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Reported by Fran Buhman

After two days in London to recover from jetlag, hit all my favoritebookstores, see a play (Sunset Boulevard) and dine at my favorite Londonrestaurant, I left my Skatetours group behind to hop an 8:30 a.m. train toBirmingham. What follows is an account of my adventures, thoughts, impressions,etc. at my first World Figure Skating Championships.

Saturday, March 4, 1995

Once in Birmingham, I checked into my hotel (Hyatt Regency - Birmingham, verynice, what little I ever saw of it), dumped luggage in room and hopped the trainonce again for the short ride to the National Exhibition Centre and the site ofthe 1995 World Championships. It being very early in the week, few people wereabout and no signs were as yet up to direct the general public (meaning me) asto where to go to find what. A thoroughly confused security person suggested Igo to the "hotel" for information, vaguely pointing to the far horizonas she did so, before racing off to attend to other duties. I stared off in thedirection indicated, but all I could see was a large lake with a forest beyond.Nothing that resembled a hotel. As I was contemplating my next move, a friendlyvoice behind me said "You look lost. Can I help?" I turned to findmyself face to face with Victor Kraatz. At least I knew I was in the rightplace. Upon my explaining my predicament, he absolutely assured me there wasindeed a hotel nearby and that it was located in the middle of the clump oftrees beyond the lake. He then proceeded to give detailed instructionsconcerning which path to take and in total faith and with profound thanks I setoff.

At the hotel I was handed a skaters' handbook which told me all I needed toknow - namely, that a men's practice was currently in progress at the practicerink in the Forum. As the handbook was also equipped with map, the dash to therink was accomplished quickly and I arrived just as a group of five guys wastaking the ice to begin warm-up. No one looked familiar, but as I settled intomy seat I found myself watching one of the men in particular. Ability-wise, heseemed far superior to the others and I was struck by how much he resembledAleksei Urmanov. Even his style of skating, hand gestures, etc. was similar.Then I realized it WAS Aleksei Urmanov. My failure to recognize him was becauseI had never before seen him both on the ice AND not in full costume (at the '93Skate America he never appeared at practice except in costume). A great wish hadcome true - to see "Mr. Sleeves" skate without them, and I immediatelydubbed him best dressed in group. I was extremely impressed. Dark royal bluetights with matching skate socks, and a dark turquoise T-shirt with a largeshark in front and bearing the moniker "San Jose Sharks" (perhaps agift from a fan when the Collins Tour hit San Jose?) Quite apart from hisattire, I was equally impressed with the way he was skating. At some pointbetween the Olympics and now he had actually learned how to do something on theice other than jump. He had actually learned how to spin! With speed andvariety. I was entranced and had a sneaking suspicion I would yet turn into afan. I recognized no one else in the group (Ilia Kulik was supposed to be in thegroup, but was a no-show at this session) but in any case found myself unable totear my eyes away from Aleksei.

During ice-resurfacing I went exploring and discovered a practice group list.I found that I had missed the French and the Canadians, but was in time to catchthe Ukrainians (up next) and our guys (up after that). I had every intention ofreturning to check out Zago (Vyacheslav Zagorodniuk) and Dmitry (Dmitrenko), butI was standing in the hall between rinks checking out the newly opened souvenirstand when I heard the unmistakable sound of Nicole Bobek's music coming fromthe other rink (in the Arena) and immediately made a B-line toward the sound onthe assumption that where Nicole was practicing Todd must be in the vicinity.The assumption proved totally correct and I was awarded with my first sight ofMr. Eldredge.

I left the Arena when Todd did to return to the Forum rink and Todd'spractice session. I wound up sitting behind Nicole and her support group (motherJana, Joyce Barron, and another woman - obviously a chaperone/family friend -with a small child Nicole took great delight in playing with). In addition toScott Davis, Steven Cousins and Stephen Carr were in the same group. I tried towatch the others occasionally, but largely failed. I did note that Scott had agenerally miserable practice, failing on a jump as well as on a spin, but on thewhole I was far too absorbed with Todd's problems. Namely, the triple axel.After popping out of it a few times, he finally fell on it, but then during hisshort program run-through he nailed it perfectly (relief!)

As Todd's session was the last of the mens' practices for the day, I stumbledback to the Metropole (the hotel in the forest - also competition headquartersand residence for most of the skaters), weak with hunger. It was 4 pm and I wasoperating only on the energy supplied by 1/2 honeydew melon consumed at 7 amthat morning. On the trail through the forest I encountered Elvis Stojko comingthe other way and was glad to see he was in residence.

The lounge/bar of the Metropole was an ideal spot (open and elevated justabove the hotel lobby and competition info area) from which to securenourishment (24 hour food service with rather extensive menu), as well asvarious types of liquid refreshment, while providing ample sights by which tomunch and drink. Ultimately, I was to spend far more time in that place than Idid in the bed back at my hotel. On this, my first foray, I went through twobrown ales and a cheeseburger while watching Robin Cousins. He was at a tabledirectly in my line of vision. As I moved on to a pot of coffee, Robin vacatedthe table to be succeeded by Ruth and John Eldredge. They had apparently onlyjust arrived in Birmingham, as I hadn't seen them at Todd's practice. They wereapparently not staying at the Metropole as I ran into them later in the week atthe train station and saw Todd seeing them into a taxi on a few occasions (forall I knew they could have been staying at my hotel - that's where Petrenko andBaiul wound up). I was planning to make an early night of it, but needed to hangaround til after the qualifying draw at 6:30 pm to find out which group Toddwould be in.

While making my way through a third cup of coffee, an after dinner drink andanother brown ale, I thought about the qualifying rounds facing Todd and Nicole.There were 46 men entered in the competition. Of this number, 8 were exempt fromqualifying by virtue of their top 10 finish at last year's Worlds (Namely,Stojko, Candeloro, Zagorodniuk, Urmanov, Davis and Millot plus Sebastien Brittenand Steven Cousins). As only 30 could compete, this left 38 guys trying toqualify for the remaining 22 places. Among the ladies, there were 43 entrantswith 7 exempt, leaving 36 to qualify for 23 places. The qualifiers would bedivided into two equal or roughly equal groups. For the men, the top 11finishers in each group would qualify. For the ladies, it would be the top 12 inGroup A, the top 11 in Group B (as dictated by "tradition.")

As the wait continued (compiling and posting was not a speedy process), Ifound myself wishing someone would magically appear with the knowledge I sought.As if on cue Richard (Callaghan) popped up just long enough for me to ask him.Todd, I discovered, had drawn to skate in the first group and so we'd get itover with in the afternoon and not have to wait 'til that night. While at it, Icongratulated Richard for the Providence wins and thanked him for making mydreams come true by turning Nicole into the champion I always knew she could be(in Providence I had threatened to fall down and kiss the ground he walked onbut I had calmed down since then). Richard was most appreciative of myappreciation and said "Let's hope we can do it again here."

Then it was off to my hotel, unpacking and a chance for a reasonable bedtime.With men's qualifying the next day I knew it would be a long one.

Sunday, March 5, 1995

I was up and off early, and upon reaching the skating complex, headed to theMetropole to check out the qualifying sessions skate orders and to havebreakfast. Few people were about when I arrived, but quite by chance I foundmyself walking with Joyce Barron, Nicole's "aunt." A very nice lady,very friendly. I learned that she really does think of herself as Jana Bobek'ssister and that she has been living with them since Nicole was 1 year old. Wediscussed how good the move to Detroit and Richard had been for Nicole, andJoyce mentioned what a good influence Todd was on Nicole. She said he was areally nice fellow and that they hadn't really known him prior to the move toDetroit. I said I thought Nicole's recent improvement was amazing and that I hadseen two years' worth of progress in a mere two months. She replied thatactually there had been remarkable progress in just six weeks, right before theGoodwill Games, although it might not have been apparent from the TV broadcast.The problem in Russia was that she had skated with dull skate blades (they'dbeen sharpened before they left home but were dull when they got there.) Irefrained from asking the obvious question - why couldn't they sharpen themagain after arrival - but then, maybe the question wasn't that obviousconsidering the primitive skating conditions in St. Petersburg - normally andduring the Goodwill Games. As a parting comment I offered my opinion that Nicolehad the potential to be the greatest female skater of all time - to which Joycesighed and said "Yes, if we can only keep her focused."

At the bulletin board in the hotel, I ascertained that Todd had drawn toskate 11th in his group of 18, and what a group it was! All the talent seemedconcentrated there (in addition to Todd, Ilia Kulik, the Ukrainians - Dmitrenkoand Eremenko, Cornel Gheorghe, as well as Marcus Christensen, Michael Tyllesenand Stephen Carr). By contrast, Group B seemed far the easier. Michael Shmerkin,Ronny Winkler and David Liu were the only ones in the group familiar to me,along with Patrick Meier, a Swiss skater about whom I had heard my friend EmmaAbraham rave for years. Also, there were only 17 in Group B (as opposed to the18 in Group A). Three of the original competitors (from Armenia, Lithuania andSweden) apparently never made it to Birmingham, leaving a new total of 35 tobattle for the available 22 spots in the competition.

Nicole meanwhile had drawn Ladies Group B, skating 14th, and would be upagainst Lu Chen, Mila Kajas, Laetitia Hubert and the Canadian Jennifer Robinson.Even without Lu Chen, Group A seemed the tougher group, consisting of IrinaSlutskaya, Junko Yaginuma (and the other 2 Japanese), Anna Rechnio, Simone Lang,Krisztina Czako, the Canadian National Champion Nettie Kim and the otherUkrainian (Yulia Lavrenchuk). There were 18 in each group.

Then it was off to breakfast where I returned from the buffet with loadedplate to discover Midori Ito standing at my table talking with a couple of guysat the table adjoining. I figured she was probably here to cover the event forJapanese TV. On my way from breakfast to the skating rinks, I spotted Richardsitting by himself in the lobby and took advantage of the fact to ask him aboutTodd's performance at NHK. All I had heard (by word of mouth) was that Todd hadskated "brilliantly". No skating publication I had seen had given anydetails whatsoever. Richard was delighted to satisfy my curiosity by informingme that Todd had skated a completely clean free program at NHK (I had suspectedas much, but it was nice to have it confirmed.)

I arrived at the Arena in time to catch two pairs short program practices -one with the U.S. teams, and the other with Kovarikova & Novotny - and thenheaded over to the Forum rink for a couple of Free Dance practices, including agroup with both Rahkomo/Kokko and Roca/Sur. This was my first in-person look atRahkomo and Kokko, to which my response was basically "Wow."

Soon it was 2:30 and time for the first men's qualifying round - Group A -Todd's group. With the withdrawal of the competitor from Spain, the group of 18was now reduced to 17, and Todd scheduled to skate 10th in the group. Eachcompetitor was to skate his long program, with the scoring exactly as in theregular competition, with a placement factor of 1.0. The competitors weredivided into three warm-up groups of 5, 6 and 6 (with Todd in the secondsub-group).

Marcus Christensen was the first up. I found myself no more impressed withhim now than I was when I saw him at Skate America this year. He's a fairly goodjumper (when he lands on his feet) but is a rather slow spinner with littlebeyond jumps to recommend him and no on-ice charisma whatever. Today one jumpended in a fall and he had nothing to fall back upon. He scored in the upper 4'sand ultimately failed to qualify, ranking 12th in the group (4 judges voting tokeep him, 5 to boot him out). I'm convinced that had he skated in Group B (theweaker group) or had he skated later in his own group he would have qualified,as skaters in Group B with lower scores than his made the cut. Marcus wasfollowed by Cornel Gheorghe from Romania. As he'd twice cancelled out on a SkateAmerica I was to attend, this was my first opportunity to see the guy. Mygeneral impression was great style and on-ice presence, but underdevelopedtechnique. He qualified, so I would get to see him again.

Aside from a rather dreadful skater from Khazakstan who failed to qualify,the rest of this first sub-group consisted of the Ukrainians - Dmitry Dmitrenkoand Vassily Eremenko. I'd never seen either before (but had heard much aboutthem). Of the two, I was far more impressed with Eremenko (although somewhatdisconcerted by the fact he was skating to Chaplin music!). So great isEremenko's style that although he fell out of three jumps he still receivedfairly high scores and ultimately finished 4th in the group. Meanwhile,Dmitrenko two-footed his triple axel landing and fell on a simple spin, butlikewise was a strong enough skater (very innovative spins and a terrificjumper) to receive good scores and ultimately a 3rd place finish.

After Eremenko's skate, the 2nd (and all important to me) subgroup took theice for warm-up. Todd was still having problems with his triple axel, and oneminute prior to the end of the warm-up he took one last stab at it and fell,really hard. After what seemed to me an eternity, he got to his feet, appearingto be uninjured and relatively unrattled, but I was ready for a tranquillizer! Iwas thankful there were 4 skaters up before him, giving him a chance to recover.

First up was the newly rising British "star," Clive Shorten,already immensely popular in Britain. From this first view, I saw promise (hehas great footwork) but a long way to go yet. In fact, I'm convinced that had hebeen skating under any other flag he would not have qualified. As it was, he wasgrossly overmarked and by one of those ordinal placing anomalies we all know sowell would up finishing 7th in the group (even though 2 judges placed him 10thand 4 judges placed him 8th.) Clive was followed by a skater from Mexico who wasso bad he was actually funny (all judges were in agreement in placing him lastin the group).

Next out was Stephen Carr. He had a really dreadful time, falling twice andnever really recovering. He ultimately finished 15th and failed to qualify. Ifelt badly for him, but reflected that at least now he could concentrate all hisattention on his pairs skating. Stephen was followed by Marcus Leminen fromFinland. Another non-charismatic but good jumper with little else going for him.As he landed all his jumps, he qualified easily, finishing 6th in the group.

Finally it was Todd's turn, and what followed was not inclined to inspire mewith confidence in the immediate future. I don't know exactly what the problemwas. Admittedly, it's not easy to get "up" for a qualifyingperformance, and some skaters do "save it" for the real thing, butthen that's not Todd's usual way. Or maybe he was somewhat rattled from thewarm-up fall. But whatever the problem, the fact was he was not "on"for this performance. This was the first time I'd ever seen him fail to sell hisprogram (and this tally includes the numerous practice sessions I'd witnessed atSkate America and at Nationals). His only actual mistake was (of course) on thelone triple axel (for some reason his problems were centered in the singletriple axel - the combination triple axel/triple toe was so far doing fine andwas nailed here). At least he didn't fall, but the landing can best be describedas a wobbly 2-foot (or more accurately, a two-footed wobble). Maybe he wasconcentrating on landing that Axel. Maybe he was focusing on remembering thechanges made in the program since Providence. Yes, changes! As if I was notalready shaken enough by Todd's rather lackluster performance, suddenly I'mseeing changes. This was my first look at Gettysburg since arriving inBirmingham. It had only been three weeks since Nationals and I did not expectchanges! But suddenly the footwork in the slow section had been reworked and theRussian Split was back! Now I will admit that after my experience last year withBoitano and his Appalachian Spring program I am hypersensitive - read paranoid -about changing what already works. In this instance, after I had calmed down andhad a chance to view them again, I had to admit the changes really were more inthe nature of refinements that did improve the program.

Todd's failure to sell the program was apparent in the decidedly tepidresponse from the audience at its conclusion, as well as in his presentationscores. The technical scores were good (as he did have only that one mistake),but his presentation scores were 2 5.6's, the rest 5.7's. Now granted, therewere those trying to qualify who would no doubt have killed for those scores,but they simply were not the kind of scores Todd should be getting for thisprogram. Oh well, not to panic. We still had three days to get it together.

Todd was followed by a rather poor Korean skater who failed to qualify, andit was time for the final six. The star attraction of this subgroup, as well asthe first on the ice, was the wonder-kid, Ilia Kulik. From this, my first lookat the guy, I had to admit he is a great jumper, but at this stage of his careerhe is little more than that. He is certainly no spinner (and indeed fell out ofone during this performance). From this glimpse at least I was more than everconvinced his win at Europeans was totally due to the less than stellarperformances of his competition. Where judges are concerned, however, greatjumping can get you great scores, and Kulik was no exception. Nevertheless, thescores were not high enough to take the group win from Todd (7 judges went forTodd, 2 for Kulik).

A couple of interesting skaters followed Kulik. Alexandre Mourashko fromBelarus is another problem jumper (with a fall here to prove it), but is a nicespinner with great speed, style and edges. He qualified with an 8th placefinish. Next came Michael Tyllesen from Denmark - this was my first in-personlook at a skater I've always liked. I'm convinced he would go far if he couldever master jumping techniques - his style, artistry and edges are superb (aDanish Paul Wylie?). Jumping problems aside, his artistry enabled him to qualifyby a hair (he finished 11th - bottom of the qualifiers). Zsolt Kerekes fromHungary followed Michael. I found him promising, but overall he did nothing forme. He did something for the judges, however, and finished in 5th place. Kerekeswas followed by the best skater in the group not to qualify - BessarionTsintsadze from Georgia. I thought him marvelous - with great footwork, speedand power. I'm convinced he too would have qualified had he been in the othergroup. As it was his scores resembled Christensen's with similar results (4judges voted him in, 5 out), and he ended up in 13th place. The Georgian wasfollowed by the final skater in the group, Naoki Shigematsu from Japan. How thisguy could qualify and the Georgian not is beyond me. He is very inexperienced, areal problem jumper and has a lot of growing to do before he can fill the voidleft in Japan by Kagiyama's turning pro. Shigematsu finished in 10th place.

After an hour's break, men's qualifying Group B took the ice for theircompetition. My earlier feeling that most of the talent was to be found in GroupA turned out to be quite correct. Most of the really bad skaters were packedinto the B group. In fact, judging by the scores, had Christensen and Tsintsadzeskated with this bunch they would have qualified handily (probably in 9th and10th place). Staying awake for this group was at best difficult. But there weresome exceptions, including two very exciting new discoveries.

First up worth mentioning was the Swiss, Patrick Meier, skating 4th in thegroup. He had my vote as the best skater in Group B not to qualify. The majorproblem in his performance was a hard fall on a jump, followed immediately byanother fall that sent him into the boards. It really was a shame, because he isa great spinner (what is it about the Swiss and spinning?) and has quite a styleand presence on the ice. His 16th place finish was really undeserved and mayhave been due to his being among the first in his group to skate. I do think hewas grossly underscored. The next skater of note to follow Patrick was the firstof my personal discoveries of the competition - Fabrizio Garattoni of Italy.From the moment he took the ice I was captivated. He is a fairly good and strongjumper, very stylish, with incredible charisma. Controversial as well. Some ofthe judges agreed with me and scored him high; others apparently couldn't standhim and marked him down. He still managed to finish 5th in the group.

Next skater in the group worth mentioning was my exciting discovery no. 2 -Zhongyi Jiao of China. A great jumper, but with lots of style, speed and edges.His spins could be improved, but on the whole he's a real comer, finishing 2ndin the group. China may someday have a male skater to equal the accomplishmentsof Lu Chen! The third Frenchman at the competition - Thierry Cerez - followedJiao, and I'm convinced he received really high marks simply because he isFrench. I could find no other reason for his finishing 4th in the group (aheadof Garratoni? Give me a break!) Ronnie Winkler of Germany was the next skater ofnote. He skated fairly well and finished in 3rd place. Winkler was followed byDavid Liu of Taipei. Another problem jumper with good spins and style, Liufinished in 7th place. The final skater worth mentioning in this group was themuch improved Michael (formerly Misha) Shmerkin. He is developing into a reallygood jumper, and in the last year or so has really improved his presentation. Heskated fairly well to win the group.

Having survived my first experience with qualifying rounds, I came awayhighly in favor of them. With a couple of exceptions, the general public reallyshould not be exposed to the quality of skating (or lack thereof) of those whofailed to qualify. In fact, I think qualifying rounds should be expanded toencompass pairs and ice dancing.

Following the qualifying rounds, there was a 9:30 p.m. practice session inthe Arena for the men who had not had to qualify. Only five of the guys showed(the absent consisted of Elvis, Philippe and Eric Millot), leading tospeculation on the consequences if all eight had been present. Eight on the iceat once, especially those eight? What could the organizers have been thinkingwhen they came up with that bright idea? As it was, I mainly divided myattention between Aleksei and Zago, with main emphasis on the former. On thewhole, Aleksei had a fairly miserable practice, but once again demonstrated howmuch his skating has improved this last year. I managed to tear my attentionaway from him long enough to ascertain things were going no better for ScottDavis than they had at the previous day's practice. He looked tense and veryunhappy. You would have thought not being the National Champion would have takensome of the pressure off. The guy really needs to loosen up and relax!

After the practice session, it was back to my hotel for a decent amount ofsleep. Tomorrow was Nicole's qualifying session, as well as the opening draw forshort program skating orders. It promised to be another long day.

Monday, March 6, 1995

I arrived at the skating complex shortly before the first Ladies qualifyingsession. Group B (Nicole's group) was up first.

The 18 ladies in qualifying Group B were divided into three warm-up groups ofsix ladies each. Nicole was scheduled to skate 2nd in the last sub-group. Themain and really only attraction of the first group of 6 was Lu Chen. None of therest were very good or even adequate (three - from Sweden, Lithuania and theSlovak Republic - failed to qualify; the other two - from the Netherlands andSlovenia - qualified but never reached finals). At my first glimpse of Lu Chenin warm-up, I totally failed to recognize her. In the last year, she seems tohave grown taller and really matured, as well as completely changed her look andimage. It all suits her very well. After the dreadful performances that precededher, it was a relief to watch her skate, yet in this performance she seemeddevoid of energy and was obviously only doing the minimum necessary to qualify.Although she fell out of her triple lutz, she otherwise skated cleanly to decentscores that ultimately placed her second in the group.

The second group of six were as a whole far more interesting and began withJenna Arrowsmith, the British National Champion. At age 14, she has a lot ofspunk, is a decent spinner and shows much promise for the future, but for nowshe is extremely inexperienced and has a lot of problems landing jumps. Sheplaced 13th in the group, failing to qualify, but was allowed into thecompetition anyway because of a Worlds "tradition" that states thatthe host country shall always have a competitor in all stages of thecompetition. Which meant 31 would get to skate the short program. Later, whenshe failed to make the cut after the short program, she was nevertheless allowedto skate her long program (which meant 25 in the finals, rather than 24). Tomake up for this privilege, she was condemned to skate first both times (butthus sparing the other ladies that dreaded position). Really good experience forher, though.

Jenna was followed by Marta Andrade of Spain, a skater I've always ratherliked. She has nice technique, but could use more speed and would much improveif she could learn to smile occasionally! She qualified, finishing 7th in thegroup. Marta was followed by the lady discovery of the competition, Lucinda Ruhof Switzerland. I was initially quite surprised that a total unknown would berepresenting Switzerland rather than Nathalie Krieg. Nathalie and another girlhad represented Switzerland at Europeans, so where did this skater come from? Mysurprise, however, vanished when I saw Lucinda skate. Only 15 years old, herspinning ability is beyond belief! (Is it possible, I wonder, for a Swiss skaterNOT to be a great spinner?) Her layback gives new meaning to the words "layback" (in her case it probably should be called a "wayback"!),and she has a combination spin that has her going directly from a Biellmann intoa Baiul. All this and she appears better able to handle jumps than Krieg. Atleast she managed to avoid any falls during her qualifying performance andreceived fairly high scores to finish 4th in the group.

Next on the ice was a vivid demonstration of why qualifying rounds really area necessity. Carole Ren from Hong Kong inspired me to think that maybe I toocould compete at Worlds. Certainly if I got out there I could not have skatedmuch worse than she did. With scores ranging from 2.0 to 2.8, Ren was theunanimous choice of the judges for a last in group finish. Mila Kajas fromFinland followed Ren, and I think benefited hugely from that fact because inspite of two 2-footed jump landings, a fall and poor spins, she receivedrelatively high scores to finish 6th in the group. Last in this sub-group wasIvana Jakupcevic from Croatia, a fairly good jumper (but with little else torecommend her) who qualified with a 10th place finish.

The final group of six in Group B was of course the one of most interest tome. I really didn't think the "new" Nicole would have a repeat of lastyear's failure to qualify, but I would nevertheless be glad when it was over.First up in the group was a girl from Taipei (Ja-lin Weng) - a nice spinner witha good presentation, but three falls condemned her to low scores and anon-qualifying 16th place finish. Nicole was next, and I quickly discovered thatI need not have worried. She remained focused and determined, and except for ahand-down on a jump skated fairly cleanly to thunderous applause and a 1st placefinish.

A skater from Latvia (Alma Lepina) followed Nicole. Two falls resulted in a12th place finish and had this been Group A, that placement would have been aqualifying one. As there was an odd number of spots open in the competition(23), "tradition" dictated that the extra qualifier would come fromGroup A. Thus the 12th place finisher in Group A qualified while the skater inthe same position in Group B did not. The Latvian was followed by a vastlyimproved Laetitia Hubert. In spite of two falls, Laetitia's performance as awhole was good enough to earn relatively high scores and a third place finish.Tatyana Malinina from Uzbekistan was up next, a fairly good jumper and nicespinner who qualified with a 5th place finish. The final skater of the sub-groupand of Group B was Jennifer Robinson, the Canadian silver medalist. She appearedto be very inexperienced and I could see little to recommend her, least of allan apparent decision to take Nancy Kerrigan as her role model (judging from hercostume and choice of hairstyle). She managed to qualify with a 9th placefinish. Her appearance did serve to alert me to the presence of a huge mass ofCanadians, out in force to support her efforts. When her name was announced theyabsolutely erupted with loud applause, and as they were gathered directly behindme, I was momentarily deafened with the roar. As I was leaving I noticed Elvisand Josee Chouinard in their midst. Actually, it is quite nice, the fervor withwhich the Canucks support their own.

I would have liked to have stuck around for Group A's qualifying round, butas this was in conflict with a men's practice session, it was out of thequestion (I do have my priorities). So by the start of the men's practice, I wasin my favorite spot in the fourth row of the five rows of tightly packedbleachers. The men had regrouped following qualifying (and would do so againfollowing the opening draw that night) so it was necessary to readjust to whowas where and with who and when. And it was a "skater's choice"practice session (a new experience for me) in which each skater could chooseeither his short or long program music for his run-through, rather than thesession being totally defined as a short or a long program practice.

Practice Group A I immediately dubbed the all European group, consisting asit did of the three Frenchmen, my Italian (Fabrizio Garattoni), and that cuteyoung Austrian, Florian Tuma. Margus Hernits had been assigned to this group,but was a no-show, probably uncertain as to whether Estonia really is a part ofEurope. This was my first look at Philippe Candeloro and Eric Millot sincearriving in Birmingham. I immediately awarded Philippe the award for bestdressed in group (unusual for him, but he did look stunning in a vivid black andwhite striped shirt with black pants), but was taken aback by his having grown agoatee (or having attempted to - either it was only just started or the attemptwas failing - and it later disappeared entirely before the competition began!).He looked both in shape and in good form, landing jump after jump with relativeease, although only doing excerpts from his short program when his music cameup. Eric also looked really good, and I could only hope that the competitionwould ultimately be good to him. I also spent time during this session focusingon Fabrizio. My earlier good impression of him was confirmed, although he doesneed to work on controlling his jumps.

The majority of Practice Group B were no-shows - the main attractions,really, the three Ukrainians and Cornel Gheorghe. This left us with theNorwegian, Jan Erik Digernes and the Pole, Robert Grzegorczyk, both among thosefrom men's qualifying group B that I had not thought worth mentioning in mydescription of that qualifying event. This probably was a disservice at least toGrzegorczyk, who does show some promise and who, for some mysterious reason,managed to remind me of Gregor Filipowski.

Practice Group C consisted of the Canadians and the Japanese, plus the Finn,Markus Leminen and Zsolt Kerekes from Hungary. This was my first look at Elvis(on skates, at least) since my arrival, so quite naturally I found myselffocusing most of my attention on him. His choice was to skate his long programmusic, thus affording me my first in-person look at 1492. Elvis is one of thoserare totally in-focus for practice session skaters who seem to treat practicerun-throughs as dress-rehearsals and who therefore don't quit on a run-throughat the first mistake (Todd and Brian Boitano also fall into this rare category).Consequently, I was able to get a look at the complete program and was quiteawe-struck, thinking Damn, that's going to be hard to beat. If Elvis' ankle wasbothering him, there was certainly no sign of it here.

As the Zambonis zipped onto the ice prior to the next session, LynnRutherford joined me, having just emerged from the Ladies Group A qualifyinground. She reported that Irina Slutskaya looked very strong, and that all threeJapanese ladies were very good (Irina wound up winning the group, followed bythe Japanese in 2nd, 4th and 5th places).

The Zambonis having finished their job in their usual brisk fashion, PracticeGroup D took the ice. But first, a word about those Zambonis. This beingEngland, the land of small vehicles where five English trucks could easily fitinside one of ours, the Zamboni is a tiny thing, about half the size of anAmerican one. So two of them are used to clear the ice (with an unusual amountof speed), the end result being ice resurfacing in half the time I'm used to.

Practice Group D consisted of the Americans and the British, plus the Dane,Michael Tyllesen and Alexandre Mourashko from Belarus. As the ladies qualifyinground had concluded, the audience from that event had largely spilled over tothe Forum rink, making for quite a crowd for this session. Not surprisingly, themajority seemed to be British, judging by the wild cheers that greeted StevenCousins and Clive Shorten whenever they did anything, be it only to smile at theaudience. However, aside from noticing that Scott Davis was once again having amiserable practice, my attention was of course focused exclusively on Todd. Ihad a feeling that he too was less than pleased with his performance during hisqualifying round and would thus choose to run through his long program. I wasnot mistaken. But this time, what a difference from yesterday! Today he was so"on" that within 5 seconds after his music started, he had theundivided attention of the entire Forum. The two Brits were for the momentforgotten. Then, having captured everyone's attention, he went on to skate atotally flawless performance (landing all eight triples) to wild cheers and astanding ovation from all present. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. We were backon track with a vengeance!

Only two of the guys scheduled for Practice Session E (the final session)showed, but since one of the two was my Chinese, Zhongyi Jiao, I stayed put.Among the missing were the Russians (Aleksei and Ilia), along with David Liu andMichael Shmerkin. Ronny Winkler was the other skater at this session, but Iconcentrated mainly on Jiao. My earlier good impression of him was amplyconfirmed; here's a talent that will bear watching.

It was shortly after 7 pm when Lynn and I left the Forum for the Metropole tograb some food and to await the results of the Opening Draw, scheduled to startat 7:30. Although an early bedtime was my goal, I told Lynn there was no way Icould contemplate sleep until I knew what skate order Todd had drawn.

After several drinks, dinner and a pot of coffee, I noticed people leavingthe "Drawing" room to mill about in the Lobby. I immediately went on ascouting mission to see if there was anyone about to whom I might address theall important question. Richard, Todd, his parents, Nicole, another Bobek -anyone would do. Unfortunately, the only familiar faces I was able to spotbelonged to Elvis and Scott, standing together in conversation in a corner ofthe lobby. For one moment I actually considered it before good sense got thebetter of me. I was contemplating my next move when a man entered the lobbybearing four stacks of different colored sheets of paper (green, blue, yellowand pink) which could only be one thing. I immediately joined the small groupthat surrounded the poor man, quickly snatched one of the blue sheets and beat abrisk path back to our table, scanning the sheet as I went. Upon my return, Lynnwas greeted by a slap on the back and a squeal of "27th!" Meanwhile,Scott, Philippe, Steven Cousins and Zago had also fared well, drawing 24th,26th, 28th and 30th, respectively. On the other hand, Elvis and Aleksei haddrawn 10th and 13th, while poor Eric Millot was stuck skating 5th.

That mission accomplished, I returned to the information table for a pinksheet, to see how Nicole had fared, and returned equally ecstatic, squeaking"28th!". Lu Chen had also done well at 27th. Michelle Kwan had doneless well, drawing 8th, but then Surya Bonaly was in the unenviable position ofskating 7th. After a celebratory drink, Lynn and I returned to our hotel. All inall, what with Nicole's winning her qualifying group, Todd's fantastic practicesession, and the great skate orders Todd and Nicole had drawn, it had been aspectacularly good day!

Tuesday, March 7, 1995

I managed to drag myself into the Forum practice rink by 7:30 am to catch allbut the first of the men's practice sessions. Following last night's draw, themen had all been regrouped by skating order and this morning were scheduled fora short program practice. I arrived as group 13-18 were finishing up, andnoticed that Aleksei was looking good and that Eremenko was once again ano-show.

Of Group 19-24, Shorten and Shmerkin were no-shows, leaving the ice toMourashko, Liu, Dmitrenko and Davis. I was of course hugely distracted by Toddwarming up on the sidelines. He seemed in a really good mood, with StevenCousins cracking him up each time he jogged past him. In between watching theTodd and Steven show off the ice, my on-ice attention was focused on Scott. Hehad the start of a really good run-through, until he popped his axel and quit indisgust. Once again, he looked tense and nervous.

As a whole, Group 25-30 was the most interesting, for in addition to Todd andSteven it also consisted of Zago, Philippe and Sebastien Britten (along withNaoki Shigematsu who looked - and no doubt felt - terribly out of place).Philippe did not have a particularly good session. During his run-through, hepopped his axel and two-footed his lutz before quitting (I have yet to see himever do a complete run-through in a practice session). He spent the rest of thesession trying and totally failing to land a good triple axel. Meanwhile, Toddwas back to having triple axel problems. His run-through went rather well,although he was really shaky on the landing of the triple toe in thecombination, and for awhile afterward he concentrated on the combination,alternating a good one with a bad one with a good one. He then spent theremainder of the session working on his long program triple axel, popping it

twice before finally landing a perfect one. This group's session ended withSteven grabbing Sebastien for a big bow in the center of the ice (he had grabbedhis colleague Shorten for that purpose the previous day).

At this point I hastened to the Inside Edge Cafe (erected in a corner of theForum around a concession stand) for a coffee break and remained there duringthe Group 1-6 session. However, I could still view the practice from thatvantage point and could see that Eric was having a really good session andseemed to have a perfect run-through. While on this break I ran into Richard andgushed at him over the marvelous skate orders Todd and Nicole had drawn."Yeah, isn't it great?" he responded. "Now all they have to do istheir jobs." Too true.

I returned to my bleacher seat for Group 7-12, as this group included notonly Elvis but Fabrizio as well. For awhile I more or less divided my timeequally between them - until something happened that caused Elvis to have myundivided attention for the remainder of the session. He went down, hard, onattempting his triple axel/triple toe combination, sliding right into theboards. After what seemed an eternity, he finally got up and leaned over theboards for several minutes, his right foot lifted. This part of what happenedwas later shown on the NBC broadcast, but contrary to the report given at thattime, he did NOT immediately leave the ice and go straight to therapy. Whatreally happened next was far more extraordinary than that. After the time spentleaning over the boards, he slowly made his way back to his coaches (Doug Leighand Ushi Kessler) at the opposite end of the rink, skating mostly on his leftfoot. Shortly after he reached them, his music was announced and much to myshock it was evident he was going to give it a try, pain in anklenotwithstanding. He took his position on the ice and, of course, first elementup is the combination jump. Not surprisingly, he popped it, but being thein-focus and determined guy he is, he went on. Next comes a complicatedfoot-work sequence, involving quite a bit of skating on his right foot. He wentinto it, then stopped, obviously in pain. But then he started up again, beforeonce more stopping in pain. At that point he looked toward Doug and Ushi andshook his head, then skated back to them. He looked on the verge of tears. Itwas an extremely heart-breaking thing to watch. After spending some time leaningover the boards near his coaches with Ushi patting his arm in sympathy, hestraightened up and I thought surely now he would pack it in. But no, instead heheaded for center ice and went back to work on the combination. The first twoattempts were popped, but finally, on the third try, he hit it, although thelanding on the triple toe was very shaky. With that, the practice session cameto end, along with the most extraordinary demonstration of courage I think I'veever seen. I have always liked and admired Elvis, but today that admiration grewa hundred-fold.

The compulsory dance competition was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. (and lastuntil 5 p.m. - seriously!) and, this being my first Worlds, I contemplateddropping in on it. However, when I visualized watching 33 dance teams skateround the rink however many times they do it and listening to the same piece ofrhumba music 33 times (and then another piece of music - Argentine tango - 33more times) I opted for breakfast.

I returned to the Forum in time to catch Nicole's short program practicesession. Throughout, the Eldredges (plus Todd) sat with the Bobeks to form avigorous support group. It was needed, as this was definitely not one ofNicole's better sessions. During her run-through she crash landed on her triplelutz, but later did land a number of them before the session ended.

After Nicole's session, I contemplated dance compulsories and immediatelymade straight for the Inside Edge and some coffee. I then spent a delightfulafternoon alternating between pairs practices, shopping at the Skating expo andrelaxing at the IE. Lynn finally joined me, having dropped into the compulsories(it was also her first Worlds) and promptly fallen asleep (having had littlesleep lately I immediately regretted my decision not to have gone). However, shedid wake up long enough to see one of Gritschuk/Platov's dances and reportedthat Platov had stumbled. "Never mind," was my response, "they'llwin anyway." (They did.)

We took to the bleachers for the last of the pairs sessions (featuringKovarikova/Novotny) and to claim a good seat for the 4:30 p.m. men's sessions.After we had settled, Ruth and John Eldredge arrived and sat directly behind us.This situation had just registered when suddenly the NBC crew arrived en masse,and sat in front of us, with Greg Gumbel directly in front of Lynn and SandraBezic in front of me. Then Mary Ann Grabavoy arrived, crawled over me and thenover Lynn to sit next to Lynn from which vantage point she would periodicallyshout questions to Sandra over the both of us. I noticed to my surprise (afterwatching Dick Button in action through numerous competitions) that Sandra tookno notes during the session (and judging from the inaccuracies later in some ofher commentaries she probably should have!)

The sessions this afternoon were long program run-throughs and once morebegan with Group 13-18. Aleksei again won the best-dressed award, wearing ashort-sleeved black T-shirt and purple tights with matching skate socks (he doesseem to go to great lengths to be color-coordinated - but with stunningeffect!). This practice session went better for him than others I'd seen, but itwas still not great. I found myself devoting some time to watching Ilia Kulik;my basic conclusion at this point was that although he is a great jumper, hetends to rush whatever moves he makes in between them. Meanwhile, Lynn overheardMrs. Eldredge say that Ilia reminded her of Todd at the same age. Eremenko wasonce again a no-show. Where on earth (or in Birmingham) was the guy - I hadn'tlaid eyes on him since he qualified on Sunday!

The session for Group 19-24 was in some respects for me a repeat of themorning's session. In other words, I spent it with one eye on Scott and one eyeon the Todd and Steven show on the side-lines. Once again, Scott had a miserablepractice and once again, Steven was making it very difficult for Todd to do hiswarm-up exercises (it's difficult to exercise and laugh at the same time).Alexandre Mourashko's long program music being from the Superman soundtrackprovided Steven with a great opportunity for comic pantomime, with the resultthat I found the off-ice entertainment fair superior to the on-ice happenings.

Meanwhile Clive Shorten ended his long program run-through with a jump that Isuppose would have to be called an Arabian but with his feet so far off theground it more nearly resembled a cartwheel and, since it was landed on twofeet, might even be termed a sideways backflip. It was certainly a greatcrowd-pleaser but I couldn't help but wonder if it was legal. Just as I wasthinking this, Mr. Eldredge behind me piped up with "I don't think that'slegal!" As Shorten did this move in the actual competition, it's a goodquestion, but since he ultimately finished so far out of medal contention (19thplace) it was never asked.

During Group 25-30's session, I focused exclusively on Todd. Although today'srun-through was not a repeat of yesterday's perfection, he still managed to sellthe program to the audience in a big way in spite of several mistakes (a doubledtriple toe in the triple flip/triple toe combo, a shaky landing on the tripleloop and a slip on the final double toe/triple toe combo).

I skipped the final two men's sessions so as not to miss the start of thepairs competition. There were 23 pairs scheduled to compete, but two (one of thelesser German teams and the lesser Czech pair) withdrew prior to the competitionas a result of an "accident." At least, that was the announcement. Wenever did hear a report of what happened and could only conclude that there musthave been some kind of practice session collision.

The pairs short program competition left me with several impressions. On thewhole, it was an excellent competition, one of the best I've seen, with all thetop pairs skating well. It was my first opportunity to see Woetzel & Steuerin person and as a result, they have become great favorites. I definitely thinkthey should have won the short program (two of the judges agreed with me);compared with the others, their performance seemed totally effortless and I wassingularly impressed with the way in which they seemed to float over the ice,soundlessly, with great speed and flow. I see a phenomenal future for this pair.Meanwhile, much as I love Eltsova/Bushkov, I was not enamored of their shortprogram - it neither suits them nor really demonstrates what they can do;consequently, with the other top teams all skating well, their SP 4th placefinish was inevitable. The big surprise for me this evening was the French pair,Sarah Abitbol and Stephane Bernadis. I had last seen this couple at the 1993Skate America and to say they weren't very good would be an understatement. Buthave they ever improved in the last year and a half! Pairs have always been theweak link in the otherwise very strong French skating team, but they may well beon the verge of correcting that in a big way.

Following the pairs competition, Lynn and I opted to skip the Metropole andinstead catch the Skatetours shuttle back to our hotel. With the men'scompetition beginning tomorrow and an early morning men's practice, some sleepwas a definite priority.

Wednesday, March 8, 1995

The final men's short program practice sessions began in the Arena at 6 a.m.with Group 1-6. I managed to crawl in by 7:10 a.m., in time for Group 13-18. Iwas sorry to have missed Elvis' group and wondered how he was doing. I had hearda report from someone who'd attended his practice last night to the effect thathe'd not had a particularly good session. But then it was also reported that hewas practicing the quad, so I concluded his ankle couldn't be bothering him thatbadly.

Settling in to watch Group 13-18, I immediately noticed that Eremenko wasonce again a no-show. I was starting to wonder if he was still going to competeor did he just not believe in practicing? To my delight I saw that Aleksei wasattired in navy blue T-shirt, black tights and matching skate socks - I hadfeared that since this was competition day, he would be in full costume.Instead, he left that routine to his fellow countryman. Ilia was positivelyblinding in light blue sequins, and I instantly developed the theory that he wastaking Victor Petrenko as his role-model. As usual with this group I mostlywatched Aleksei, marveling anew at how much I enjoyed watching him skate. He wascontinuing to have problems landing jumps, but now had so much else to offerthat this scarcely bothered me. I used to say of the guy that all he could dowas jump; how ironic if now I found myself having to say he could do everythingBUT jump.

Group 19-24's session was Scott Davis' last chance for a decent practiceprior to the competition. It was not to be. Once more he quit his run-through indisgust at the first mistake, and still looked really tense and worried. I hadnot seen him do a complete run-through or have even a halfway decent practicesince I'd arrived in Birmingham. He was now really running out of time and Ifeared he'd never be able to pull anything off in competition.

When Group 25-30 took the ice my attention was exclusively on Todd. Up tothis point, the short program was not a big worry for me; I figured my nervousbreakdown would come during the long program phase. All that was about tochange. During warm-up and prior to his music coming up, Todd looked relaxed,confident and was skating very well, landing everything. Then his music wasannounced, he took his position, started the program, took off for theall-important opening combination jump - and popped out of it! I went into totalshock - and judging by the expression on his face, so did Todd. I wasn't closeenough to Richard to see his expression, but I'm sure his reaction was similar -but no doubt overcome by the time Todd skated over to him for a lengthyconsultation. I could imagine Richard telling him not to panic (I was busilytelling myself the same - in between asking myself why I hadn't stayed in bedthat morning - ignorance really can be bliss). Ultimately Todd picked up theprogram just before the triple lutz (which he landed beautifully) and ended witha strong finish. He then spent the rest of the session working on thecombination. He had time to land two relatively good ones, but in-between hadone that resulted in his completely falling out of the triple toe. When thesession ended it was 9 a.m. - 5 hours before the start of the competition and 8hours and 7 minutes before Todd was scheduled to take the ice. It was going tobe a very long day.

After a lengthy breakfast, I worked on restoring some kind of sense of calm,basically by wandering around the skating complex, meeting and conversing withpeople. In the process I stumbled upon a fairly reliable source who reportedthat Scott Davis and Kathy Casey were not getting along and in fact were barelyon speaking terms. Regrettable, especially at this time, but not terriblysurprising. I was also completely distracted from my worries by catching sightof Klimova and Ponomarenko (in my skating pantheon, definitely supreme beings!).Having managed so far to avoid much of dance at these Worlds I had no idea theywere coaching Bourne & Kraatz; otherwise I might have been prepared to seethem around and about.

By 2 p.m. as I took my seat for the start of the men's competition, I hadconvinced myself I was perfectly calm and confident. Ha! Ronny Winkler was thefirst to skate, and afterwards, when I took pen in hand to record his scores, Idiscovered to my horror that my hand was shaking so badly I could barely holdthe pen, let alone write! I forged ahead with will, determination and some deepbreathing exercises. Eric Millot fell on his triple flip, a tragedy but notunexpected - the short program always seems to be when he shoots himself in thefoot. As far as I could determine, Elvis skated flawlessly, with no indicationthat his ankle might be bothering him, and giving me an unneeded demonstrationof what a perfectly executed triple axel/triple toe looks like. Shortlyafterward, Aleksei gave a demonstration of one of the ways of screwing up thesame combination; followed soon thereafter by Ilia Kulik's reminding me thateven the greatest jumpers can pop out of that particular combination. (And ofcourse all the while I was thinking back to the Olympics and Brian Boitano'sdemonstration of still another way to blow that all important combo - andeffectively lose all chance of a medal!)

Vassily Eremenko actually skated after Ilia. I had almost forgotten what helooked like, since I hadn't seen him since Sunday afternoon. He didn't look welland I wondered if perhaps illness had kept him from all those practice sessions.Whatever the problem, his performance was lackluster and not very good.

As the afternoon wore on toward the moment of truth, I was finally given onehuge bright moment to lift the spirits - namely, the surprising performance ofScott Davis! I never would have dreamed he could actually pull it off - but hedid. As soon as he hit his opening combination, he broke out into the firstsmile I'd seen on his face all week and from then on, he could do no wrong. Ihave never been a Davis fan, but I found myself participating in a standingovation for him. I have never seen him skate so well.

Scott's skate was followed by an ice-resurfacing preparatory to the finalgroup of six taking the ice. I retreated hastily to the concourse to calm mynerves and engage in a bit of confidence building self-lecturing, and had nosooner arrived at that destination than I connected with the one person in thebuilding I could honestly say was more scared than I was. Todd's mother. Pureserendipity, but just what I needed. I can't exactly recall how it started, butI believe it began with my conveying that I wanted Todd to win as badly as shedid. Between clenched teeth, Ruth replied "I'll just be glad when it'sover." I could relate to that. I responded by pointing out that thedown-side to the great skate order draw was having to sit through 26 skatersbefore it was his turn. She could relate to that. And thus began a conversationthat took me right through the ice-resurfacing interval with the proverbialflying colors. I learned a few interesting things in the process. Regardless ofhow things went with this competition, Ruth was convinced Todd would remain ineligible skating at least through the next Olympics (I desperately needed tohear that one). She was hoping he would keep the Gettysburg program for anotheryear, that there was still a lot of mileage to be got out of it, but didn't knowwhat his decision about that would ultimately be. I learned I had been wrong inassuming Ruth had originally suggested the music (an assumption based on myknowing how much she had liked the movie); in fact, Todd himself found thesoundtrack and furthermore personally selected the portions of it to use for hisprogram (this had also been the case with the selection of the Chaplin music).

By the time I returned to my seat I felt better than I had since 8:30 thatmorning, at least, much less crazed. I managed actually to watch SebastienBritten and then Philippe Candeloro. By the time Todd's program began I was bothfocused and determined (you'd think I was the one doing the skating!). I willadmit that as he went into the combination I was holding my breath, but at thesame time I was shooting a whole series of silent "do its" at him.When he did it, and beautifully, I let out deeply felt "Thank God." -to which Lynn's response was "It's not over yet." Dose of reality,because there still was that triple lutz to get through. If Todd has anythingclose to a consistent problem jump, the lutz is it, although it had presented noproblems in practice that week. And it was the lutz that nearly brought us toruin - but he held onto the landing. If I'd had any lunch to lose, I probablywould have lost it at that point. But finally it was over and the scores wereterrific, with Todd beating Elvis five judges to four.

The rest of the competition could have been quite anticlimactic, but StevenCousins followed Todd with the skate of his life, a skate for which hedefinitely did not get sufficient credit. But it was good to see him skate sowell, and I'm glad he's planning to hang in there. I have definitely become afan.

The competition finally ending with a less than stellar performance fromZago, it was time to head for the Metropole for a celebratory drink. Shortlyafter our arrival in the lounge, Scott entered to a thunderous round of applausefrom those assembled. He looked happy and, for once, really relaxed, with a biggrin on his face. I was delighted for him. Also while we were there, Alekseiarrived, accompanied by Irina Slutskaya, and went over to the information boardto check out the results of the competition just concluded. The two Russiansstood side by side, scanning the posted blue sheet, and then, obviously findingwhat they were looking for, Irina reached out to shake Aleksei's hand. Thehandshake ensued, with the two never taking their eyes off the sheet the wholetime. A moment I would have loved to have captured on videotape!

I probably would have happily stayed in the lounge for hours, basking in theglow of victory, had not Lynn absolutely insisted we depart for the pairsfinals. As we were leaving I caught a glimpse of a grinning Todd in the lobby,attired in suit and tie, accepting congratulations from a small crowd that hadsurrounded him.

Lynn hustled me back to the Arena with the chant, "We can't miss theAustrians!" Now bearing in mind that in the finals of a competition,starting order is based roughly on reverse order of finish after the shortprogram and thus the worst skaters (or should I say the less-talented?) skatefirst, one might wonder why the rush to get to the competition on time. Well, ifit were any of the disciplines other than pairs, the story would be different.While bad dance teams are merely boring and bad singles skaters (unless of thecaliber of the fellow from Mexico and the girl from Hong Kong) mostly justpathetic, bad pair teams are hilarious and therefore, in their own way and ofcourse for totally different reasons, as entertaining as the really good teams.And of course the most entertaining of them will be those who skate in the firstgroup.

As entertainment, the first group of pairs did not disappoint. Definitely ahigh point were the side-by-side traveling sit spins. As the direction of travelwas toward each other, a certain degree of suspense was added with wondering ifthe spins would end before the couple collided. The spins won, but it was close.Then there was the pair with the side-by-side jumps in which the lady waited tosee if the man completed his before she did hers (she did the same thing in theshort program). Add to that a couple of missed handholds (including one that hadthe man grasping air rather than his partner and her standing there outragedwondering what on earth he was doing) and the audience was definitely left institches throughout. With one or two exceptions (notably, the pair fromKazakhstan), the first 3 groups of pairs (9 teams) fell into this category ofcamp entertainment, and included the second and third Canadian teams(Higgins/Rice and Gaylor/Pelletier). If these two teams are an example of whatCanada has on the horizon, then they are certainly in much worse shape than weare pairs-wise, with a successor to Brasseur/Eisler a long way off indeed.

At some point during the competition I became aware that Todd and Scott hadentered the NBC broadcast area to watch the competition and cheer on the hometeams. Michelle and Nicole later joined them, as soon as they were finished withtheir practice sessions at the Forum. Throughout the rest of the week, eachcompetition would find the rest of the U.S. team right there, providing supportfor their colleagues. It was nice to see that although our guys may not be asloud and boisterous as the Canadians, they were by no means lacking in teamspirit. Meanwhile, I noticed Elvis frequently watching events from the CBC area,which area was presided over by broadcasters Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini.I also noted Midori Ito and Yuka Sato presiding over the NHK section, whileIsabelle Duchesnay did broadcasting duty for the French and Robin Cousins didlikewise for the BBC. One entire side of the Arena (over and around the skater'sentrance) was taken up with various broadcasting areas and furnished somethingvery interesting to watch during breaks in the skating action.

With the appearance of the final twelve pairs, the competition turnedserious. The Carrs from Australia led the first group of four, turning in awell-done if not technically difficult program to finish the competition in 11thplace. Menzies/Bombardier, Canada's premier team, followed. This pair hascertainly improved since their dismal finish at the 1994 Skate America; Menziesappears to have lost weight, as well as changed her appearance for a more maturelook. They skated fairly well and managed to hold onto a 10th place finish, thusensuring that Canada would only lose one pair team next year rather than two.Ina and Dungjen followed the Canadians and continued their pattern of aredeeming long program following a disastrous short to finish the competition in8th place. The Ukrainian pair (Beloussovskaya/Potalov) concluded this firstgrouping; the weakest of the top twelve, they do show a certain degree ofpromise and finished the competition in 12th place.

During the ice-resurfacing prior to the performances of the final 8 pairs, Izipped over to the Forum rink to obtain some vital information - namely, whatskate order Todd had drawn for the finals tomorrow night. I was considerablypleased to discover that he had drawn to skate second in his group - afterAleksei and before Philippe. It was a really good position for him. He'd get achance to rest after warm-up, then go out and do his best and then leave therest to the others and to the judges. Meanwhile, Scott would go after Philippe,followed by Elvis. Fittingly, considering where we were, Steven Cousins wouldconclude the competition.

The next group of four pairs was led by the French team, Abitbol/Bernadis. Iwas delighted to find that their short program skate was no fluke; not only hasthis team really improved dramatically, they also show signs of absolutebrilliance, with a great deal of originality and creativity. I look to see greatthings from this team in the future. They finished the competition in 9th place,thus gaining an additional pairs team for France next year (I believe it will bethe first time in many a year that France will have 2 pairs at Worlds - do theyhave another pair, I wonder?)

Meno/Sand followed the French, and I must say that their performance looked awhole lot better on the NBC broadcast than it did to me in person. However, thejudges apparently noticed no problem, because the performance did result inrather high scores.

The third Russian team (Petrova/Sikharulidze) followed, a young but verypromising team on the rise. They skated fairly well (to a 6th place finish) andwere succeeded by Bereznaia/Shliakhov, the infamous Latvians. This is the teamthat will probably one day rule the pairs world, provided they stay together.Since they hardly ever speak to one another (and barely look at each other), itwould appear that they don't get on too well. Right now while they are justlyacclaimed for their spectacular twist throws, they are still relatively youngand inexperienced (she's only 14) and have a lot of difficulty with otherelements in their program. Here they ultimately finished in 7th place.

Regarding the performances of the final four pairs - I was of coursedistressed by Woetzel/Steuer's disaster; but then they are a relatively new pairand they will be back! On the other hand, I was outraged by the scores meted outto Eltsova/Bushkov. Granted their performance was not flawless; yet they werenot given sufficient credit for the technical difficulty of the program theywere doing. And their presentation scores were way too low. As the dismal scoreswere announced, Lynn and I definitely felt out of touch with our immediateenvironment. We were sitting right in the middle of a large block of Americans,all of whom jumped to their feet and roared with excitement at the realizationthe scores meant Jenni and Todd had won the bronze. We, meanwhile, remained inour seats, frowning over our score sheets and saying over and over "It'snot fair, it's not fair!" It's a wonder we weren't lynched! Mind you,ultimately I was happy for Jenni and Todd; however, I still can't shake thefeeling that Eltsova and Bushkov were robbed.

After the medal ceremony, Lynn and I drifted over to the Forum and stayedthere long enough to ascertain that the men had all cancelled out on theirscheduled late night practice session. Not surprisingly, considering thelateness of the hour and considering they had a morning practice session priorto tomorrow night's final. This delay made us somewhat late in reaching theMetropole and upon arrival we discovered that a free table was not to be found.I noticed a very large table area occupied by just two people and thought surelythey don't need all that space and wouldn't mind us occupying the far end. As Iapproached the table, the couple were both turned away from me, talking tosomeone behind them. I had already got their attention and asked and receivedpermission to occupy the desired space before it hit me that I had just askedNatalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin if we could join them. Lynn was looking atme as if to say "I can't believe you just did that" when we werespared potential embarrassment by our friend Dann Bunn's approach with aninvitation to join him and his wife Christina at their table. After a briefmoment's pause so the retreat would not seem too precipitate, we vacated thepremises.

Our new location was next to a table occupied by Menos and Sands, and we werethus afforded a perfect vantage point from which to observe the entrance (tothunderous applause) of Jenni and Todd, followed by a boisterous Meno/Sandfamilies celebration. We had our own celebration, with me basically celebratinghaving survived the day, prior to cabbing it back to our hotel. With the men'sfinals at hand, tomorrow was definitely going to be another hair-raising day.

Thursday, March 9, 1995

Following the short program, the men had once again been regrouped - thistime into the long program skating order. Of the original 30 competitors, thelowest 6 finishers had been dropped; this included Michael Tyllesen, David Liuand the Pole, Robert Grzegorczyk. This left 24, divided into 4 warm-up groups of6 each. A final long program practice was scheduled this morning in the Arena. Imanaged to stumble into the place in time for Group 13-18, a group that nowincluded Ilia, Eric, Zsolt Kerekes and the three Ukrainians. Other than to notethat Eremenko was actually there and that Ilia was once again in full costume, Imainly divided my attention between Zago and Eric. Zago's practice effortsseemed half-hearted at best, and he departed the session early. Eric, on theother hand, looked focused and determined and was the last of the group to leavethe ice. While this session was in progress, I watched Elvis arrive on the sceneand greet Todd with a congratulatory handshake.

The session for Group 19-24, the top guys, was basically an exercise intension and frayed nerves. Everyone looked a bit tense, and no one had whatcould be called a good practice. Uncharacteristically for them, neither Todd norElvis did a complete program run-through, choosing to do selected portionsinstead. Aleksei and Philippe didn't seem to be into it, and both left early,right after their music was finished. And poor Scott met with disaster. I waswatching him when it happened, and I have no idea how it happened, but whileskating forward away from the coaches table he apparently caught an edge andwent down, flat on his back, with such force that when he got up his back wascrusted with ice from neck to heels. It was the worst kind of fall, because itwas unexpected and as a result the kind you can't shield yourself from tominimize the effects. Immediately afterwards he appeared to be favoring hisright leg, as if in pain. My immediate thought was what rotten luck to have sucha thing happen now, when he had done so well yesterday and with the finals thatnight. Prior to leaving the ice shortly before the session ended, he succeededin landing several jumps, but I worried about possible bruising later. [Note:during the NBC broadcast Sandra Bezic reported that Scott had sprained his anklein practice while attempting a jump. Either Sandra has a peculiar notion of whatconstitutes a jump or else she decided that sounded better than announcing hehad sprained his ankle while skating slowly forward!] Meanwhile, Todd, Elvis andSteven stayed until kicked off the ice, determined to get the most out of theirallotted practice time. Both Elvis and Steven were attired nationalistically,with Elvis wearing a black leotard with a huge red maple leaf on the back andSteven in black pants and shirt with WALES printed on the back. By contrast,Todd opted to masquerade as a Frenchman by wearing his old Les Miz costume.

Afterward, I headed to the Metropole lounge for what would probably be myonly meal of the day. While I was there, Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotnyentered, with people gathering around them to offer congratulations. Radka wasstill obviously on the proverbial cloud nine, an uncharacteristic big grin onher face.

The Original Dance competition was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. and, thisbeing my first Worlds, I did feel duty-bound to see the whole thing. A bigmistake which I shan't repeat next year. The competitors had only been pareddown to 30 after compulsories, and that meant 30 versions of the Quickstep tosit through. With the exception of Roca/Sur (skating 10th), staying awake forthe performance of the first 20 teams was a real struggle. I am simply not anice dance fan, and this competition merely confirmed that for me. As a result, Ihave only one comment to make concerning this phase of the competition - Rahkamo& Kokko's performance was awesome!!, and I am hard-put to understand howthat performance could have been placed after the performance ofGritschuk/Platov. (But then, what do I know?)

It was well after 5 before the OD concluded and there really wasn't time todo anything prior to the start of the men's final at 6:30, so Lynn and I hungaround the Arena. While in the Arena lobby we wound up having a fascinatingconversation with an elderly lady from Cincinnati who was a former internationalice dance judge, who was forced to retire when she turned 70 but who is still anactive judge in the U.S. where no such mandatory retirement rule exists. I wasreassured of sanity by her saying that had she been judging this competition,she would have put Rahkomo & Kokko first!

On the way to our seats for the men's final, Christina and Dann encounteredus with the rumor that Scott had sprained his ankle and that it was questionablewhether or not he'd skate. Not the greatest news with which to start theproceedings. However, all things considered, I was feeling fairly calm andconfident.

The competition began with the remaining Japanese, Naoki Shigematsu (theother, and in my opinion, better one - Shin Amano - had been eliminated afterthe short program). An unremarkable performance dropped him from 21st to a 23rdplace finish. Florian Tuma from Austria followed, a young man of whom I hadbecome quite fond during the past week. He can't be more than 16, and I thinkshows a lot of promise. This competition was a real ordeal for him, not theleast because shortly after he began his performance, his boot strap came loose,the audience and judges immediately began yelling at him to stop, and it seemedto take forever for the judges to get his attention. When they did, and it wasfinally pointed out to him what was wrong, he was obviously very embarrassed.The problem rectified, he was allowed to restart his program - to muchencouraging applause from the audience. Unfortunately, Florian finished thecompetition in last place, but considering his youth and inexperience, that hemade it through qualifying and through the short program competition was reallyquite an accomplishment. I certainly hope to see him again in the future.

Fabrizio was next up, and he did not disappoint me. I had been raving allweek to everyone about "my Italian" and it was nice that he lived upto my advertisement. He managed to hang onto his jumps and completely wow thecrowd, skating to music consisting in part of the Warsaw Concerto. As usual, thejudges had a real problem with what do with him (as I've said, you either lovehim or hate him) so his scores were all over the place. The technical scorerange was 4.6 to 5.2., while his presentation scores went from 4.8 to 5.3. Hefinished 20th in both short and long programs, yet finished 21st overall(ordinal placing anomaly again).

Clive Shorten followed. Since I first saw him in the qualifying round I havebeen forced somewhat to revise my opinion of this guy. He still has a very longway to go, but I now see real promise. He has potential to be a greatentertainer, and his footwork ability really is outstanding. I later learnedthat he is being coached by Tamara Moskvina, which explains why I saw herhanging around the mens practice sessions. His performance tonight was goodenough to pull him up from 22nd to a 19th place finish, but I still question thelegality of the Arabian/cartwheel/sideways back flip with which he ended theprogram!

Up next was Ronny Winkler. Choosing to skate to what has to be this (andlast) year's most overused music (Last of the Mohicans soundtrack), henevertheless did an excellent job and finished the competition in 18th place.

Zhongyi Jiao (my Chinese) was the last of this first group to skate. Skatingto the Yellow River Concerto, he did a good job, hanging on to his jumps anddemonstrating great artistry, but losing a bit of stamina towards the end.Another skater to watch for in the future, he finished the competition in 22ndplace.

After the terrific performances of the majority of the first group, the firstthree skaters in the second group were a real let-down. Alexandre Mourashko fromBelarus was first, skating his Superman program. Sloppy and uninspiring, hedropped from 16th to a 20th place finish. The third Frenchman, Thierry Cerez,was next, he who scores well because he is French. Thus in spite of two fallsand a program that was boring, sloppy and colorless, he finished the competitionin 16th place (although dropping down from 13th). Cerez was followed by theequally boring and colorless Markus Leminen from Finland, who does little butjump; but since jump he does he was able to finish the competition in 15thplace.

With the appearance of the Romanian, Cornel Gheorghe, things looked up.Skating to a Glenn Miller medley, he opened with a huge triple axel and went onfrom there to skate rather well and very stylishly. This is a guy it wasdefinitely worth waiting years to see (as I did) and I do hope to see more ofhim in the future. His performance pulled him from 17th to a 13th place finish.

Sebastien Britten followed Cornel, and had a fairly bad time of it, fallingtwice - first on a triple lutz and then on a spin. Following upon an equallydisastrous short program, Sebastien finished the competition in 17th place (areal come-down considering his 8th place finish last year!) There was a certainamount of controversy about this, with the Canadians insisting he was markeddown (and I would certainly question his finishing behind Leminen and Cerez!),but I do think the judges did what they could. His technical scores ranged from4.7 to 5.2, while his presentation scores went from 4.8 to 5.4.

Michael Shmerkin completed the second group with a really good performance,in the course of which he completed two triple axels, to pull himself up from a14th to an 11th place finish.

Following ice-resurfacing, the third group took the ice, led by Ilia Kulik.Skating to a Gershwin medley, Ilia went a long way towards redeeming hisdisastrous short program performance by landing at least 7 triple jumps,including a triple axel/triple toe combination. He still looks very immature,with a tendency to hurry his other moves, but his jumps alone guaranteed hisrise from 11th to a 9th place finish. The big surprise of this competition,Zsolt Kerekes followed Ilia, demonstrating style and presence on the ice andlanding at least 6 triple jumps, including a triple lutz/triple toe combination.He finished the competition in 10th place, thus earning Hungary an additionalskater next year (do they have one, I wonder?)

Eric Millot was next up, and proceeded to my delight to have the skate of hislife. As near as I could determine, he skated flawlessly, landing 7 triplejumps, including a triple lutz/triple toe. His effort was amply rewarded, and hefinished 4th in the long program to pull himself way up from 8th to a 5th placefinish in the competition.

Eric was followed by a Ukrainian triple-header. Dmitri Dmitrenko came first,skating to music I understand he wrote himself. He gave a stylish, very originaland entertaining performance, landing at least 6 triples in the process, andfinished the competition in 12th place. Then came Eremenko, skating his Chaplinprogram, with difficulty. He still didn't look particularly well and it just wasnot his night. But a sense of style, coupled with a technically difficultprogram, still earned him a 13th place finish. Zago finished the trio and thegroup, skating his Sorcerer's Apprentice program. He did hit his tripleaxel/triple toe combination, but fell on his second triple axel, as well assuffering other difficulties along the way. His performance was good enough,however, to earn him a 6th place long program finish and to end the competitionin that same position.

It was finally time for the top six, and other than my stomach brieflyturning over, I was still doing relatively well. During the warm-up, most of theguys looked confident and determined. The exception was Aleksei, who lookedreally tense and nervous. As he would be the first of the group to skate, thisdid not bode well for him. Scott was looking good, with no sign that his anklewas bothering him.

My fear that Aleksei would not fare too well was justified. Although hemanaged to stay on his feet, his opening combination was badly botched and hisperformance over-all was decidedly lacking. He was nervous and it showed.

As Todd was announced, I took a deep breath and leaned forward to give whatwas to follow my undivided concentration. The triple axel/triple toe turned intoa triple/double, not an unusual occurrence as it is rare for Todd to hit bothtriple/triple combos in the same performance, and the combination as executedwas done beautifully. The triple loop, the triple lutz and the tripleflip/triple toe came off with no problems. And then, of course, disaster struckwith the fall on the second, solo triple axel. Later, in an interview, Todd saidthat he had been planning to make up for the earlier missed combination byadding a triple toe to the axel and that "he gave it a little toomuch." This of course I didn't know at the time, but then I had spent allweek witnessing various sorts of Todd triple axel disasters (including two priorfalls) so I was not unduly shocked by this one. Besides, he'd fallen on a tripleaxel before in competition and still won (1994 Skate America) and would do soagain (1995 Los Angeles Pro-Am). So it was by no means over and all that wasnecessary was for him to remain focused and make no further mistakes. The triplesalchow (probably his best jump) came off without a hitch, and we were soonnearing the end of the program. As we were now up by six triples and down bytwo, I quite naturally anticipated that Todd would end the program the way heusually does when he needs to make up for a lost triple - namely by pulling offthe double toe/triple toe combo. This would at least give him seven triples,even if only one was an axel. But when the moment came, the approach seemed allwrong for a toe loop, and then when I realized what he was about to do twothings happened - my heart stopped and my head screamed "You idiot! Whatare you doing?" But he pulled it off and the second triple axel was landed.I was probably one of the first people in the Arena on my feet (if only to keepfrom falling out of my seat onto the floor) and by this time I was vocallyscreaming at him - gushy, awe-struck praise of course.

Philippe was the next to skate, and I'm really sorry I missed hisperformance. Although I was in my seat, I was incapable of focusing on what washappening right in front of me. I was vaguely aware of a great performance thatwas sending Lynn into the stratosphere, but I was far too busy concentrating onrestoring my heartbeat and telling myself to calm down, it was over now, I couldrelax. In other words, I was far closer to collapse than I'd realized.Meanwhile, Philippe concluded his program to thunderous applause and a standingovation.

I achieved my goal of regaining focus in time to concentrate on the nextperformance. I really did want to give Scott my full attention and hopefulthoughts, for all the good it did him. Although he seemed to start off fairlystrongly, once again the steam seemed to go out of him and he wound up landingonly four clean triples. I don't know if the problem with his ankle had aneffect on him, physically or psychologically, but then, unfortunately, whathappened to him in this performance was not untypical of his performance in pastinternational competitions. The ultimate result was his dropping from 3rd to a7th place finish.

Finally it was Elvis' turn. It's really fortunate for me that Todd's chiefrival here should be a skater I really liked, skating to a program I like almostas much as I do Gettysburg. But such is the case, and Elvis' performance tonightwas as awesome as Todd's, and as full of surprises. Ultimately, Elvis simplyoutskated Todd (but only just) and thus his victory was fully deserved.

Steven Cousin's appearance after Elvis as the final skater in the competitionwas not as anticlimactic as you might think, as Steven was the British NationalChampion skating in his home country to a Beatles medley. I had certainly hopedto see him skate better, but unfortunately he took a hard fall on his tripleaxel and ultimately dropped from 6th to an 8th place finish in the competition.He will be back, however, and I certainly look forward to seeing more of him.

I was no means unhappy with the final results of this competition. Of course,if Todd had won the gold I would have been ecstatic, but then I did worry abouthis peaking too soon before the Olympics. There is always next year (althoughif, as planned, we do take the gold we may not get out of Canada alive!) In themeantime, at least we know that Elvis is beatable. After all, the competitionwas close. The decision for Elvis in the long program was by no means unanimous- three of the judges went for Todd, in spite of Elvis' having outtripled him.And the short program results demonstrated that if both skate cleanly, Todd canbeat Elvis. Throughout, it really was a two-man race - Philippe came in adistant third. So all in all I was pretty satisfied with Todd's showing. And, onthe whole, the men's competition was probably the best competition I'd ever seenin terms of good skating, a lot of excitement, and quite a few surprises.

After lingering to luxuriate in the medal ceremony and the sight of anAmerican on the men's podium for the first time in four years (and the last timeit was Todd too!), Lynn and I headed to the Metropole lounge so she could eatand I could get, if not drunk, then happily tipsy. I immediately secured fivebrown ales and lined them up in a row, confident that by the time I got to thelast one it would have been restored to room temperature and thus have the bestflavor. The waiters thought they had a real nut case on their hands (probablytrue, but then I'd been through a lot). When Scott arrived, he looked less thanbuoyant but not totally destroyed. Ultimately, Todd arrived for a late dinnerwith his parents and Richard. It was very nice to sit there, happily consumingmy ale and watching people periodically going up to his table to proffercongratulations. It was 2 a.m. before I got through the last of the bottles(Lynn was most patient!). When we finally left to return to our hotel, Todd wasstill there celebrating (parents and coach having long since sensibly retiredfor the evening). Back in my room, I was still too wired to sleep and was alsoeager to make contact with someone back home, so I called Emma for a highlyextravagant but thoroughly enjoyable hour's chat.

Friday, March 10, 1995

I arrived at the skating complex shortly before the 2 p.m. start of theladies short program competition. I shall limit my comments on that competitionto a few select observations.

Laetitia Hubert definitely seems to have found herself in the last year orso. Her short program performance was very well done, with great spins, speed,and flow on her jumps.

I found Surya Bonaly even more irritating to watch than usual. She positivelysets my teeth on edge. One of the British papers put it quite well when it saidshe skates as if on a pogo stick. Add to that a hand-down on her triple lutz,and her placing ahead of the flawless Michelle Kwan is an utter mystery to me.

Krisztina Czako from Hungary really is a promising skater who needs to learnjump control and to pick up some speed. However, she is a great spinner and isthe first woman I have ever seen do a skid spiral! She bears watching. In thiscompetition, she placed 23rd, barely making the final cut.

Mojca Kopac from Slovenia deserved the questionable music award. She skatedto something that sounded vaguely like the Blue Danube, but as if playing on awarped record. Someone behind me aptly described it as "Blue Danube in aflood." She ultimately placed 29th, and thus failed to reach the final.

Lucinda Ruh belied her qualifying performance by demonstrating that inabilityto land jumps is a universal Swiss problem. She fell twice, but her greatspinning ability and other artistry still kept her in the competition and reallywon over the audience as well. A great example of how artistry can keep you upwhen technique fails you. Although her technical scores ranged from 3.9 to 4.4.,her presentation scores went way up to a range of 4.9 to 5.3. She finished thecompetition in 23rd place, but still made the final cut so we would get to seeher again.

And of course Nicole was brilliant. More need not be said.

As the Free Dance competition began barely an hour after the conclusion ofthe Ladies Short. The dance teams had been pared down (finally) to 24, so Ithought this final phase of the competition would be more watchable. Wrong! Nextyear I definitely plan to save my energy (and brain) for the top ten.

As I appreciate ice dancing as pure entertainment (when it is entertaining)and have no knowledge about its competitive aspects (and no interest inacquiring any), I have few comments to make about the Free Dance competition.There were two couples that were discoveries for me, confirmed by their FreeDance. First was Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz, a couple that had deeplyimpressed me from what I'd seen of them in TV broadcasts. In-person experiencemerely confirmed the impression. And then there was Anjelika Krylova and her newpartner, Oleg Ovsiannikov. Their Free Dance was spectacular (a pity NBC chosenot to show it), and all the more amazing considering how short a time thecouple has been together. I thought they were grossly undermarked for it (butthen, what do I know?) Meanwhile, much as I love Moniotte & Lavanchy, Ireally think their Free Dance this year did not suit them and do hope theyreturn to the more traditional style they do best. And finally, I don't careabout the criteria or what the hell judges look for or are supposed to look for(nor do I care, mind you), but no one shall ever convince me that Gritschuk& Platov are a better dance team than Rahkomo & Kokko!

Not wishing to stick around for the coronation (otherwise known as the medalceremony), Lynn and I left immediately after the final scores (for Bourne &Kraatz) were posted. This way we were also able to exit the Arena with speed,unhampered by the usual mass of departing crowd, and make our way totallyunimpeded to the Metropole lounge for a late dinner. On our way, we stoppedbriefly at the information table in the lobby to pick up Ladies Short Programresults and the skate order for tomorrow's final. In the process, Lynn paused topick up a yellow sheet from a huge stack of such sheets. When we reached ourtable, she presented me with the yellow sheet and kept insisting that what shehad were the Ice Dancing Final Results. I spent some time (prior to doing thesensible thing - namely look at the sheet!) arguing with her that that wasabsolutely impossible. The final scores of the competition had been announcedbarely ten minutes ago, the Medal Ceremony was still in progress, and even giveninstantaneous computer print-outs, the yellow sheets were produced at theadministration headquarters back at the Exhibition Centre and there was no way astack of them could have reached the information table in the hotel before wedid (assuming, of course, they were not teleported there). I am making nocharges, here, mind you, I am merely stating what happened.

As we made our way through dinner, the Lounge filled up with a crowd of menand women in fancy attire, very loud and boisterous. We later learned they werea group of insurance salesmen, at the hotel for some kind of banquet. Meanwhile,Richard had taken up a position at the table next to ours, and I was fairlyconfident that sooner or later Todd would appear. He did, and later I had achance to have a brief chat with him. After I had offered my congratulations onhis medal, I was unable to get him to promise that he would keep Gettysburg nextyear. He had still to give it a lot of thought, but said if he didn't keep it hewould choose something similar. He also hadn't decided what he would beperforming on tour.

Lynn and I managed to tear ourselves away from the action (and noise) by 2a.m. so as to obtain some sleep prior to the final day of competition.

Saturday, March 11, 1995

I arrived at the skating complex at about 11 a.m., and upon entering thelobby between rinks was instantly nabbed by an ISU representative and set downfor an interview. He had a whole survey of questions to ask me and I was all toohappy to oblige. After ascertaining that I was a fanatic skating fan and that myfavorite event was the men's competition, we got down to weightier questions,among them, would I be interested in a quarterly ISU publication (of course Iwould) and then, would I be interested in acquiring a videotape of highlightsfrom the past season? The silliness of this latter question prompted a smalldiatribe from me concerning the relative scarcity of pre-recorded videosavailable to the fan and that the ISU was thereby missing out on a goldenopportunity to raise money (if by chance they were interested in such a thing -since his eyes lit up at the mention of the word, I assume they are). I thoughtit ridiculous that no videotapes of the present competition would be available.He tried to counter with saying he thought no one would be interested becauseeveryone could tape the event themselves, to which I responded nonsense andbesides, if that were a concern, they could always forbid videotaping during thecompetition (as is done in the States). I do hope I made some sort of impressionon the man.

The ladies final would not begin until 1:30. The reason for my early arrivalat the complex was, of course, to catch the men's exhibition practice in theForum. The top five finishers in each discipline were scheduled to participate,so in the case of the men this meant Elvis, Todd, Philippe, Aleksei and Eric,plus Steven who, as home champion, would be giving a special performance. Ericwas a no-show today as was Philippe (no surprise there - Philippe practice foran exhibition? No way!) So the practice ice was left to Todd, Elvis, Steven andAleksei. Todd was the first out and noticing a huge pile of ice left behind bythe departing Zambonis, he skated over to it and started trying to remove itwith the blade of his skate. Just then, Steven arrived on the scene, dashed overto Todd and the ice, and obviously saying something like "Oh, that'll taketoo long," proceeded to pick up a handful to drop over the side of theboards. Todd followed suit, then on the second ice-run, Steven began throwingbits of ice at Todd and soon a small "ice-ball" fight ensued betweenthe two. The competition was over and it was definitely time to play! Soonafter, Elvis came out and he and Steven (great friends and now training partnersin Canada) devoted themselves more to play than practice, leaving Todd trying tohave a serious practice session. Not easy, with the guys racing around the rink,trying to rope him into their games. I kept watching Todd at this point in thewarm-up, trying to ascertain from his moves what his exhibition program wouldbe, and to my delight soon saw unmistakable signs of Gethsemane emerging.

Meanwhile, as Elvis and Steven were cutting up and Todd was trying dutifully(and often failing) to remain serious, in another corner of the ice Aleksei wasall alone, trying to master a new exhibition program. The attempt turned into atragi-comedy on a grand scale. Poor Aleksei was ending a dismal week with aneven more dismal exhibition practice. The program was called "Dream of theHarlequin" and involved use of a cape, white with large buttons (resemblinga clown suit) on one side, red (resembling a matador's cape) on the other. Hespent some time prior to the start of his music adjusting the cape on hisshoulders; then when this extremely bizarre music started (sounding like eithera warped record or a record played backwards) he began to skate. And of courseat the first jump the inevitable happened. He jumped and the cape flew rightover his head - and stayed there. Totally blinded, he still managed to come downon his feet, but the audience couldn't avoid cracking up. After skating to aneternity of warped music, the cape finally came off and the Carmen Toreador songcame up (played normally, thank goodness) with Aleksei now using the cape toimitate a Matador's action. Then the cape was dropped while he skated around itand I worried that one of the other guys might skate over it. Aleksei thenproceeded to skate into a triple axel that ended with him on his backside;followed shortly thereafter with a series of Arabians that ended with the sameresult. At the second fall, the poor guy just sat there on the ice, literallysputtering with anger, with something coming out of his mouth that could onlyhave been a whole series of Russian expletives. When he finally got to his feet,to skate back to his coach in total disgust, it was to a round of appreciativeapplause from the audience which, I fear, did absolutely nothing to lift hisspirits. Surprisingly enough, although he had just managed to make a total foolof himself, he did so in such an incredibly charming manner that my opinion ofhim went up yet another notch. Shortly thereafter he left the ice, lookingtotally demoralized.

At some point during the session Steven took a bad fall (I believe hetripped), face forward onto vital parts, producing first a gasp and then atitter from the crowd. Steven, being Steven, played up the incident for all itwas worth - shouting out to everyone not to worry, he was all right - and doingso in a falsetto voice!

Todd had a really good run-through of Gethsemane (the high point of my day!)and then later tried to leave the ice, only to find his way blocked by Elvis andSteven. Looking very conspiratorial, they started talking at him, furiously,obviously trying to talk him into something. What are those nuts up to?, Iwondered. Todd shook his head, trying to resist. They persisted. Finally, Toddgave in, realizing no doubt that they wouldn't let him leave until he did. Thethree immediately began racing around the rink, Steven leading the way, followedby Elvis and then Todd. After about four such circuits, they headed side-by-sidestraight down the length of the rink and concluded by going into body-slides.Todd is of course a master at such a move; Steven showed he wasn't too bad atit; but Elvis' body is just not built for a slide. In his case, what we got wasmore like a body roll. It was very funny. By this time there was a substantialcrowd in the Forum (I estimate as many as 900, mostly composed of people killingtime while waiting for the Ladies Final) and the guys managed to bring the housedown (as I'm sure Elvis and Steven knew they would!).

Once again, I shall confine my remarks concerning the ladies final to a fewselect observations. It was announced at the start of the competition that TanjaSzewczenko (who'd had a fairly disastrous short program performance, finishingin 11th place) had withdrawn. We learned later it was because of injury. Withsix of the seven lowest scorers of the original 31 being eliminated (JennaArrowsmith was the 7th), Jenna added and then Tanja withdrawn, this brought thenumber of competitors to 24.

Skating third, Lucinda Ruh once again wowed the audience while at the sametime evidencing continuing jump landing problems; she ultimately pulled herselfup from 23rd place to an 18th place finish.

Of the first 13 skaters, the really stand-out performance was delivered byHanae Yokoya of Japan, who landed 7 clean triples and would have been a seriousmedal contender had she not been handicapped by a 16th place finish after theshort program. She shows promise of being Japan's next female superstar, and hereffort earned her an ultimate 10th place finish. Thankfully so, since it wouldbe a shame if Japan could only send one lady next year. Junko Yaginuma is notfar behind Yokoya in talent (and finished in 12th place) and Kumiko Koiwai alsoshows great promise.

Irina Slutskaya suffered a fall but otherwise skated well enough to pullherself up from 12th place to a 7th place finish. On the other hand, MarinaKielmann had what had to be the most disastrous performance of her career. I'veseen her suffer disaster in the past, but nothing on the order of this. Ihonestly lost track of how many times she fell; I believe it was at least fourtimes, beginning with her very first jump. After the second fall, she reallybecame rattled and from then on, only seemed to go through the motions. She hadnot had a great short program (finishing in 9th place), but this performancedropped her all the way down to 13th place. What a horrible comedown after her4th place finish last year. As a result of this, Tanja's withdrawal and SimoneLang's 17th place finish, it was not a good year for Germany. Next year theywill only be able to send one lady (no doubt it will be Tanja and she will haveto go through qualifying).

In total contrast to Marina's disaster, Laetitia Hubert had the skate of herlife. I was certainly right in thinking she has finally pulled it together.Suddenly she has a focus, confidence and determination (and a maturity!) I havenever seen her have before. Tonight she skated beautifully and flawlessly.Albeit her program was not as technically difficult as that offered by the othertop ladies, what she did she did well and sold in full measure to the audience.I could not resist participating in a standing ovation for her. I just love itwhen a skater finally puts it all together!

She very deservedly ended the competition in 6th place.

Laetitia's teammate, Marie-Pierre Leray, followed her and must have absorbedsome of her aura, because she too had what was for her a very good performance;Marie-Pierre is another one of those skaters who has a tendency to do a decentshort program and then completely blow the long. Not today. This performance wasgood enough to allow her to hold on to her 8th place position.

I was not terribly surprised that Nicole's nerves apparently got the betterof her during her performance. She certainly never expected to be in first placegoing into the final, and I imagine the pressure of that and the thought shemight actually win the thing got to her. Right now she just doesn't have theexperience to handle it. On the other hand, I certainly am proud of what she diddo. The technical difficulty of her program (not to mention landing a triplelutz/triple toe!) combined with her artistry ensured that she would stillachieve fairly high scores - which of course she did.

I must admit I was frankly terrified that Nicole would win the gold at thisevent (given Bonaly's notorious inconsistency and Lu Chen's not being her usualself this week). It would have been way too soon and might well have ruined her.Consequently, I found myself really rooting like crazy for Lu Chen for reasonsother than my liking for her. On the whole, I was quite happy with the finalresults of the competition - a bronze was just what I'd hoped to see. And I wasgratified to see during the medal ceremony that Nicole herself looked prettyhappy with the result.

With no events scheduled for that evening, Lynn and I decided to treatourselves to a leisurely dinner in the Metropole restaurant; but it still beinga tad early for dinner, we decided to pause in the Lounge first for a couple ofbefore dinner drinks. On the way through the lobby we passed by Victor Petrenko,Oksana Baiul and company (namely, Nina Petrenko and Galina). Lynn hadencountered them earlier in the day, checking out of our hotel in the city, andhad warned me that Oksana looked about 25 years old. Now I could see that shehad not exaggerated; Oksana did indeed look quite mature, in full make-up andwearing 3-inch (?) spiked heels. The effect was slightly spoiled, however, byher carrying a large stuffed animal under her arm, no doubt a gift from a fanshe had encountered sometime during the day.

Shortly after we'd settled ourselves in the Lounge, Lucinda Ruh entered,accompanied by two ladies who could only be chaperones. I instantly went on redalert - or I should say, Swiss alert, mindful of an as yet unaccomplishedmission I had promised to undertake for my friend, Emma Abraham. At the 92Worlds in Oakland, Emma had discovered Patrick Meier and had taken a picture ofhim that she now wished me to present to him. His failure to qualify had put adent in what I had thought would be ease in accomplishing this task, as I wasthen deprived of a week's worth of practice sessions during which I could learnto identify him off the ice and then later pounce with gift. However, I had notyet given up hope. After claiming a table in the lounge, Lucinda bounced offleaving the ladies at my mercy. Figuring I had nothing to lose and this might bemy last chance, I made my way over to the table and politely asked the ladies ifby chance they were with the Swiss delegation (I do work in Washington, D.C.,after all, and am thus conditioned to think "delegations" rather than"teams). Ascertaining that yes, they were, I then asked if Patrick Meierwas still in Birmingham. Yes, he was. I then produced the picture and asked thelady who'd been doing all the answering if she could give it to him. Once sheunderstood that the picture was intended as a gift for Patrick from a fan in theUnited States she absolutely insisted I present it to him in person, asuggestion I welcomed as I could then tell Emma that I had personally placed theitem in the hands of the intended recipient. The lady said she was scheduled tomeet Patrick in the lobby in half an hour and could I meet her there at thattime. I agreed.

Half an hour later, the lady met me in the lobby with profuse apologies.Patrick had been delayed, she explained, because Philippe Candeloro had calledsome kind of skaters meeting and he was still in that meeting. She promised,however, that as soon as he appeared she would bring over to my table in theLounge. Returning to our table, I explained to Lynn that our dinner would bedelayed and why. Lynn was slightly put out with me that I had neglected to askthe lady why Philippe had called a meeting - what could be the purpose of it? Idefended myself by saying the purpose of the meeting was scarcely relevant tothe situation with Patrick (and none of my business), but informed her thatwhatever it was about, it was apparently of no interest either to Elvis or toEric, as both those fellows were in the lobby at the time I was with my Swisslady friend and thus not at the meeting.

After another 20 minutes or so, I spied the Swiss lady making her way towardsus, accompanied by a very charming young man who could only be Patrick Meier.When I presented him with the picture it was hard to tell what overwhelmed himthe most - the picture or the news that he had a dedicated fan in the UnitedStates who had followed his career for the last three years. When I mentionedI'd seen his qualifying performance, he quickly said "I wasn't verygood." I hastened to reassure him, saying I thought he was very goodindeed, with a lot of wonderful qualities. We discussed the upcoming Worlds inSwitzerland, with my saying how much I looked forward to visiting their countryand the lady saying that the competition site was at a really beautifullocation. They then overwhelmed me by presenting Lynn and me (and Emma) withSwiss Team pins. Our visit concluded with my saying I hoped to see Patrick nextyear in Edmonton, and the Swiss lady saying quite decisively "He'll bethere!"

After a dinner that fully lived up to our high expectations for it, Lynn andI opted for a final after-dinner drink in the Lounge, after which we had everyintention of retiring early for a real night's sleep. Of course we didn't makeit. Meanwhile, the skaters were having a disco party in a room right off thelobby, with a natural spill-over into the Lounge. For some reason, the French inparticular seemed to be all over the place.

With all that was going on, not surprisingly it was once again 2 a.m. beforewe were able to tear ourselves away for the journey back to our hotel.

Sunday, March 12, 1995

Exhibition practice sessions were scheduled to take place in the Arena thismorning and were supposed to be closed to the public, but Christina, Dann and Imanaged to sneak in and catch about 20 minutes of the men's practice before wewere ejected. During this period Todd and Steven had the place to themselves,although Aleksei and Eric arrived as we were leaving. There was no sign ofPhilippe (of course) nor of Elvis. The session began with Steven lying flat onhis back on the judges' table, to widespread laughter from the audience. He wasthen asked to test the microphone, as he would be needing to use it during hisperformance. This was a big mistake - giving a microphone to Steven Cousins isroughly equivalent to handing a homicidal maniac a gun. You are asking fortrouble. And sure enough, Steven was delighted with his new toy and once he hadascertained it was in perfect working order, he wouldn't give it back. Insteadhe skated around with it, testing out various settings - falsetto, bass -entertaining the audience. Meanwhile, of course, poor Todd was once again tryingto have a serious practice session, but discovering that it is very difficult tojump and laugh at the same time. At one point, after watching Todd skate forawhile and seeing he was about to go into a jump, Steven said brightly"Jump, Todd." A short time later, Todd came out of a lutz landing tofind Steven waiting for him with the microphone and the question - in falsetto,"How did your lutz feel?" Whereupon, finding the microphone thrustunder his nose, Todd got into the spirit of the moment by taking the microphoneand responding - also in falsetto "It felt marvelous!" Mostdefinitely, should Steven Cousins ultimately fail as a skater he could easilyhave another career as a stand-up comedian.

After ejection from the Arena, I made my way to the Metropole for a leisurelybreakfast. Afterwards, with a couple hours remaining before the start of theGala Exhibition, I took advantage of the time to retreat to the Lounge to catchup on my notes, stopping enroute to acquire a batch of Sunday papers to extractand read what little there might be concerning the previous day's competition.Coverage in the British press had been amazingly meager all week, even in thelocal Birmingham Post. You would think the presence of a World Championshipwould be a big deal in a country, and especially in a city, but apparently itwasn't. And, of course, Nicole's legal problems back home had received aninordinate amount of attention. Today the papers were finally forced (by heroutstanding performance yesterday) to take notice of Michelle Kwan; so of courseone of the London papers immediately decided to paint a good girl/bad girlscenario, hoping no doubt to try to promote a recreation of the Nancy/Tonyasaga.

The Gala Exhibition that afternoon was a nice, if as always bittersweet, wayto end the week. I had spent a great deal of time raving to all those I knew whohad not been in Providence about Nicole's Circle of Life program; and sheperformed that same number so well here that numerous people afterward told me Ihad not exaggerated in my raving. Ditto Todd's Gethsemane program, for those whohad not previously had the privilege of seeing it in person (and NBC's decisionto "chack" it makes no sense whatsoever!).

And then there was poor Aleksei. The best that can be said for hisperformance is that he managed to stay on his feet. However, the cape again flewover his head when he jumped, the weird music sounded even worse in the Arenaand I had at least three people ask me (I guess because they knew I was a fan)in all seriousness if he had lost his mind (had a fourth place finish totallyunhinged him?) For the sake of his reputation, I am truly glad this performancewas not shown on the NBC broadcast. I hope never to see it again. I do wishsomebody out there would take this poor boy by the hand, tell him to lose theprops (and the god-awful costumes!), just skate, and please, please, please,save the experiments with the avant-garde until after he has established areputation as a truly accomplished skater!

After the Gala, Lynn and I headed straight back to our hotel to pack and toparticipate in a farewell banquet for our Skatetours group. It was off for homeearly the next morning and the end of a fabulous week of adventure.

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