By Mary Lally

The Keri Classic was taped to air on ABC, Sunday, October 10, 1999, 4:00 to 6:00 PM ET. It was held in a sparsely filled Orlando Arena (barely 1,000 fans). Small in number but loud with cheers for the skaters and boos for the judging. Those of us who didn't pay attention to the opening announcement didn't quite understand the scoring system for this event. And for some reason, the USFSA elected not to print the event rules and/or a score sheet in the programs. Because the criteria for judging this event wasn't included in the program, the audience was baffled by the scores -- booing low and even some high scores.

Some of us assumed that the format was the same as the preceding seasons Hershey's Kisses head-to-head match-ups, but apparently that was not the case. In addition to the lack of rules and score sheets, there were additional errors in the program. For example, Angela Nikodinov was listed as being a member of the Russian team. While I'm sure Angela would like to have been on the winning team, she is nonetheless a USA team member. Other skaters were not identified by country so they were apparently "free agents" such as Sarah Hughes, Ina & Zimmerman, Sasha Cohen, Lang & Tchernyshev, Evgeny Plushenko, Ilia Klimkin. The Program also listed all the results of all USFSA Opens, well, all except the 1999 Hershey's Kisses event which just lists the name of the event and no results and I do believe the event was held since I attended it.

While I don't think it's ever appropriate to boo or heckle skaters, I don't think it's fair to totally blame the audience reaction to the scoring. Actually, I blame television coverage of skating events. Commentators (at least in the USA) do a poor job of educating viewers about what constitutes a well-executed skating program. In my opinion, if more time were devoted to treating figure skating like the sport it is, it would translate to better educated fans sitting in the audience at these events who would better understand how scores are determined.

The format this year was Team USA versus Team Russia. No big surprise here, Team Russia was the winner. Final score: Russia 48, USA 38.

Since this is TEN, I'll just go ahead and report on Todd first.

Todd debuted his interpretive/exhibition program set to The Glory which is featured in the musical The Civil War. This program was choreographed by a Russian choreographer Olga Volojinskaja who did a wonderful job.

In keeping with the Civil War theme of the program, Todd wore a compromise: blue pants and a gray shirt that appeared to be a made of a heavy weight silk. In any event, it was extremely classy. The front of the shirt had a the buttons off to one side of the shirt similar to the red shirt he wore for his I Love the Way You Love Me program.

The color of this chameleon-like shirt was a hotly debated issue because until the music started, we had no clue as to what the program was. Colors initially being tossed out were taupe, tan, cream, beige and the like. As soon as I heard the song and figured out the Civil War theme I knew it had to be gray. Others remained skeptical and it was only until someone (Fran) asked Todd what the color was and he said it was gray that everyone then agreed it was indeed gray. Who knows how it will appear on TV.

Todd was also wearing what we initially thought was a turtleneck under the "gray" shirt but it turned out to be a neck scarf. And a rather uncontrollable neck scarf at that. We noticed that Todd kept adjusting the shirt collar and neck scarf during the warm-up.

Todd's skate blades were black, he's trying a new brand of blades called Ultima that are manufactured in Canada.

Todd is still recovering from an ankle injury that sidelined him this summer (much to his dismay he had to withdraw from the Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic). He has been undergoing physical therapy and he made a game attempt this evening. He landed a triple loop, a triple axel (two-foot landing), a tripleLutz, a triple toe and he singled a double axel. As always, Todd's spins were the very best of the event!

As his program progressed, I couldn't help but notice the wayward neck scarf starting to make a break for it just as Todd was heading into the triple Lutz. This immediately reminded me of the cufflink incident at World Pros last season. Fortunately, while it was probably a distraction for Todd, he did land the jump and continue on to complete the program uninterrupted.

My initial reaction to the program was that it's awesome, and I'm looking forward to watching it without stress when this event airs later on TV. Hopefully, as the season progresses we'll see a version of The Glory that pleases everyone including the skater. But it was a great first attempt.

Additional Todd sightings:

Todd watched almost the entire competition from either the Kiss and Cry area or the area near the commentators' booth which made for quite a distraction to fans who were trying to watch the skating, too. Dick, Peggy and Terry were there. Susie Wynne was doing the kiss and cry interviews with the skaters. Well,except for Todd.

Todd received his traditional competition goodie gift bag of cookies and chocolates from a certain skating tour group leader (Claudyne of Silver Blade Tours) and he wasn't about to wait until the event ended to enjoy the treats. After he had skated and changed, he returned to Kiss and Cry with the bag of goodies and settled into eating the cookies and watching the skating. Yes, of course, he shared the treats with the other skaters.

At the conclusion of the evening's event, all the skaters were called back out onto the ice for a final farewell lap around the rink. As they announced each skater, he or she would exit through the door typically used for skaters to enter and exit the ice. I noticed that Todd was standing in front of Kiss and Cry where the barrier is cut low for the cameras. When they announced Todd's name, Todd, rather than enter the ice through the door like the other skaters, just hopped on over the barrier and skated out to wait with the other skaters for the final lap.

I thought it was a great compliment when the announcer invited Alexei Urmanov to lead the final farewell lap around the rink. Alexei seemed genuinely surprised by the invitation. Hopefully, he'll have better nights in professional competitions as this was probably his last eligible competition.

Here are the scores with some comments. I didn't take any notes aside from the scores, so it's based on my hazy recollection. If you're looking for expert commentary, you won't find it here. <G>

Kyoko Ina & John Zimmerman - USA
Technical	5.5	5.5	5.5	5.6	5.4
Artistic	5.3	5.3	5.4	5.3	5.3
Music	Anastasia
Costume	Brown and cream
Notes	Seemed kind of slow. Kind of ironic that Tamara was coaching the entire pairs division at this event, all two teams.

Elena Berezhnaya & Anton Sikharulidze - Russia
Technical	5.4	5.4	5.8	5.8	5.7
Artistic	5.8	5.7	5.9	5.8	5.9
Music	Sounds familiar but I'm unable to identify it.
Costume	Cream and brown
Notes	They seemed a little slow

Ilia Klimkin - Russia
Technical	5.4	5.4	5.4	5.3	5.4
Artistic	5.3	5.3	5.2	5.5	4.9
Music
Costume	I found the costume very distracting. I'm not a big fan of outlandish costumes, keep them simple.
Notes	Interesting spin positions, and a very difficult looking backward bending spread-eagle type move. I'm sure there's a name for this move, but I don't recall what it is.

Matthew Savoie - USA
Technical	5.2	5.3	5.0	5.6	5.3
Artistic	4.8	5.0	4.8	5.4	5.0
Music
Costume	Brown and white.
Notes	Bears a striking resemblance to Todd especially in that costume which bears a striking resemblance to Todd's Les Miz SP costume.

Evgeny Plushenko - Russia
Technical	5.6	5.6	5.7	5.6	5.6
Artistic	5.8	5.8	5.8	5.7	5.7
Music	Russian folk music
Costume	Bright white with gold trim
Notes	What a ham! While waiting for his scores in K&C, he saw himself on the video screen and started pointed to it which caught the audience's attention and they started to egg him on, which didn't take much and he really played it up.

Timothy Goebel - USA
Technical	5.2	5.2	5.4	5.1	5.4
Artistic	5.2	5.5	5.3	5.2	5.5
Music	Ain't No Sunshine
Costume	Blue untucked shirt, black pants, rather sloppy looking
Notes	I think he tried a quad but fell.

Todd Eldredge - USA
Technical	5.7	5.5	5.5	5.5	5.5
Artistic	5.7	5.4	5.5	5.6	5.6
Music	The Glory
Costume	Gray and blue
Notes	See above

Alexei Urmanov - Russia
Technical	5.3	5.3	5.6	5.4	5.3
Artistic	5.1	5.2	5.7	5.4	5.3
Music	Swan Lake
Costume	Same costume he wore when he won Olympics, gloves and all.
Notes	An off night for Alexei which was sad to see. I was curious to see this program in person, too bad it wasn't a good night for him.

Alexei Yagudin - Russia
Technical	5.8	5.4	5.7	5.6	5.7
Artistic	5.9	5.6	5.9	5.8	5.8
Music	Broken Arrow
Costume	Black with a bulls-eye and red fabric pieces to resemble blood.
Notes	I don't know how I'd compare this with last season's Lawrence of Arabia which I really enjoyed. I think I find the costume distracting/disturbing. He, too, was having an off night.

Michael Weiss - USA
Technical	5.6	5.5	5.7	5.4	5.5
Artistic	5.4	5.5	5.7	5.3	5.5
Music	On the Waterfront
Costume	Black with white
Notes	I like this program, he seems to be settling down and not finding it necessary to constantly remind everyone how macho he is.

Naomi Lang & Peter Tchernyshev - USA
Technical	5.2	5.3	5.2	5.2	5.4
Artistic	5.3	5.3	5.3	5.3	5.6
Music	Sarah Brightman song
Costume	Blue
Notes	I'm no dance expert so I don't have much to say except they were nice to watch.

Angelika Krylova & Oleg Ovsyannikov - Russia
Technical	5.6	5.7	5.8	5.9	5.7
Artistic	5.7	5.8	5.9	5.9	5.9
Music	Carmen
Costume	Red and Black
Notes	Angelika sells this program to the last row in the venue. Unfortunately, the crowd didn't even reach the last row of the lower bowl, so it seemed rather over the top.

Sasha Cohen - USA
Technical	4.8	4.8	4.8	4.8	4.7
Artistic	5.0	5.2	5.1	5.2	5.1
Music
Costume
Notes	Wow! I had heard lots of good things about her and was looking forward to seeing her skate. She has such a strong presence on the ice for one so small. She is very polished.

Victoria Volchkova - Russia
Technical	5.0	4.9	5.3	4.9	5.2
Artistic	4.9	4.9	5.5	4.9	5.2
Music
Costume
Notes	Victoria was having an off night. She certainly wasn't skating like she did at Goodwill Games. Hopefully, she'll be skating better soon. I felt bad for her when the audience started booing her scores for being higher than Sasha's.

Julia Soldatova - Russia
Technical	5.3	5.3	5.4	5.4	5.3
Artistic	5.3	5.4	5.4	5.5	5.3
Music
Costume	Bright, bright orange. Did I mention that it was bright?
Notes

Sarah Hughes - USA
Technical	5.4	5.5	5.5	5.5	5.3
Artistic	5.4	5.4	5.3	5.3	5.2
Music	Beatles medley
Costume	Black and white.
Notes	A very fun number that she looked like she enjoyed doing.

Angela Nikodinov - USA
Technical	5.6	5.2	5.3	5.4	5.6
Artistic	5.6	5.4	5.2	5.4	5.7
Music	Dust in the Wind
Costume	Maroon
Notes	Much improved. Just wish she'd appear like she really enjoyed her skating. I hope she does, it just doesn't appear that way when you watch her, compared to say, Sarah Hughes.

Irina Slutskaya - Russia
Technical	5.7	5.6	5.7	5.7	5.7
Artistic	5.8	5.7	5.9	5.8	5.8
Music
Costume	Purple/black
Notes	Irina seems to be heading in the right direction this season.

Michelle Kwan - USA
Technical	5.9	5.7	5.8	5.8	5.8
Artistic	5.9	5.9	6.0	5.9	5.9
Music	Kissing You from Romeo and Juliet
Costume	Lavender, brighter than last year's costume.
Notes	Another great performance. I have to admit though that a 6.0 at the start of the season is maybe a little over the top. But definitely 5.9s were in order.

Maria Butyrskaya- USA
Technical	5.7	5.5	5.6	5.6	5.5
Artistic	5.7	5.7	5.5	5.8	5.7
Music	Tango music
Costume	Black with bright yellow trim
Notes	Definitely an off night. The program looked very interesting especially the footwork. I hope we get to see it when Maria is having an "on" night.