incredible height on his jumps. Meanwhile, Matthew Vanden Broeck of Belgium, somewhat squat looking for a skater, I quickly added to my list of not likely to make it through qualifying.

As soon as Todd left the ice at the conclusion of the session, I left the building and the area to return to my hotel, grab some dinner, call Deb Walsh in Boston with the first of my rinkside reports for the Unofficial Todd Eldredge Home Page on the Internet, and collapse.

Friday, March 14, 1997

A day devoted to men, men and nothing but men. The annual pre-qualifying 10 hours worth of men's practice sessions. They began with free skate practices in the practice rink, with Group 2 first up. Today there was no sign of Ilia (presumably off searching for a new skate blade - I learned later that Tamara Moskvina had to carry an old one of his to him from Russia), but the other two Russians - Aleksei Urmanov and Aleksei Yagudin - were present and looking strong. Urmanov was landing triple/triple combinations and quads all over the place, one of the quads being executed right under the nose of an Elvis waiting in the wings. Meanwhile, I noticed for the first time what a really good spinner Yagudin is.

Group 3 consisted this morning of the same guys I saw last night, plus Viacheslav Zagorodniuk. Elvis didn't look as solid as he had the previous evening. He uncharacteristically quit in the middle of his run-thru after a couple of mistakes and seemed to be having both triple axel and quad problems (didn't land one quad this session as near as I could tell). Jeff also seemed to be having some axel problems, but did execute a gorgeous triple lutz/triple toe. Watching him spin I marvelled at how he could have such a great camel and Elvis such a lousy one, seeing as how the two guys train together. Meanwhile, Zago was back to doing 'tano lutzes again and I was once more impressed with Anthony Liu's presence and style on the ice (and jumping ability, as more triple/triples came forth).

Group 4 took the ice, this time with a just arrived in town Michael Weiss, not skating too badly for a jetlagged person. Dan Hollander did much better today, and I marvelled anew at the amazing height Kostin got on his jumps. But of course my main focus in this group was Todd. He had a flawless runthru, but with triple/double combos rather than the usual triple/triples. I wasn't too surprised to see him holding back like this, since I knew the jump that most aggravated the sore right ankle was the triple toe. It didn't bother him especially to take off with it (as in the axel, flip and lutz), but when he had to pick with it (as in the toe loop) that was when it hurt, especially the kind of deep pick required to do that jump as the second triple jump in a combination. Towards the end of the session he spent a lot of time working on solo triple toes, leading me to wonder with amazement if he wasn't contemplating some quad work, but later he told me he had just been testing the ankle on triple toe solos.

Gilberto Viadana of Italy was the only one of the eight guys missing from Group 5. Present were the French (Eric Millot and Laurent Tobel), plus Steven Cousins, Cornel Gheorghe, Robert Kasimir of Slovakia, Florian Tuma of Austria and Roman Skorniakov of Uzbekistan. I almost didn't recognize Florian Tuma - boy, has he bulked up since last year - too much so! It looked to me like he'd grown at least three inches and put on a good 50 pounds or so. The cute little boy I knew was gone, with his skating having deteriorated accordingly. His new long program I immediately dubbed the Eldredge tribute program, as it turned out to be a very odd mix of First Knight and Les Mis. I also figured I'd never see this program in the competition, as I was fairly certain that unlike the last two Worlds, this year the new Tuma wasn't going make it out of qualifying. It was the first time I'd seen Eric since Skate America and was delighted to see no evidence of the injury that had forced his withdrawal from French Nationals. He looked really good and although he still was having triple axel problems, he had a fairly good run-through. Steven Cousins wasn't looking too bad, although he seemed to be having some serious lutz problems. I was not pleased to find that Cornel Gheorghe had scrapped the Far and Away program he'd had at the beginning of the season for a program to An American in Paris; I thought this new program way too much like some of his past programs, whereas Far and Away had really been a different look for him. Ah well. I wasn't horribly impressed with my first sight of Laurent Tobel; I don't think I've ever seen a skater muscle jumps quite as strenuously as he does; part of the reason, I suspect, that the end result is to make him the second ugliest jumper on the planet (first place being reserved for Patrick Schmit of Luxembourg).

Group 6 was for me the least interesting of the groups, featuring as it did the ugly jumper Schmit cited above. Probably the most interesting skater in this group was Takeshi Honda. He was looking fairly good, but spent most of this session trying to equal Elvis. After landing several nice quads, he turned his attention to the quad/triple toe combo and came mighty close to nailing the thing before the session ended. Robert Grzegorczyk of Poland still has the same nice qualities that have impressed me in the past, but I was a bit disconcerted by his use of long program music similar to Michael Weiss' (that is, part Santana). Vakthang Murvanidze of Georgia also impressed me, with really nice choreography, but I'm beginning to think further use of Addams Family music should be banned. Michael Shmerkin's new long program I thought did nothing for him or for me - a program that managed to be both boring and irritating. Ricardo Olavarrieta of Mexico (Worlds and Olympic veteran) I figured was still not destined to make it out of qualifying, but I was impressed to note further improvement from last year, including evidence that he was working on triple jumps.

Finally it was Group 1's turn and my first chance to get a glimpse of Patrick's new long program. Actually, that was all I got - a glimpse. By comparison, Patrick makes the Russians look like the Kings of Complete Run-throughs. But that brief glimpse plus the music was enough to let me know I was going to love it when I finally got to see the whole thing (no doubt during the qualifying round). His triple axel was not as solid today. I did note, however, that unlike last year where a miss on that jump almost always ended in a fall, this year he was mostly missing the jump by overrotating it and/or landing on two feet. His axel technique could definitely be improved; part of the problem is that he seems to come almost to a dead stop before launching himself into the air.

Midway through Group 1's session, Group 2 was scheduled to begin the round of short program sessions in the arena so it was decision time. Do I stick with Patrick or desert him in favor of the Russians? The choice actually was easy, seeing as how I get many opportunities during the year to see the Russians - but only one chance to see Patrick. So I stuck it out with Patrick to the bitter end and came in on the Group 2 session in time to ascertain that Ilia still was a no-show (still bladeless, no doubt) and that Aleksei U. was still looking really good (he landed a quad within moments of my arrival).

Group 3 followed with no Elvis, but with Andrei Vlaschenko present for the first time, albeit ever so briefly. He left the practice early, before his music played, I have no idea why. Zago did a semi-complete run-through, complete with 'tano lutz, thus confirming my suspicion he'd put it in his program. Meanwhile, Jeff Langdon showed continued signs of being in really good form. Todd's group followed, and featured a flawless triple axel/double toe run-through from Mr. Eldredge. Once again he spent some time working on solo triples toes and finished the session with a triple axel/triple toe that looked fairly good.

By this time I really needed a break (so many men, so little time), so I skipped Groups 5 and 6 entirely to hang out in the Yard, gossiping with friends. I also ducked into the practice rink to check out a short program session for the American ladies and stayed long enough to see Nicole Bobek falling a lot and Michelle Kwan appearing not to be doing much skating. Meanwhile, Tara Lipinski was busily pulling off triple lutz/triple loop combinations! Richard told me later that if all went well and if it looked like she might need this degree of difficulty, she might very well do this combination in her short program in the competition.

I went back to the men to finish the day with Group 1 and Patrick's final session. Continued triple axel problems were leaving him and me a bit frustrated. Afterward I left the skating complex to return to my hotel to call Deb and turn in as early as I could. Tomorrow was going to start very early.

Saturday, March 15, 1997

The sun was just beginning to rise when I arrived at the complex at 6:30 a.m. Passing through Checkpoint Charlie into the Yard, my first sight was of Todd and Dan Hollander doing their off-ice warm-up exercises. I had to pass between them in order to get to the stairway to the arena and they stopped for a moment so I could go by without fear of a skater accidentally landing on top of me. As I passed I shot Todd a sleepy hello. He looked at his watch, then said "Boy, you must be nuts coming here at this hour!" My thought exactly, but not feeling quite up to confessing to insanity, I opted for a "no, just dedicated" response.

Group 3's long program session was in progress when I arrived in the arena and I was in time to see the tail end of Elvis' run-through and his miss of 2 triple jumps in a row (Richard told me later that he'd missed the two before that as well). Todd's group followed and at approximately 7:15 a.m. the tiny handful of spectators in the arena were treated to a flawless Eldredge long program run-through - for the first time, complete with the triple/triple combinations. The triple toe landings were not totally secure, but all-in-all things were looking mighty good indeed. Afterward I thought I'd make a case for my sanity by telling Todd that that run-through had definitely been worth getting up for. "Yah," he said, "I thought so too."

Group 5 that morning finally featured Gilberto Viadana, he who had bested an injured Fabrizio Garattoni at the Italian National Championships. Not bad, but no Fabrizio. Meanwhile, Eric's triple axel seemed to be improving - he even landed a few in this session.

I skipped Group 6 to duck in on the American ladies freeskate session in the practice rink. Michelle was having problems during her runthrough, doubling her lutz and falling on the triple toe/triple toe combination; Nicole still seemed to be falling a lot; and Tara continued to look really good.

As Patrick's group was about to take the ice in the arena, I headed back that way, passing the Russian coach, Aleksei Mishin, on the way. To my comment that I thought Aleksei U. was looking good, he responded with a cryptic, but hypnotic "Support him!". In the Arena Patrick's jump problems continued. Today it was the triple lutz that was giving him fits, although the axel had its bad moments as well. I was fascinated to note a big difference from last year. Previously Patrick's main problem seemed to be a failure to commit to his jumps; now he seemed to attack them aggressively - often too much so - hence the overrotation problem on the axel.

Group 2 saw the reemergence of Ilia, with the old skate blade retrieved from home. After some initial triple axel problems, he landed a few fairly good triple axel/triple toes, then busied himself with the quad. Aleksei U. was still looking better than I'd seen him look in years. Midway through this session it was decision time again; so I left the Russians to their quads to go back to the practice rink for the start of Group 3 and the round of short program practices. Elvis had a flawless run-through, but seemed to me to be a bit sluggish; he managed to execute two quad/triple combos before the end of the session. Although it was a short program practice, Zago seemed to spend most of his time working on his quad, while Jeff Langdon amazed me by landing a perfect triple loop/triple loop combo.

When Group 4 followed, Todd also had a flawless short program run-through, this time with triple axel/triple toe, and then went to work on solo triple toes (testing the ankle again). Meanwhile Dan Hollander had a fairly disastrous run-through, featuring both a fall and a pop out, while Michael Weiss' run-through was almost perfect (married only by a popped double axel).

I elected to skip the rest of the men in order to finish the day with the ladies in the Arena, meanwhile chatting with friends who'd just arrived in town, and then headed back to the hotel to be on hand both for the arrival of my friend and Worlds roommate, Lynn Rutherford, and for the draw ceremonies for the qualifying rounds, conveniently scheduled to take place at my hotel. The draw ceremonies (first the men, followed an hour later by the ladies) took place in a very small ballroom down the hall from the lobby, a ballroom with a glass wall so that those without credentials or who otherwise couldn't fit into that very small room were able to watch the proceedings from the hallway - a situation Lynn and I happily took advantage of. Which skaters would be in what qualifying group had been determined prior to the draw, and since this year all of the singles skaters had to qualify, it appeared that the "top seeds" had been fairly evenly divided between the two groups. Thus Todd was paired in Group A with Elvis, Zago, Vlaschenko and Yagudin, while Aleksei U. was paired in Group B with Ilia, Eric Millot, Dan Hollander and Michael Weiss. Of the 47 men originally registered, three had dropped out, leaving 44 men, divided into 2 groups of 22 men each. The top 15 finishers in each group would qualify for the 30 slots available in the actual competition. The same principle (with similar numbers) applied to the ladies.

As far as Todd was concerned, it really didn't matter what place he drew as he certainly was in no danger of not qualifying. As it turned out, I was not displeased with his 8th place draw - at least he would get it over with fairly early. The draw was of far more importance for Patrick (also in Group A), as I knew he'd need all the help he could get and the later he skated the better the chance he might squeak through. As the sole Swiss man there, the rule regarding host countries guaranteed him a spot in the competition in any case, but I desperately wanted him to make it in on his own. As it turned out, his 11th place draw was not ideal, but could have been worse. At least he was skating before Elvis - right before Elvis, in fact (Afterward Patrick told me - tongue very definitely in cheek - that he hoped Elvis wouldn't be too upset about having to skate after him).

After the ladies draw, I took advantage of the lack of evening activities (that is, no men's practice sessions) to have a leisurely dinner with Lynn and Barry Mittan, followed by a reasonably early bed time. Another very early morning loomed, along with another very long and important day.

P>Sunday, March 16, 1997

The day of the men's qualifying rounds started for me, once again, with a sunrise arrival at the skating complex, this time in order to be in place for Todd's 7:35 am warm-up session in the practice rink. For this day only, the men were divided into practice groups of 5 or 6, strictly in accordance with their qualifying round draw - thus Todd's group was Group A 6-10 and also included Cornel Gheorghe, Igor Pashkevitch, Ivan Dinev and Aleksei Yagudin (although Yagudin was a no-show at this session). For all practical purposes, this session was actually a free skate practice rather than a warm-up per se, as each skater's music was played. I was pleased to note that Todd was the first man on the ice for the session and the last to leave it. He was looking pretty good, landing a triple axel/triple toe within 12 minutes of hitting the ice, although after that he did seem to be having some minor axel problems. Before the end of the session he did manage to execute two more ta/tts and a really good triple flip/triple toe, but I noted that the triple toe landings were still not entirely smooth.

I stuck around for the next group (Group A 11-15) since it included Patrick, and then decided to join some friends for coffee and a trip to the trade fair. As I would be spending most of the afternoon and early evening watching 44 men perform their free skate programs, I didn't want to wear myself out prematurely watching practice sessions (gasp of disbelief at this point from Emma).

Group A took the ice in the Arena for their qualifying skates at precisely 12 noon. There were no preassigned seats for the qualifying rounds; the events were open to all those who had an all-event tickets. Hence, Lynn and our friend David Forberg and I were able to find seats in the front row, absolute center ice, directly opposite the judges - a great vantage point from which to view the afternoon's spectacle (the elevation of the seats above the ice and behind the moat meant that you had a better view of the entire rink than would normally be the case in the first row). Of the skaters seen on the way to Todd, Vlaschenko, Yagudin and Pashkevitch were the most noteworthy, each of them turning in respectable if not outstanding performances. Then it was Todd's turn. My companions and I were in basic agreement that we wanted to see Todd win the group, but that we didn't want to see him do so with his best performance (in other words, we didn't want to see him leave his best performance behind in the qualifying round). So when he started with a near perfect triple axel/triple toe, followed by a perfect t/lutz, t/loop and t/salchow and then an almost perfect triple flip/triple toe, I was starting to worry and David was muttering that Todd was really starting to irritate him. But just then we were obliged with a fall on the second triple axel - it was actually a fairly dumb mistake, due in all likelihood to a lapse in concentration, and he recovered from it quickly, popping up again with a wide grin, obviously laughing at himself. But it served our purposes perfectly (afterward, an explanation of this reasoning to Richard elicited the comment - "Oh, so it was your fault he fell!"). He went on to finish the performance strongly with a final triple toe and a total triple tally of 7.

Patrick was the first skater of the next subgroup to skate and began with a very unpromising splat on this triple axel combination, followed shortly thereafter by another splat on the triple lutz and a couple of doubled jumps. By the time it was over he had only managed to pull off two triples (loop and toe loop) and didn't look too likely to qualify.

Elvis followed Patrick with a very good performance that was marred only by a fall on the quad combo attempt; all other jumps were executed nicely. I waited in suspense to see how his scores would compare to Todd's, seeing as how they both had made one very similar mistake - a fall on a jump attempt. It could be argued that Todd's mistake was the more serious since it left him without a second triple axel, whereas Elvis' fall for all practical purposes meant he was only minus a second triple toe. All other things being equal, I would think that a second triple axel (which Elvis had landed) would be worth more than a second triple toe (which Todd had landed). But, then, I certainly didn't think all other things between Todd and Elvis could ever be equal, Todd being a much more complete skater than Elvis. And the judges seemed to agree. When the scores came up, Todd was in first place on the scorecards of 5 of the 7 judges, a position he maintained for the rest of the round. Elvis at this point had 2 judges, the Canadian judge and the Romanian judge, but later lost the Romanian judge to Zago.

Viacheslav Zagorodniuk (Zago) skated in the final sub-group, turning in an excellent if not brilliant performance that featured a triple axel/double toe combo and a second triple axel. He finished third in the group, behind Todd and Elvis. After the final skater had skated and the scoring dust had settled, it was apparent that Patrick had just barely failed to qualify, finishing in 16th place. I felt badly for him, but blessed the ISU rule that at least meant this wouldn't be the last I'd be seeing of him this week.

After an hour's break, Group B's qualifying round began at 4 pm with Ilia Kulik and a perfect quad, followed by an equally impressive triple axel/triple toe. While the rest of his performance was not quite as impressive, it was still pretty darned good and earned him scores of 5.8 across the board, scores which no doubt would have been higher had he not been the first to skate. I was a bit surprised as well as amused to note that he had gone back to the black costume he'd been wearing at the start of the season and wondered if he had listened to the widespread opinion that the white costume which had replaced it had brought him nothing but bad luck.

Gilberto Viadana followed Ilia with a performance that left me with the opinion that this guy is not the skater Fabrizio Garattoni is, not even close. If, as rumored, he does have the triple axel, I had certainly seen no sign of it and didn't this afternoon. Here he managed a triple lutz and a triple flip in between a couple of falls and wound up barely qualifying. After a less than stellar outing from Jordi Pedro of Spain, Aleksei Urmanov took the ice to give one of the best performances of his life. Like Ilia, Aleksei landed a perfect quad and the triple axel/triple toe combination in the first minute of his performance and went on from there to skate brilliantly, with the only flaw being a doubled loop. He earned a standing ovation from the audience (the first of the afternoon) and scores that knocked Ilia to second place and that ultimately won the group. Most amazingly of all, he was sporting an extremely flattering new costume and was without gloves! At this point, I was really beginning to think this was Aleksei's competition to lose.

Konstantin Kostin followed Aleksei with a creditable and highly enjoyable performance. By this time I had decided I really liked this guy and was launched upon the first of a series of debates about him with Lynn, whose main objection to him was that he reminded her of Paul Wylie - undoubtedly because of the Scotvold choreography. No way did Wylie ever jump the way this guy can!

Jeff Langdon was the first to skate of the next subgroup of five and gave a performance (complete with a nice triple axel/double toe) that realized all the potential I'd seen in him years ago. Ultimately finishing fifth in the group, he was well on his way to having a great first Worlds.

Following a respectable if conservative performance from Roman Skorniakov (Uzbekistan), it was then Dan Hollander's turn on the ice. What followed was a complete and total disaster - for Dan and ultimately for the hope of the US being able to send 3 men to the Olympics. After stumbling out of his opening triple axel and then barely landing a triple lutz, Dan seemed to lose heart and wound up doubling all his remaining triples. It was as though he was just blindly going through the motions of skating - even his trademark footwork was lackluster and sluggish. David, Lynn and I sat there dumbfounded, with David finally yelling "What's he doing? What's wrong with him?" In retrospect we wondered if we shouldn't have yelled at him just to forget his choreography and start doing triple toes - something, anything, just to get some content in there. The end results were technical scores ranging from 4.0 to 4.4, presentation scores from 4.3 to 4.8, and a last place finish among those who had skated. Clearly Dan was in serious trouble.

We immediately began scrambling for a ray of hope, studying the list of remaining skaters. Dan had been the 8th to skate, there were still 14 skaters left to go and all Dan had to do was beat 7 of them. It was somewhat discouraging that he was already behind such less than stellar skaters as Viadana and Pedro, but I noticed on the list of skaters coming up quite a few I'd earlier nominated as not likely to qualify. There was still the distinct possibility that he might sneak into the top 15.

Florian Tuma (Austria) followed Dan, the "new" Florian Tuma I was confident wouldn't stand a prayer of qualifying. I was proved right when Florian turned in an abysmal performance that put him behind Dan. Hope renewed. One down, six to go.

The next skater was not likely to be helpful to our cause, so we relaxed for a moment and just enjoyed watching Takeshi Honda skate. In spite of a fall on the triple axel, he turned in a very respectable performance that allowed him to qualify handily.

Then back to work. Robert Kasimir of Slovakia was next, another of my prime non-qualifying nominees, a good-looking guy who can't jump to save his neck. Hope grew as Kasimir lived down to his potential and was placed ahead of Tuma, but behind Dan. Two down, five to go.

Next up was Matthew Van Den Broeck, the squat funny looking skater from Belgium that I had nominated as skater most likely to finish dead last in whichever qualifying group he skated. His proving me right again caused rather unbecoming grins to break out amongst us. It really is not nice to wish any skater ill luck; our only excuse was sheer self-serving desperation.

Three down, four to go.

Next up was a skater I really like and who is almost universally loved by skatefans everywhere - David Liu of Taipei, a great artist (phenomenal spinner as well) whose only flaw is an inability to land triple jumps. He'd never made it out of qualifying yet and I was counting on his remaining true to form. Right again. Four down, three to go - and still 9 skaters left to skate. Hope was soaring now, especially as we had already identified the three remaining candidates that Dan could beat - but the safety margin here was really thin - way too thin.

The first of the candidates was the next skater up; Margus Hernits of Estonia - another standard non-qualifier. Hernits does have some nice qualities - good spins, decent footwork, some nice connecting moves - and I had detected improvement in his skating since last year, but I was now hoping it wouldn't be enough. What followed was a decent if not brilliant performance consisting of mostly double jumps. We should have been safe - but the scores told the story and Hernits was placed ahead of Dan by 5 judges to 2 (prompting Lynn to wail in protest, "But Danny's doubles were clean!"). Hope was dwindling.

The next two skaters - Michael Tyllesen of Denmark and Michael Hopfes of Germany - were unlikely to finish the real competition in the top ten, but I anticipated they'd have no trouble qualifying - nor did they. Michael Weiss followed, definitely not a candidate for non-qualifying, nor of course would it have helped our situation if he had been. As it was, Mike turned in a strong performance (with a triple axel/triple toe) ultimately taking 4th place in the group.

Eric Millot followed Mike and proceeded to emulate Aleksei, at least insofar as giving one of his better performances. Nailing the triple axel early in his program gave him just the boost of confidence he needed to turn in an electrifying 6 triple performance that earned him a third place finish in the group. His countryman Laurent Tobel followed, with an entertaining performance that received the second standing ovation of the afternoon and that earned him a 6th place finish.

Robert Grzegorczyk of Poland was another one of my candidates for Dan to beat; a skater with a lot of nice qualities, Grzegorczyk had never yet made it through qualifying. Not this year. This year he just snuck it there, just behind Viadana and ahead of Pedro. With only two skaters left and Dan still needing to beat three others in order to qualify, hope was now totally gone.

Steven Cousins was the penultimate skater in this group. He only managed three triples (axel, salchow and toe) but it proved enough to qualify. The final skater, Kyu-Hyun Lee of Korea, had been my prime candidate for Dan to beat and it was almost a good thing that it no longer mattered, as Lee proceeded to have what looked like the skate of his life, a performance that qualified him with an 11th place group finish.

Dan's failure to qualify earned the U.S. an automatic 16 points under the new points system that would determine how many competitors each country got to send to the Olympics and Worlds next year. With three American men entered for the competition, their combined score could not exceed 21 and Dan had already taken up 16 of them. With only 5 points remaining for Todd and Mike, this meant only two ways we could still send three men next year - namely, Todd winning (1 point) and Mike coming in 4th (4) or Todd taking silver (2 points) and Mike earning the bronze (3 points). A tall order indeed and one not too likely, given that this was Mike's first Worlds.

By the time the qualifying rounds were over, we were pretty much drained physically and emotionally, not to mention temporarily skated out, so David, Lynn and I left the complex for town and another leisurely dinner. No early morning practice sessions were scheduled for the morrow, so I could finally look forward to getting some sleep.

Monday, March 17, 1997

The Ladies Qualifying rounds began at 10:30 am, at which time David, Lynn and I were once more in place in our front row seats. Michelle Kwan won the first group with a good if somewhat tentative performance. Vanessa Gusmeroli took second place with a brilliant performance that earned her a standing ovation. Irina Slutskaya turned in an okay performance to take 3rd place in the group.

Tara was the first up in Group B and turned in a perfect performance to win the group. Nicole also had a very good skate to take 2nd place, looking very focussed for a change and demonstrating a new maturity I either had not seen or had not noticed before. Lu Chen turned in a poor, lackluster performance and almost didn't qualify - heartbreaking to watch. Maria Butyrskaya ultimately placed third in the group, but I didn't stay to see her performance. I had to miss the second half of Group B because Todd had a practice session scheduled for the practice rink and duty called.

For this afternoon's sessions only, the remaining 31 men were divided into practice groups according to their finish in the qualifying rounds - which meant the top 3 finishers in each group were placed together in Group A. As it turned out, Todd and Eric were the only ones of the six to show up for their session. As Todd's music was the first to play and started as soon as he took the ice (there was no prior warm-up period as is usually the case), he didn't even attempt a run-through of his program, but spent most of the session working on isolated solo jumps and jump combinations. Toward the end of the session he went back to working on solo triple toes - at least, that's what I assumed he was doing until he proceeded to land a perfect quad. Still utterly amazed, I tackled Richard after the session with "I take it the ankle is feeling much, much better?" The response was a laugh and the comment that he was glad Todd could get one [meaning quad] in today. Meanwhile, I was pleased to note that Eric's triple axel looked fairly secure and I was hoping this meant he really was back in top form.

Afterwards, I met up with Lynn for a nice leisurely dinner and then a long wait for the results of the short program draw. When it finally came, the news was upsetting to say the least. Todd had drawn to skate third, way too early. I kept telling myself (and Lynn kept telling me) that it really didn't matter where he skated; after all, Ilia had skated second last year and still won the short program and winning the short program really didn't matter anyway as Todd won the championship last year without having won the short program. All he really had to do was make it into the top three. So I kept telling myself. But I still couldn't shake a sense of foreboding and the feeling that somehow this particular draw would prove very important indeed.

Tuesday, March 18, 1997

It was another early morning, with men's short program practice sessions scheduled to begin in the practice rink at 7:45 am. The men were now divided into groups according to short program draw order, with Nos. 26 to 31 up first - this meant the two Alekseis, Michael Tyllesen, Stephen Cousins and Eric Millot. In spite of the early hour, all but Eric showed for the first session. I couldn't help but focus most of my attention on Aleksei U. As I watched him land triple/triples galore all over the rink, I once again found myself feeling this was his competition to lose. He really had that victory "glow".

Group 1-7 followed, which, of course, meant Todd's group. But it also meant Patrick. As Patrick had failed to qualify but was being allowed into the competition anyway thanks to the ISU host country rule, he was automatically slotted to skate first. Thus for the first time, at least in the 3 years I'd been attending the World Championships, Todd and Patrick were actually in the same practice group. The contrast between their practice session work habits was enough to make you cry (at least if you were a Patrick Meier fan). Whereas Todd would routinely land a triple axel within minutes of hitting the practice ice (and in this particular session he had landed a triple axel/triple toe within 8 minutes), it was usually a good half-hour before Patrick would even attempt a triple - which, of course, was probably a major reason why he never did complete run-throughs - or, when he did, they were always jumpless ones. Meanwhile, at this session, Todd skated a flawless short program run-through, although the triple toe landing still was not as solid as it might have been. But on the whole I was pleased to see him looking strong.

The main men of interest in Group 8-13 were Elvis and Mike Weiss. Elvis was also looking very solid this morning, executing his own flawless SP runthrough, followed by a rather good quad/double toe; Mike was looking almost as good, promising to do well at his first Worlds.

After this group, I left the rest of the men to practice without me in order scour up some food. The Worlds competition officially began at 11 am this morning with the compulsory dances that were scheduled to last until 5 pm. Six hours of compulsory dances! The thought never even occurred to me to so much as stick my head inside the arena.

I had a formal meeting with Richard scheduled for 1 pm to go over some web page related matters with him and decided to pass the time until then hanging out in the Yard, renewing acquaintances, making new ones, gossiping, etc. with other CD allergic people, all while watching assorted dance couples doing off-ice warmups. It was while I was engaged in this pastime that word spread that Lu Chen had called a press conference for early that afternoon. Speculation began at once and the general conclusion (even among some USFSA representatives I talked to) unanimous: she was going to withdraw from the competition. Her abysmal performance at yesterday's qualifying had come as a major shock to many and speculation had begun at once that a withdrawal was a distinct possibility. As it ultimately turned out, the conference was basically to announce that she wasn't withdrawing, that she would in fact be skating in order to secure China a ladies spot at the Olympics. There was a general feeling that the political pressure being placed on her by the Chinese government was intense.

My meeting with Richard took well over an hour, and afterward, while writing up my notes in the Village, I learned one of the consequences of wearing your flag in public (I was wearing a red, white and blue sweater). I was suddenly pounced upon by Swiss TV people, complete with microphones and videotape equipment, requesting an interview. Always glad to help, I agreed, and soon found myself smiling brightly into the camera, blinking at the bright lights, and dealing with the old familiar questions of "How do you account for the huge popularity of figure skating in the United States?" (I managed to tackle this one without any reference to Nancy or Tonya) and "Why have you travelled so far to watch a figure skating competition?" (I got the distinct impression that the number of North Americans suddenly in their midst was absolutely boggling their collective minds). I was also asked to assess American medal prospects and naturally utilized the opportunity to wax grandiloquently on the virtues of a certain US National Men's Champion (I might also have waxed a bit about a certain Swiss National Men's Champion, but didn't want to send them into mind-boggle overload).

Between one thing and another I managed to miss the first two groups of afternoon men's free skate sessions, but ran into Lynn who reported that while Ilia was having no triple axel problems that she could detect, he was definitely having trouble with his quad, only landing one after multiple attempts, including a fall. I finally got to the practice rink just as Group 26-31 were taking the ice and immediately had my own mind boggled at the sight of Eric Millot actually doing a complete long program run-through. And it was a really good one at that, complete with triple lutz/triple toe and triple axel/double toe. He was definitely back in form with a vengeance. Now if only he could keep this up for the competition! Meanwhile, in spite of a few triple axel problems, Aleksei U. was still glowing and looking solid, executing 2 quads in a row during this session.

Group 1-7 followed, and once again, a triple axel/triple toe materialized within 10 minutes of Todd's appearance on the ice. This was followed by a totally flawless, 8 triple run-through - although I was a bit concerned that the triple toe landings were still not as secure as they could have been.

Demonstrating an unusual case of perfect timing, the Todd/Patrick group finished their session just five minutes prior to the start of the Pairs Short Program competition, so that I was able to scoot over to the Arena and claim my official seat without missing a thing (and yes, had there been a conflict, I would have missed part of the competition). With my attention all week being firmly focussed on men (and to a lesser extent, on ladies), this was basically my first look at pairs (it was all too easy this year for me to forget that there were pairs and dance couples at the event). This year's short program competition was a good one, with nearly everyone skating well.

Following the competition, Lynn and I returned to our own hotel for a nightcap in the very elegant Beau Rivage bar.

Wednesday, March 19, 1997

The day of the men's short program competition dawned (or I should say, predawned) with men's short program practice sessions in the Arena, beginning at 6 am with Group 1-7. Todd was there; I wasn't. Assuring me that I would miss absolutely nothing, that all Todd was going to do was run through a few jumps, Richard and Todd had urged me not to get up for it, and I decided to listen to reason. Besides, after that, if I had shown up anyway, favorite coach and favorite skater would definitely have thought me insane. So I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in and arrived with Lynn at the Arena shortly before the start of the short program competition.

The only advantage to Todd's skating so early was that it would be over with before I had much of a chance to work myself up to a state of nervous collapse. But first, there was Patrick. I had been hoping that he would skate well enough to redeem himself somewhat after the qualifying disaster and to a certain extent this was the case. Much to my delight, he opened his performance by nailing the triple axel/double toe combination (prompting a number of my friends later - and to my annoyance - to say "Gee, I didn't know he could do that!"). Unfortunately, however, he totally wiped on his next jump, the triple lutz - but at least his overall performance was good enough to give him a 26th place finish, thus beating 5 guys who'd managed to qualify.

Ivan Dinev of Bulgaria followed Patrick, but I have absolutely no recollection of his performance, as I had shifted my thoughts from Patrick to Todd and thus was now firmly entrenched in total terror mode. However, when Todd took the ice, I found myself starting to relax. There was something about the way he was carrying himself that suddenly filled me with real confidence. And he proceeded to justify that confidence by having the short program performance of his life. The triple axel/triple toe was the best I'd seen him land all week (with a triple toe landing that was totally solid and secure); nor have I ever seen him exhibit such speed across the ice, a speed that extended to his spins. It was not just flawless; it was absolutely perfect - not even a dedicated nitpicker could find anything negative to say about it. He received a huge standing ovation from the audience, but the scores that followed were more than a bit disturbing. 7 5.8's and 2 5.7's (!) for required elements and 8 5.8's and 1 5.7 for presentation - the lack of a single 5.9 was mind-boggling for a performance I couldn't imagine being equalled, let alone beaten. Granted it's not scores that matter, but ordinals; Todd was the first of the major competitors to skate; the judges had to leave room, etc.; so I kept telling myself. It was going to be a long afternoon.

I brooded through most of Patrick Schmit's performance, not paying a whole lot of attention other than to wince at those ugly jumps, but came back to earth for Anthony Liu. After executing a really nice triple lutz/triple toe and a great triple flip, Liu came to disaster with a fall on a camel spin. Very strange. Then came Gilberto Viadana, with a disastrous performance (fall on a triple axel attempt; hand down on triple lutz) that eliminated him from the competition and that meant no Olympic spot for Italy and Fabrizio Garattoni (at least Fabrizio had managed to make it to the finals at the last two Worlds). Igor Pashkevitch, the Russian skater now skating for Azerbaijan, followed with a two-footed landing on the triple axel in his TA/TT combo; then the Hungarian, Szabolcs Vidrai, whose ultimate 15th place finish in spite of landing a TA/TT and a TLutz could only have been due to spins marked by some of the worst travelling I've ever seen.

Laurent Tobel was next. This is a guy where the more I see of him, the less I'm impressed. Having an obvious hit with his Pink Panther freeskate, I'm very much afraid we may be seeing variations on that program for a long time to come, at least if all the unnecessary mugging in his short program performance is any indication.

Finally, it was Elvis' turn to skate and what followed was a flawless, energetic performance that once again had the audience on its feet. Elvis and his coaching team looked utterly triumphant - until, that is, the scores came up and Elvis was placed behind Todd - by six judges to three. Like the qualifying round, it once again confirmed what I'd always said - given identical jump content skated cleanly, Todd would win out over Elvis every time.

Mike Weiss followed with a good if not brilliant performance, marred by an obvious two-footed landing on the triple toe in his TA/TT combo. Then, following two less than memorable performances by Guo of China and Lee of Korea and a Zamboni break, it was Konstantin Kostin's turn. It was an indication of the importance of the triple axel/triple toe combination to this competition that an apparently flawless ta/dt performance from Kostin ultimately earned him no higher than a 14th place finish. Takeshi Honda, up next, could be said to provide further illustration of this point by turning in an excellent TA/TT performance that was only good enough for a 7th place finish. Robert Grzegorczyk of Poland, he who had never made it out of qualifying before and who probably shouldn't have this time - certainly not ahead of Dan - proceeded to prove me right in this by suffering two falls - the first on his TA combo, the second on his double axel.

Finally, it was time for Todd's next major threat- Ilia Kulik. Ilia managed to pull off one of his better performances, highlighted by a perfect triple axel/triple toe, a triple lutz and an impressive double axel out of footwork. It was an excellent performance, but by no means a brilliant one. I had, in fact, seen Ilia much better than this - specifically, his short program at last year's Worlds. As near as I could judge, he was about equal to Todd in the jump quality department but was nowhere near Todd's equal in either in speed or in spins on this day, so I was a bit taken aback after the scores were posted to find Todd and Ilia tied for first place. I rather imagined the tie would be broken one way or the other before the competition ended, but that they were currently tied at all did not bode well.

Then Michael Shmerkin with one of his better outings was followed by Murvanidze of Georgia with a pathetic performance that virtually gave him a lock on last place. Jeff Langdon, my favorite Canadian, was next, with a flawless performance that certainly had me on my feet at the end. Unfortunately, since it was a triple axel/double toe performance in a competition riddled with ta/tts, it was only good enough for an 11th place finish. Andrei Vlascenko followed with a gorgeous ta/tt, only to double his triple lutz, a mistake that made Vlascenko furious with himself and which might just have ultimately cost him a medal. Another favorite of mine, Cornel Gheorghe was next, with a somewhat disappointing performance, and was followed by Michael Hopfes of Germany who has no triple axel but whose triple lutz/triple loop combination (beautifully landed this afternoon) more than makes up for it in my book. It was enough to keep him in the competition, in spite of having put a hand down on his triple flip jump. A lackluster performance from Marcus Leminen of Finland (so what else is new?) was followed by Viacheslav Zagorodniuk, who gave a triple axel/double toe performance mainly distinguished by a nicely executed 'tano triple lutz. I didn't think it was one of Zago's better outings and really didn't think he should have been put in 6th place, ahead of Honda.

After another Zamboni break, the final group began with a disastrous performance by Steven Cousins. After a really hard fall on his triple axel combo, he managed to pull off a decent triple lutz after nearly running out of room for it. His spins had certainly seemed to improve since last year (showing perhaps the impact of Neil Wilson?); but couldn't save him from a 17th place finish. Then, as if Cousins had started a trend, Michael Tyllesen proceeded to crash on his triple axel combo and barely held on to his triple flip (19th place finish). Finally, obviously adhering to the old adage about bad luck and threes, Eric Millot came out and, after landing a really nice double axel and a triple lutz, proceeded to wipe out on his triple axel combo (although why he saved this element for the end of his program is utterly beyond my comprehension!). Eric finished in 13th place.

After a less than memorable performance from Skorniakov of Uzbekistan, Aleksei Urmanov took the ice for a nearly flawless performance that accomplished exactly what I'd hoped it would - it broke the Todd/Ilia tie in favor of Todd. It should not, however, have won the short program. While admittedly a brilliant performance, Aleksei's jump landings had not nearly the flow that Todd's had (and the Aleksei's triple toe landing was awkward to say the least) nor were his spins of anywhere near the same quality. I am absolutely convinced that had Todd skated later in the afternoon the judges would have remembered that and he would have won the short program. However, at the time I really didn't think it mattered.

Aleksei Yagudin completed the men's short program competition with a good if not brilliant ta/tt performance that left him in 5th place. Meanwhile, after the Aleksei/Todd/Ilia dust had settled, Elvis found himself sitting in 4th place, thus confirming a long-held bit of conventional wisdom that stated if all 4 of the top guys skated cleanly, Elvis would end up fourth.

After a relatively brief interval, the pairs freeskate competition began. For me it had both its high points (the great performances turned in by Ina/Dungjen and Kazakova/Dmitriev) and its low ones (Abitbol/Bernadis grossly underscored yet again). I had no violent objection to the final results, although I did think the mistakes made by both Eltsova/Bushkov and Woetzel/Steuer cancelled each other out, and everything else thus being equal, the gold should have gone to Eltsova/Bushkov because of the higher quality of their skating overall - but then, that's just me and I will readily confess that my knowledge of what really goes into judging pairs is only marginally better than my knowledge of ice dance judging (which is not saying a whole lot).

Lynn and I didn't stick around for the pairs medal ceremony, mainly because I had a far more pressing issue on my mind - namely, the skate order for tomorrow night's men's final. So it was a cab ride back to the skaters hotel. Entering the lobby, I immediately spied the one person both likely to know and most easy for me to tackle for the information - namely, Todd himself. My "Okay, what's the skate order?" elicited an immediate "Well, Ilia's first, then [pause] hmmm....I'm pretty sure it's Zago. Then....". At this point, Richard joined us and finding himself totally stuck, Todd referred the question to him, with me thinking well, he mustn't be third as one would think he'd remember that. Richard completed the line-up for us with "Elvis is third, then Todd, then the two Alekseis, first Urmanov, then Yagudin." I had been hoping to hear that Todd would skate after Elvis, thinking of how that had motivated him at the Champion Series Final, and 4th in the group sounded kind of good to me, so I said, "That's pretty good!" Blank stares back from Todd and Richard made me suddenly doubt my judgment, so I then added, "Well, isn't it?" A pause as Richard and Todd exchanged questioning glances, then finally Richard laughed, shrugged and said "Who knows?" I then commended Todd on his brilliant performance, noting especially that it had been the best ta/tt I'd seen him do all week, and that he should have won it. We were all agreed on that point, but then Richard and I fell to arguing about who should have been second, Ilia or Aleksei, with Richard voting for Ilia and me for Aleksei. Finally Todd came in on my side, convincing Richard to agree with me, but prompting Lynn to speak a few last words in defense of Ilia. No one mentioned Elvis.

Thursday, March 20, 1997

While Lynn took off to do some real sightseeing (what a novel concept! Sightseeing at a skating competition!), I headed over to the skating complex in time for Todd's 12:10 pm practice session in the arena. The 25 guys remaining in the competition had now been organized according to final warm-up groups, so Todd was now in a group consisting of those who had finished in the top six after the short program (in addition to Todd, that meant Elvis, Ilia, Zago and the two Alekseis). My focus during this session was on Todd exclusively and I was encouraged to find him looking in top form, with another flawless program run-through and triple-triples that looked really secure. During the course of the session he also landed a perfect quad, leading to quite a bit of speculation as to whether or not he was planning to put that jump into his program for the competition. Afterward, I cut over to the practice rink to catch Tara's practice session; Nicole was also in this group. While Tara continued to look really solid, Nicole appeared to be having problems and I was rather puzzled to note that she was being coached - rather frantically, it seemed - by her mother. Very odd. Where on earth were Carlo and Christa, I wondered?

As the original dance competition began in the Arena, I grabbed some food and then was off to the trade fair to shop for things to throw that evening. Emma had commissioned flowers for Patrick and for Mike Weiss, so I figured while I was at it I might as well pick up one for Todd as well. Then I went searching for the largest non-wooshie stuffed animal I could find to throw for Patrick, strictly as a vehicle on which to transmit a lengthy note of encouragement. While engaged in these tasks I met up with Lynn who told me the news that had just come out in the States - that Scott Hamilton had been diagnosed with cancer. It was so hard to believe and difficult to comprehend that at first I was inclined to dismiss it as one of those wild and crazy type rumors that invariably seem to circulate around competitions, but then enough people began showing up with newspapers that I was finally forced to believe it.

After completing my trade fair purchases, I settled down in the Village to sort and match notes, flowers and animals, while at the same time keeping an eye on the TV monitors and the original dance competition then in progress. It was thus that Kathy Stafford found me, saying "Have you heard the horrible news?" Well, quite naturally, I assumed she meant the news about Scott - naively thinking there was necessarily a limit on the amount of horrible news that could circulate at any one time. I was quickly disabused of this notion. "No, not about Scott," Kathy said, "About Carlo. He's dead." Thus did I learn that Carlo Fassi had suffered a heart attack that morning at the skating complex and had died shortly after reaching the hospital. Even though I later realized that that explained why Jana Bobek had been coaching her daughter that morning, thoughts of Nicole didn't even enter my mind at this point - my immediate thought was of and for Cornel. Cornel had been with Carlo for years. In fact, it could be said that Carlo Fassi had "made" Cornel Gheorghe; that without Carlo, Cornel would not have become the stylish skater he is today. And it was not Nicole, but Cornel who would have to go out on the ice and perform in the finals a scant handful of hours after his coach had died.

There was no doubt about it. This, the day of the men's finals, was beginning to resemble some kind of weird nightmare. Trying not to think about that old adage about bad things happening in threes, I nevertheless couldn't help but wonder - what next?

As I made my way to my seat juggling flowers and bears, I felt a bit dazed. It just didn't feel like a Worlds final. Trying to focus one's mind on the competition to come was difficult to say the least and I couldn't help but wonder how Todd was managing in that respect. Meanwhile, Carlo's death was really brought home by the event's beginning with a moment of silence in Carlo's memory - making the reality impossible to evade and allowing ample time for it really to sink in.

The final phase of the men's competition began, once again, with Patrick. Finishing the short program in 26th place, he had technically failed to make the cut, but he was still the sole Swiss man in the competition, so he was allowed into the free skate portion as the 25th man. But it meant that he had to skate first again. On the whole, he did a rather good job and thrilled me by once again landing a triple axel (the first time he's managed it in both short and long programs?), as well as two other triples (salchow and toe loop). The lutz continued to elude him, but not for lack of trying - he attempted it twice but doubled it both times (better than crashing, I suppose). After he finished, I joined the Swiss in a standing ovation for him and managed to get Emma's flower and my bear across the moat and onto the ice without mishap.

That accomplished, it was on the with competition. Barry had told me that 12 of the 25 guys had listed a quad as one of their program elements and that Todd was indeed one of the 12 (keep everyone guessing until the last minute - always good strategy). Lynn and I then proceeded to entertain ourselves by trying to figure out who the other 11 might be or I should say, the other 8, after you'd eliminated the obvious (Elvis, Ilia and Aleksei U).

We seriously doubted the first skater up would be among them, as Michael Tyllesen - a great artist not known for solid jumping ability - had only recently acquired the triple axel and we couldn't imagine him chasing quads any time soon. Skating to the Rocketeer program he had last year, he had a pretty good skate, executing at least 5 triples.

Following a perfectly dreadful performance from Ivan Dinev (who has been around for years, doesn't Bulgaria have another skater?), Anthony Liu had a fairly good outing with his Spartacus program, landing several triples including a really nice triple lutz. I really see a whole lot of promise here, once he gets more consistency with his triple axel.

Laurent Tobel followed Liu with his Pink Panther program. This was only the third time I'd seen Tobel skate (the first two times being qualifying and the short program) and I quickly came to the conclusion that a little bit of Tobel goes a very long way. The first time you see him he's refreshing and different. The problem is that that only works the first time you see him. After that his shtick becomes old very fast. Apart from being a very ugly jumper, at this point I'm convinced he's strictly a one note skater, perhaps incapable of doing a program without an excessive amount of posturing and mugging.

Next came Michael Hopfes, another promising skater who would go far if he could get a triple axel. A lot of musicality and great line from a guy who looks more like a jock than a figure skater. It will be fascinating to see him develop.

If ever there was a skater with nothing whatsoever to recommend him other than great jumping ability, that skater is Zhengxin Guo from China - next up and our first quad nominee. On this particular evening Guo may have performed an historic first by landing two quads in one program - first a quad toe, followed shortly thereafter by quad sal/double toe combination. He also pulled off a triple axel/double toe before suffering a fall on a triple lutz/triple toe attempt. Yes, the guy can certainly jump. But that's it. His presentation skills are at zero.

Group 2 began with quad wannado No. 2, Szabolcs Vidrai of Hungary. The quad attempt ended in a splat, but he did manage to pull off a nice triple axel/triple toe, as well as a triple lutz/double toe. Vidrai has occasional moments, but is a difficult skater to warm up to.

Next up on the ice was my new favorite, Konstantin Kostin. Considering he was a quad trailblazer a number of years back, we had picked him as one of the 12 and he didn't disappoint us, landing a really nice one. On the whole, he had a rather good outing, marred primarily by a rather bizarre fall on the triple axel. He'd virtually landed the thing, only to catch an edge right afterward that sent him boom! on his rear, a look of total surprise on his face, prompting Lynn to exclaim "He even falls like Paul Wylie!"

Eric Millot followed Kostin and after turning out of his triple axel, seemed to bail out on his program. A disappointing outing, considering the excellence of his qualifying performance.

Cornel Gheorghe was next on the ice, with Nicole Bobek on the sidelines and later in the kiss and cry area appearing to function as last minute substitute coach. A nice gesture, but I doubt if anything could have helped Cornel at this point. He really looked - and skated - like he was just going the motions, the heart in him totally gone. It brought home the impact of Carlo Fassi's loss like nothing else could.

Quad wannado No. 4 followed, Roman Skorniakov of Uzbekistan, but the result was a bail-out; then came a rejuvenated Steven Cousins with one of the better skates he's had all year. After his short program disaster, Steven definitely had something to prove, if only to himself, and proceeded to do so by landing a triple axel/double toe and a second triple axel, among other jumps, ultimately good enough to pull himself up from 17th to 11th place.

The first skater up after the Zamboni break was Jeff Langdon. In spite of a fall on his triple lutz/double toe combination, Jeff on the whole had a wonderful performance, landing - among other jumps - a triple axel/double toe and that marvelous triple sal/double loop combination of his. With this performance he was ultimately able to pull himself up into the top ten and guarantee Canada three Olympic spots for their men.

Igor Pashkevitch was next, with a performance that featured 8 triple jumps and some really good spins and that ultimately catapulted him into the top ten (hmmm - does Ajerbaijan have another male skater?). As technically excellent as Pashkevitch is, I can't help but feel something is lacking. His form looks good, but somehow everything seems disconnected with him.

Andrej Vlascenko followed Pashkevitch with a dazzling performance that ultimately shot him into the top six (and which might have earned him a medal had he not botched his short program). I was amazed at how much both he and his free skate program had improved since Skate Canada. I could easily become a fan of this guy.

Michael Shmerkin was next, with a dreadful 2 triple performance that dropped him out of the top ten, from 8th place all the way down to 15th. I felt more than ever that the program was the problem (he'd been equally dreadful during the qualifying) - it didn't suit him, nor did he seem to believe in it.

The group concluded with the performances of two obvious quad wannados (Nos 5 and 6 by our count). First up was he who almost pulled one off at Nationals -Michael Weiss. Here he bailed out on it (either that or just tripled it), but in any case he seemed to be focussing most of his attention on landing the triple axel combination. It took him three attempts before he finally nailed it, showing in the process an admirable ability to think on his feet. A number of other triples were also executed, including two perfect lutzes (one in combination with a single walley). On the whole, a really good performance for this his very first Worlds appearance. Quad wannado No. 6 was of course Takeshi Honda, who'd spent an inordinate amount of time in practice sessions this week trying to perfect his quad, as well as do it in combination. Ultimately, his performance tonight showed that he would have been far better off working on his triples. After bailing out on the quad (or tripling it), he suffered two falls - one attempting the triple axel, the second on the triple flip - that ultimately dropped him from 7th to 10th place.

The final 6 quad wannados were of course the entire contingent of guys comprising the top six. This group began with another gentleman who had spent far too much time that week working on the quad to the exclusion of all else - Ilia Kulik. So not surprisingly, when the quad turned into a triple at the beginning of his program, he seemed to lose interest in the rest of it, giving a lackluster performance that ultimately threw him right out of the medals. Of course, this disaster may also have been the result of his having gone back to the ill-luck white costume.

Following an equally disappointing performance from Zago, Elvis performed his amazing jumpfest and was duly rewarded for it by extremely high technical marks from the judges. But sufficiently low presentation scores had left enough room at the top to drive a Ferrari through - a red one, of course. The gold was still there for the taking. I felt strangely numb as Todd took the ice, having a devil of a time focussing on what lay ahead; a lot of this I think was the mood of the day, combined with an odd sense of foreboding I was really trying to squelch. I don't really recall feeling much of anything until Todd bailed out on that second triple axel; and then the feeling I had was one of - well, of course... I knew he was going to try the axel again; and I also knew that it wasn't going to work. It did seem like those last 40 seconds occurred in slow motion; kind of like watching a train wreck in progress. At least he'd certainly given it a good try and, I told myself, I really had been a bit nervous about his going into the Olympics as the two time defending World Champion. He's always performed better as the underdog. After he left the ice and while waiting for his scores, I was occupied with binoculars firmly focussed on the kiss and cry area to make sure he was relatively okay when I heard a comment from a lady behind me. "For goodness sake, why don't they just make the announcement that he's withdrawn?"

Thus did I get my very first hint that all was not well with Aleksei Urmanov. After Todd's scores were announced and I was able to ascertain that at least he was still safely in second place, I turned my attention to the skaters entrance to see Aleksei Yagudin on the ice, ready to go out. Where was Urmanov? At that moment the announcement came that he had withdrawn from the competition on account of injury.

Suddenly it was all way too much for me to deal with and I fled from my seat and the arena, very thankful that, unlike in the US, arena concessions stands in Europe don't close right after intermission. Never was I in greater need of a drink.

Suitably refortified by samples of the local ale, I made my way back into the arena and my seat in time for the medal ceremony where I was heartened to find Todd in reasonably good spirits. After the guys took their customary victory lap around the rink following the ceremony, he finally ended up stopping at the ABC control booth where an animated conversation ensued with Brian Boitano and Linda Leaver, a conversation punctuated by a lot of laughter on all sides. I had a pretty good suspicion about what was occasioning that laughter and determined to find out later if I was right.

My immediate concern at the moment, however, was to find out what had happened to Aleksei. Todd's situation was a disappointment; Aleksei's I considered nothing less than a tragedy of gigantic proportions - especially since I'd really considered this to have been his competition to lose. This was the year I thought he was finally going to do it - and at the very least earn the world medal that had eluded him since the last Olympics.

After the medal ceremony, Lynn and I headed back to the skaters' hotel so I could get some answers. Quite apart from my need to know, I also had to figure out how to accomplish a mission with which I'd been tasked. A friend of mine back in the States - a mega Aleksei fan - had had a special T-shirt custom made for him and had express mailed it to me in Switzerland, with the instructions to present it to him after the conclusion of the competition. Well, Aleksei's competition was certainly concluded - albeit not in the way any of us had imagined - and now I had to find out how to go about getting the gift to him.

The first person I encountered who might know anything was Todd. He could shed no light on Aleksei's situation other than to say he obviously hadn't been in top form during the practice session that morning (this may have been obvious to Todd, but I was far too busy watching him at that session to notice much of anything else). Although not helpful to my present quest, encountering Todd at this point in time at least gave me a chance to offer words of support with respect to his own efforts that evening and to find out what his conversation with Brian Boitano had been all about. I wasn't too surprised to learn the laughter had been occasioned by Todd's reminding Brian of another defending World Champion who had failed to defend his title right before the Olympics; I'd had a feeling that was what they'd been discussing, but was encouraged by Todd's having introduced the subject, taking this as evidence that he had put the loss in perspective. He went on to agree with me that it had definitely not been a good day, one he would be happy to see the end of, and I knew he was talking about more than just the loss of his title.

Ultimately I managed to track down the man who would have the answers I sought - Aleksei's coach, Aleksei Mishin. In spite of a rather gruff and intimidating facade (resembling nothing so much as a Soviet Commissar), I found Mishin to be very forthcoming, warm and surprisingly easy to talk to. He explained that Aleksei's withdrawal from the competition had been due to a groin pull suffered during his performance of the short program. He also said Aleksei wouldn't be leaving Lausanne until Monday and suggested I give him the t-shirt personally after he was up and about again. To end the conversation on a high note, I congratulated him on Baby Aleksei's medal; his response was to put his hands over his heart and sigh deeply. During the course of our conversation, he took my hands in his twice. A very warm man indeed and a definite example of the deceptiveness of first appearances.

Mission accomplished, I ended the day drowning my sorrows in ice cream and beer.

Saturday, March 22, 1997

This morning Lynn and I walked from our hotel over to the nearby Olympic Museum. I was determined not to leave Lausanne without at least poking my nose in the place; which is about all I did. For all the hype surrounding it, it was really rather disappointing, at least from the perspective of one interested primarily in figure skating. The video library had very few selections (Curry, Fleming, Cousins - but oddly, no Battle of the Brians) and there was very little skating stuff on display. But at least I could say I'd been there.

We arrived at the skating complex just prior to the start of the ladies final. Apart from Laetitia Hubert who gave what had to be the best performance she's had in two years - full of energy, she was on! - the ladies free skate competition was fairly dreadful until the last group of six. Then, as if to make up for it, we had one good skate right after another, culminating with an Irina Slutskaya who suddenly seemed to skate like the Irina of old, having the time of her life. Hitting the triple sal/triple loop combination at the beginning of her program appeared to make all the difference; when she hit it, she was facing me, no more than ten feet away, and I could clearly read a surprised Wow! on her lips (must be the same in Russian and English) - that seemed to give her the confidence she needed to have the best performance she's had all season.

I was happy to see Tara win the competition, if for no other reason than to watch Richard and Todd beaming and grinning from ear-to-ear. Throughout her performance, Todd had stayed in an open area on the sidelines, between the judges and the kiss-and-cry area, positively beaming with pride. He remained there throughout the medal ceremony as well. Afterward, I was over near the ABC control center saying goodbye to a friend who was leaving town that afternoon when a still grinning Richard came up the stairs from the ABC center on his way to the back of the arena for the press conference. Catching sight of me, he waved, the grin widening perceptively. I returned both grin and wave, utterly delighted to see him so happy.

Exhibition practice sessions were scheduled for that evening in the arena, so of course I stuck around - at least for the first two, pairs and men. I dearly love men's exhibition practice sessions at Worlds - they always seem to provide unexpected moments of hilarity and this one was no exception. This year the top four finishers in each discipline were slated for the gala (as opposed to previous years, when it had been the top five), plus the Swiss National Champions. Thus, with Elvis being a no-show, the session consisted of Todd, Zago, Aleksei Yagudin and Patrick, and I was once again faced with Todd and Patrick in the same session. Todd was having residual triple axel problems while Patrick was still being buffaloed by the lutz; for some odd reason, Todd decided to work on his axel in Patrick's lutz corner. The end result was my getting to focus my eyes on just one spot in order to see - Todd pops axel, Patrick crashes on lutz, Todd doubles axel, Patrick crashes on lutz, Todd lands axel, Patrick crashes on lutz - and so on and so forth. All this in total silence in what I was beginning to think would be a totally musicless session. Then, adding immensely to the hilarity, the music man (man in charge of music?) announced that he would be happy to play someone's music if they wanted. Todd skated over to the music booth and shortly thereafter, This is the Moment began and Todd did a very nice run-through. Then silence once more reigned until the music master said "Anyone else?" More silence. Finally Todd skated over to the booth, his music began and we got yet another run-through of This is the Moment, followed again by silence. Meanwhile the other guys carried on, totally oblivious, having of course been well conditioned to the traditional Russian disdain of run-throughs (Patrick qualifying here as he'd just spent the previous summer training with Aleksei Mishin).

After the men's practice, I went back to the skaters hotel so I could get my daily Urmanov update. I'd seen no sign of Aleksei at the ladies final. When I finally tracked Mishin down, I learned that Aleksei had spent the previous two days in bed in his hotel room under a doctor's care, but Mishin was certain he'd be up and at the Gala tomorrow. I could only fervently hope so, as I was rapidly running out of time.

Sunday, March 23, 1997

There was a memorial service for Carlo Fassi this morning at the Olympic Museum. I seriously contemplated going, but finally decided it was just a bit more than I could bring myself to deal with. At this point, I was totally drained - emotionally and physically. In many ways and for many reasons, this had been the most psychically exhausting competition I'd ever attended.

Lynn opted to stay at the hotel and skip the Gala on the theory that she wouldn't be missing anything she hadn't already seen numerous times before and to a large extent she was right. I might have been tempted to join her, except that I could never turn down a chance to see Todd skate and it would probably be my last chance for some time to see Patrick.

The gala provided a bit of unintended humor by having each skater or couple take the ice accompanied by a member of the local skating club bearing the flag of that skater or couple. It looked silly and a number of the skaters seemed more than a bit embarrassed by it. Artur Dmitriev gallantly kissed the hand of his, while Todd gave his a round of applause. Zago, however, provided my favorite moment by narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with his flag-bearer.

As for the exhibition performances themselves, the only program new to me was Vanessa Gusmeroli's, and I suspect the reason for that was that I'd never seen her skate in exhibition before. As for the quality of the performances, well, to judge strictly by audience reaction, Todd was definitely the winner of the exhibitions, garnering a huge standing ovation for his efforts, while Kazakova/Dmitriev seemed to be a close second.

Following the Gala, I bid my final farewell to the skating complex before heading off to the skater's hotel to accomplish my final mission. Once again I'd seen no sign of Aleksei at the Gala and it was now do or die time. We were both leaving Switzerland the next day and there was no way I was leaving with his T-shirt. I was bound and determined to deliver it to somebody.

Since I had dinner reservations with Lynn at the Beau Rivage at 7:30, I had only a limited amount of time to get the deed done. Needless to say, the hotel lobby (small to begin with) was a mass of confusion, with skaters and assorted others returning from the Gala, people checking out, saying goodbye, etc. As I raced around looking for any Russians named Aleksei (Yagudin would have done at this point), the Eldredge family arrived, to wait for Todd in order to say goodbye before leaving later that evening for home. Having nothing better to do while they waited, and being a generous group ever ready to help the needy, they happily kept me company and assisted me in my lookout quest, Todd's brother Scott and Scott's girlfriend Sarah even being so nice as to get me a much-needed beer. Of course, as we waited and watched, Ruth (Todd's mother) didn't exactly help my peace of mind concerning Aleksei's future well-being by telling me about the time Todd had a similar injury and about how long it took him both to recover from it and to get back in form again.

At one point during the vigil, Richard rushed through the lobby on his way out of the hotel. This gave me an opportunity to greet him with "Hello, coach of World Champions" and while exchanging what I thought would be final goodbyes, to congratulate him on a Worlds well done. "Yes," he said, a bit wistfully, "It was almost perfect."

Eventually Todd joined us in the lobby, and to my query reported that he'd seen no sign of anyone named Aleksei. But just then I was spared further teeth-gnashing when I turned to see coming through the entrance into the hotel, not just an Aleksei, but just the Aleksei I'd most hoped to see. He looked a bit pale and rather unhappy, but at least he was ambulatory and apparently on the mend. I preempted him immediately, presented him with the shirt along with the explanation of what it was and who it came from, asked him if he was going to be okay (he said he thought so, it was just one of those things), and told him how very, very sorry I was. I definitely felt as if I was speaking on behalf of all his fans in the U.S. (most of whom seem to be friends of mine!) which is the only reason I can explain why I wound up by saying "Don't worry, I know you'll knock 'em dead next year!" No sooner were these particular words out of my mouth when I thought What am I saying?, as I realized just who was included among the "'em" and that he was standing not ten feet away from me (hopefully engrossed in saying goodbye to his family and paying no attention to what I was doing, never mind saying). Mission finally accomplished, I bid farewell to the Eldredges and to Todd (telling him he'd always be my World Champion) and took off to meet Lynn to end the day with a lengthy and well deserved dinner in our hotel's luxury restaurant.