THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY: A Todd Eldredge 1995-96 Season Retrospective
Reported by Fran Buhman
As a Todd Eldredge fan, I cant exactly say that I was looking forward tothe 1996 World Championships in Edmonton. On the contrary, I tended to view theupcoming event as something to get through in order to reach an end to what hadbeen an agonizing season.
Up to that point, it had definitely not been the best of seasons for Todd orfor his fans. I had had a sense of foreboding the previous summer, when I firstheard the announcement of his participation in the Nutcracker tour, scheduled totake up an entire month just before Nationals. Then came news of the projectedCollins Winter Tour and the Centennial on Ice competition which, combined withthe new Champions Series final, would pretty much take up most of the timebetween Nationals and Worlds. Then, prior to Nutcracker and right after aCollins Spring Tour which had kept him fully engaged until mid-July, there hadfollowed the Too Hot to Skate show and the International Team competition,followed in late August by a series of shows in Sun Valley; not to mentioncommitments to do the Halloween on Ice shows in October and the Skates of GoldIII and Fall Pro-Am events in November (with Skate America and Nations Cupsomehow sandwiched in between the shows). By the time he was announced as a lastminute replacement for Aleksei Urmanov at Best of the Best in September (asituation that happened again in October when he replaced Philippe Candeloro atStarlight Challenge), I had come to the conclusion that "No" was aword that had been permanently eliminated from Todds vocabulary. I alsowondered when on earth amid all these commitments he was ever going to findsufficient time to train for the important competitions of the new season.
The Best of the Best event, which Todd was basically rushed into withinsufficient preparation, was a disaster which I tried very hard not to see asan omen of things to come. And in spite of a Skate America victory that featureda free skate performance widely touted as the skate of his life up to that time,my sense of foreboding was not in the least eased. In contrast to the previousyears Skate America where Gettysburg debuted as a largely finished product,with Todd left free for the rest of the season to concentrate strictly onrefining and selling it, the new Chess program was still ragged at its debut andnowhere near to being a finished product. In addition to elements ofchoreography still in process, it was to include a jump combination that Toddhad yet to remaster - the triple lutz/triple toe - a combination hed beenable to do at least back in 1990, but had since lost. Failing its reacquisition,he would have to fall back on the triple flip/triple toe - a situation thatwould then require substantial changes in the choreography as the entry to theflip in the program currently left no room for a combination. Thus, although hewas able to win Skate America with a flawless performance that included eighttriple jumps, there was still at that point only one triple-triple combinationin the program and he would definitely need two if he was to stand a seriouschance of winning the World Championship. But with all his upcoming commitments,I was left to wonder exactly when hed have time both to finish the programand to remaster an old skill while at the same time not losing the skills healready had.
Nations Cup was the first sign that things were seriously starting tounravel. The day after the Skate America victory, Todd raced off to New York andthe Starlight Challenge; a week later he was still in New York attending IceWars (where his coach Richard Callaghan was functioning as a judge); exactly oneweek after that he was in Albany doing the Skates of Gold III show with theother reigning U.S. National Champions. Nations Cup was scheduled to beginexactly 10 days after Skates of Gold. Afterwards, Richard was to admit that theyarrived later in Germany than they would have liked (and would usually havedone). Not surprisingly, Todd arrived tired and not really up for thecompetition. The result was a tired short program, a lackluster freeskateperformance with an uncharacteristic doubling of jumps (Todd will usually risk afall rather than double a jump), and a third place finish in the competition.For me, watching this performance was upsetting enough; but more upsetting still(even if also not surprising) was to see that the Chess program had not changedone iota since Skate America. One month later and there was still no evidencethat the program was anywhere near to completion.
The day after watching the Nations Cup debacle on television, I flew toPhiladelphia to attend the Fall Pro-Am Skating Challenge. Meanwhile, Todd flewstraight from Germany to Philadelphia and if he was tired when arrived inGermany, he was exhausted by the time he reached Philadelphia. He was also notin the best shape emotionally. It had finally dawned on him that he hadcommitted himself to more than he could comfortably digest and in fact he hadrecently tried to extricate himself from the Nutcracker tour but was being heldto the contract hed signed. And, to make matters worse (if that waspossible), he and Nicole Bobek, his training partner and projected Nutcrackerco-star, werent getting along - from what I could observe they were barely onspeaking terms (and this was about 10 days before Nicoles leaving Richard fora new coach). What ensued were two of the most depressing days Ive everspent.
It is a blessing for all concerned that when this event was televised, ABCdid not show his short program performance. I dont think Ive seen a Toddperformance that disastrous at least since the 1992 Olympic free skate. Skatingonce again to Swing Kids, the fall on the opening triple axel combination wasntjust a fall, it was more like a horizontal splat, with Todd winding up flat onhis back on the ice. Needless to say, this was not the kind of fall from whichone recovers quickly. And indeed, it took him awhile to get back into theprogram and when he did the result was a doubled triple lutz attempt. He wasable to rally considerably for the artistic program the following night with avery good, if not great, performance of Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, butnot enough to prevent his finishing last among the men and in 8th place of allthe competitors (he was even outscored by Nicole and by a Mark Mitchell limitedby injury to triple toe jumps). The only good if, under the circumstances,fairly ironic, news was the appearance in the Sorry Seems performance of atriple lutz/double toe combination - not very well done, but evidence that hewas at least still trying to work on that lost triple/triple combo. As I leftPhiladelphia I was acutely conscious that Todd was both a mess and in a messand, considering that two days after he left Philadelphia he was scheduled toopen the 30 city Nutcracker tour in California, at that point I couldnt helpbut think it would be a major miracle if he even made the World team at theupcoming Nationals, never mind successfully defend his National title.
I caught two performances of Nutcracker on Ice (at the Meadowlands in NewJersey and again in Fairfax, Virginia) and I cant say I was overwhelmedeither by the show or by Todds participation in it. At the Meadowlands, helooked tired and his performance was decidedly off (even his spins were off!)and although he performed better in Fairfax, he still looked tired.
When in mid-December I heard a rumor that he had scrapped Chess in favor of anew long program, I flat-out refused to believe it. I felt he was in enoughtrouble already without abandoning a perfectly good and potentially great (ifhalf finished) program and starting all over again from scratch (with even lesstime to get it ready than he had before). Two days before I left for San Jose Ireceived confirmation of the rumor, along with the news that hed alsoscrapped the King and I short program to go back to Swing Kids - a move Ithought probably wise in view of Swing Kids greater technical difficulty,difficulty hed need to be really competitive with some of the other shortprograms being unveiled by the competition.
I got my first look at the new First Knight program during the first practicesession in San Jose and what I saw nearly sent me into shock. Not that I didntlike it or didnt think it had enormous potential. But what stunned me was therealization that it was the technically most difficult freeskate program Toddhad ever attempted. Sports Illustrated later claimed it was the most difficultprogram ever attempted by an American man in World competition - I dont knowabout that, but I certainly did know it was the most difficult program Todd hadever attempted - and, ironically, he was attempting to do it at the very time hedmanaged through lack of training to lose the technical expertise to be able topull it off. But there it was - he was to do both triple-triple combinationsvirtually back-to-back, to be followed almost immediately by the triple lutz. Heseemed to have given up on the triple lutz/triple toe; the triple flip/tripletoe was firmly in place in this new program. However, the problem was thatduring the course of the season hed also lost the ability to do thatcombination (even the triple flip/double toe had become very iffy). And thetriple axel/triple toe, while still there, was shaky at best. During the courseof 8 practice sessions in San Jose, I dont think I saw him land more than 5triple-triples, all of them ta/tts and none of them landed during a programrun-through. I couldnt help but be struck by the contrast between last yearsNationals practice sessions and those of this year. Actually, the First Knightrun-throughs went fairly well (even without any triple-triples) as Toddconcentrated mightily on remembering the new program; it was the short programrun-throughs that suffered. Not until the third and final short program practicesession did I see a clean (as opposed to a fairly disastrous) Swing Kidsrun-through and I began to wonder if Todd was going to be the victim of what Icall the Boitano Olympic Syndrome - that is, concentrating so heavily on thelong program during practices that the short gets blown in the actualcompetition.
As it turned out, the short program presented no problem; the disaster wasthe freeskate. To say merely that Todd had an off-night would be anunderstatement. The intention, of course, was to begin the performance with atriple axel/triple toe; then when the axel was overrotated, making any kind ofcombination impossible, the second triple axel should have been converted into acombination jump (there was never any intention to add a double toe to the flip- at that point in time the flip combination was far too unreliable for him torisk it). However, by the time the second axel came up, he was apparently sobusy focusing on remembering the new program that he forgot to add the secondjump until it was too late - by the time he remembered, hed already come outof the axel and had to do a turn before tacking on the double toe - thusexecuting a sequential rather than a combination jump and eliminating one of thetriple axels from counting since neither was part of a combination. The lastchance for a triple/double combination came at the end of the program, with thedouble toe/triple toe he usually pulls out to compensate for an earlier missedtriple (or two). This is a combination he can usually do in his sleep (its beenyears since Ive seen him miss it); but on this night the foot slipped and thetriple turned into a double. Total end triple tally? Five, none in combination.To find an example of a Todd freeskate that bad you would have to look back atleast as far as the freeskate at 1993 Nationals (and even that performance beganwith a gorgeous triple axel/triple toe - it was just all downhill from there). Imnot sure how far youd have to go back to find another competitive freeskatewithout even one triple/double combination (1992 Olympics, maybe?) Contrast thiswith last season when the freeskate in all six major competitions (the 2internationals, the 2 pro-ams, Nationals and Worlds) contained at least onetriple-triple and one (or more) triple doubles and the triple tally averagedseven (exceptions - Skate America with 6 and NHK with 8). Even so, a less thanstellar Todd performance is frequently better than much of the competition andhe still would have been able to squeak out a win - had Rudy Galindo not chosenthat particular night to be brilliant.
At least my November fears had not been realized. Todd did make the WorldTeam. And the Nationals loss did prompt him to withdraw from the Winter Tour(Tom Collins mercifully not holding him to a contract as the Nutcrackerproducers had) and from the Centennial on Ice competition. At long last he hadsomething hed not had in a very long time - a whole uninterrupted month athome - training. I only hoped it wouldnt prove to be too little, too late.
I looked forward to the Champions Series Final with quite a bit of optimism.I by no means expected him to win the thing, but I certainly expected to seesome sign that the month of training had really paid off. Instead, what I sawwas another 5 triple only performance with Todd apparently still so focused onremembering the program that he was even less successful in selling it to theaudience and the judges than he had been at Nationals. It was not all bad news,however. I saw substantial choreographic changes and refinements that led me tobelieve that the program was now finished, finally leaving him free to startconcentrating on the selling aspect. And at least this performance did includethree triple/double combinations - including a nicely executed tripleflip/double toe, indicating that he had regained this necessary step toreacquiring the tf/tt combination. Of course, one can only judge so much from atelevision performance and without being able to see any practice sessions, butI was still very much afraid that the recent intensive training was too late andthat Todds only hope of a top five finish at Worlds (never mind the podium!)was if the competition all helped out by falling on their heads.
My first glimpse of Todd in Edmonton was not until his very first practicesession, on the Friday afternoon prior to the competition. For the dedicated menspractice session junkie, pre-qualifying practice session attendance at Worldsentails sitting through 10 uninterrupted hours of practice. For this particularcompetition, the guys were divided into 6 groups of approximately 7 guys each;on Friday the groups started practicing in the Agricom (the practice rink) at 2pm, with the final group ending at approximately 7:25 pm; at 7:30 pm, the firstgroup took the ice again, this time in the Coliseum, with the final group endingtheir practice at approximately 11:50 pm. That day Todd was in the last of thegroups to take the ice, which meant watching 4 1/2 hours of practice whilewaiting for him to appear. Not all of the top men (those not needing to qualify)were as yet in Edmonton. Other than Todd, only Ilia Kulik and Aleksei Urmanovwere in attendance (Viacheslav Zagorodniuk was in town, but practicingelsewhere); Elvis Stojko, Phillipe Candeloro, Eric Millot and Steven Cousinsdidnt put in an appearance until Sunday. While waiting for Todd, I couldnthelp but be impressed with how good both Ilia and Aleksei looked on the ice.Between them, I saw more triple-triples than I could keep up with, and Iconcluded that neither one of these fellows was likely to oblige us by fallingon his head during the competition. Finally, it was Todds turn and a chancefor me to see how both he and First Knight were looking. The First Knightrun-through was not horribly encouraging - still a non-seller and theperformance itself flawed in the extreme. However, what I observed before andafter the run-through definitely had me sitting up, taking notice and finallymentally jumping up and down. In the course of that single 45 minute practicesession he landed a total of 5 triple-triples (as many as he had landed in all 8San Jose practice sessions combined). There were three perfectly executed ta/tts,one tf/tt (very shaky, but landed - it was coming back!) and - at the very endof the session, a perfectly executed triple lutz/triple toe. Sight of this lastfeat had me convinced I had to be hallucinating - so long had I fantasized hisdoing this combination (even back in the days when he supposedly had it, I neversaw it) that I was convinced my imagination was on overdrive. When the sessionended and it was time to switch buildings, I lost no time pouncing on Richardfor confirmation (in case I had been hallucinating, I didnt want to askTodd). After explaining exactly what I meant by my excited "Did I just seewhat I thought I saw?", Richard said Yes, prompting me to squeak "Whendid this happen?" With Richards answer of "About a month or so ago.Hes been landing them consistently in practice for weeks now" only ageand dignity kept me from turning cartwheels right on the spot. I then learnedthat the game plan was to keep the tl/tt in reserve and fall back on it ifneeded in the program (in other words, if either the ta/tt or the tf/tt failedto come off, then a triple toe would be tacked on to what would otherwise be asingle triple lutz). Richard went on to say he was hoping theyd be able topull off something worthwhile in the competition, and he also hastened to assureme that whatever happened in Edmonton, they were going to do everything theycould to get Todd "back on track" next season. After thisconversation, I felt better about Todds future than I had in some time. I waseven beginning to think a top 5 finish (if not the podium) might be apossibility after all and without the help of widespread competitorhead-falling.
A lot of the men (including Ilia and Aleksei) chose to skip the Friday nightpractice session, especially those with the later sessions. But not Todd, whoseattendance was even more impressive considering that his group was not scheduledto take the ice until 11:15 pm. In fact, he was the first on the ice and thelast to leave it. This one was a short program practice session and I wastreated not only to the sight of a flawless run-through (complete with tripleaxel/triple toe) but also to four additional triple-triple executions (includinga stronger looking tf/tt and yet another perfect triple lutz/triple toe). As Ireturned to my hotel, I was starting to think maybe the podium wasnt beyondTodds reach after all.
Saturday meant 10 more hours of mens practices, scheduled to begin at 6 amwith freeskate sessions in the Coliseum and to end at about 3:15 pm with shortprogram sessions in the Agricom. As no one I really felt I had to see was amongthe first couple of groups scheduled to hit the ice, I elected for a bit moresleep that morning but still managed to be ensconced in the Coliseum by around7:30, a good two hours prior to Todds session. On this occasion, the FirstKnight run-through managed to be even more disastrous than the one the daybefore, featuring as it did a really bizarre fall on the triple loop sequence(he had trouble with that sequence all week and it was finally dropped in favorof a single triple loop - it had been a favorite element of mine, a very nicetouch, but not really needed) as well as a fall-out on the second triple axel.But as the session also featured no less than six nicely executed triple-triples(fairly evenly divided among the three varieties), I was by no meansdiscouraged. It was still early in the week. And the afternoon practice featurednot only multiple triple-triple landings, but another flawless Swing Kidsrun-through.
Mens qualifying took place on Sunday, followed immediately by twofreeskate practice sessions for the eight guys (including Todd) who hadnt hadto qualify. The qualifying sessions had been very well attended, and it seemedthe vast majority of people who had done the attending stayed over to see thepractice sessions (not surprisingly, considering that it would mark Elvisfirst appearance on the ice that week and this initial appearance had beenwidely advertised by the local media). This led to the strangest practicesession Ive ever attended, as I had never seen one with 16,000 spectators,nor experienced one that featured flowers raining down on the ice following arun-through! But then I had also never before attended a competition in Canada,where skating is the national passion. There were 4 guys in each of the sessionsand it was Todds fate (along with Eric Millot) to be assigned to the samesession as Elvis and Phillipe, as well as to be the last of the four to do hisprogram run-through. Basically, while Elvis and Philippe tried to outdo eachother vying for audience attention, Todd and Eric just went about theirbusiness, trying to practice amid all the antics, the noise and the flowers.
Elvis was the first to do his run-through and he skated it brilliantly to astanding ovation and a rain of flowers. Philippe followed with a performancethat was greeted almost as enthusiastically and ended with another floralshower. As Eric proceeded to follow suit and wow the crowd, I found myselfgetting increasingly nervous, remembering how disastrous Todds First Knightrun-throughs had been over the previous two days and praying that hisperformance this afternoon would not end up being a disappointing anticlimax towhat had gone before. Well, I neednt have worried. I dont know whether itwas the crowd, the adrenalin, the rivalry or what it was, but Todd proceeded forthe very first time to sell the program to the max, in the process skating aflawless seven-triple performance that featured three triple/doublecombinations. The result was a standing ovation, another flower shower, a happyand gratified Todd, and a totally delirious Fran.
By the time the competition began on Wednesday I was in a definite state ofcautious optimism. I was quite pleased with a skate order position relativelylate that would have him skating after most of the competition, yet beforeElvis. It turned out to be one of the best mens short program competitions Iveever seen, as one flawless performance seemed to succeed another, with most ofthe guys skating well and several of them (Cornel Gheorghe and Steven Cousins,in particular) having the skate of their lives. However, as the eveningprogressed, Ilia Kulik continued to remain the only guy to pull off a tripleaxel/triple toe combination, and it occurred to me that with so many flawlesstriple axel/double toe performances (and with Elvis likely to do the ta/tt),Todds only hope of finishing the short program in the top 3 was to do the ta/tt.But by that point, having seen him do it twice in run-throughs that week, not tomention two or three times in every practice session, I had every confidence hedbe able to pull it off and he did not disappoint me. It was by no means the bestta/tt hed ever done (and wasnt as good as Ilia, who remained quitedeservedly in first place) but it was executed. This accomplishment sent me intosuch a state of euphoria that I was paying no attention whatsoever as Elvis tookthe ice - needless to say, it didnt take him long to capture my attentionwhen he crashed to the ice on his triple axel attempt and I realized that Toddwould now definitely be in second place going into the freeskate.
I spent the Thursday prior to the final trying not to let myself get tooexcited every time the thought occurred to me that he could actually win. A talkwith Todds father that morning put it in perspective when he cautioned me toremember that even if Todd skated his best, he still might not win. Cautiousoptimism seemed to be the watchword in the Eldredge camp, so I figured it bestto go back to that state myself. It might actually be expecting too much ofTodd, to be able to sell the program again and still skate with enough technicalcontent to win. I decided I would just be happy to see him skate his best and behappy himself with how he skated.
My approach to Todds 1996 Worlds freeskate differed radically from theapproach Id taken the year before. At 1995 Worlds, taking what had been myusual approach, I swear I worked as hard as he did, fully focused, sweating theproverbial bullets, talking him through every jump. By contrast, this year assoon as he took the ice I found myself going into a state of suspended animation- frozen. For once he would have to do it all by himself, with no help from me(other than a bit of fervent prayer, if that could be said to count). Thus thesense of dazed unreality as I watched him execute a perfect ta/tt, followed by aperfect tf/tt, succeeded by one of his better triple lutzes. The prayer elementdid get a bit intense as he came around for that second triple axel, reducing meto a fervent "Oh, please, please.." Such was my condition at the timethat it wasnt until I got home and watched my tape that I realized he hadsubstituted at the end of the performance a double axel for the planned doubletoe loop (thus adding even great technical difficulty to the program). Duringthe final combination spin I came to full awareness as I realized exactly whathe had accomplished - a totally flawless 8 triple performance, with everyelement executed exactly when and where it was supposed to be. It had been theskate of Todds career. While far from being his first 8-triple competitivefreeskate (by my count it was at least the fourth such), it was the first timehed managed in the same performance to do both triple-triple combinations andboth triple axels and at the same time to pull off a performance exactly asplanned. And all of it skated with passion and conviction. He really couldnthave skated any better, and I told myself that that was what really counted -and that it didnt matter where he ultimately placed in the competition.
That, at least, is what I told myself (and several people sitting around me)at the time. But after Ilia had skated so well and I realized it was going to beclose, I changed my mind. It just wouldnt be fair, I thought, for Todd tohave had the performance of his life and not be rewarded for it. So I literallyheld my breath while waiting for the final results. When after what seemed likean eternity they appeared and Todds name was on top of the leader board, Iactually screamed (an action for which I later paid the price with 2 weeks oflaryngitis). After hugging literally everyone in sight (whether I knew them ornot) unable to escape me fast enough, I turned around to discover myselfsurrounded by five of my closest friends, who had all made their way to my sidefrom their various seats around the arena (undoubtedly with the express purposeof ensuring I remained vertical). I remember very little of the medal ceremony(delirium is tough on the memory).
I never did actually congratulate Todd for having won the World Championship.Instead, when I finally was able to pounce on him after hed returned to thehotel, I hugged him, handed him a "Todd Eldredge-World Champion" goldpencil (a set of which Id acquired last summer in a fit of acute optimism andwhich pessimism almost caused me to leave at home) and thanked him for making medelirious. Todd was pretty much in a daze as well. When I encountered him againsome hours later in the USFSA Suite, he had re-appropriated his medal from hismother and was just holding it in his hands, staring at it, completelymesmerized. To my "Well, has it sunk in yet?", he looked up from hismedal contemplation long enough to respond, glazed look in his eyes,"No."
It certainly was a rough road to that moment of supreme victory, but the tripwas not without its positive side in terms of lessons learned. Along the way,Todd learned some hard lessons about the consequences of lack of sustainedtraining time and the consequences of not being able to say "No"occasionally. And the Todd fan learned not only not to take anything for grantedwhere Todd is concerned, but that being his fan was often the equivalent ofriding an emotional roller-coaster, with the highs (ecstasies) and lows(agonies) apt to follow one another in rapid and dizzying succession. In otherwords, a ride with never a dull moment, but one more than worth taking.
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