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Inside Olympic Sports
While Michelle Kwan soared at the figure skating nationals, the men hit the deck By E.M. Swift
Eldredge fared almost as badly. Coming back after a two-year hiatus from Olympic-style competition, the 29-year-old former world champ botched the combination jump in his short program, then doubled four planned triple jumps in the freestyle and tripled a quad. Such a collection of gaffes should have dropped him from contention, but amid this nightmare on Causeway Street it was judged to be the second-best skate of the night. "I'm just happy I got out alive," Eldredge said, echoing the sentiment of the 15,173 spectators. The champion of this Boston Ass-Over-Teakettle Party? Twenty-year-old Goebel, who won his first U.S. crown despite muffing two landings in his short program and then falling in Saturday afternoon's freestyle on one of his three quads. The so-called King of Quads -- Goebel has landed 27 in competition -- did complete one four-revolution jump cleanly and doubled another. That made him one-for-three on the night, a good batting average in baseball. It's not exactly the recipe for success in skating, however, especially for Goebel, who has issues in the area of artistry. His posture is hunched, his stroking unsightly, and his spins resemble the last go-rounds of a wobbling coin, and that's after improving in those areas since switching to Frank Carroll, Michelle Kwan's coach, last summer. "This was not our best night," Goebel said, "but as Frank tells me at least once a week, 'It's not the perfect skater who wins, it's the best one.'" That would have been Kwan. The 20-year-old UCLA sophomore survived a bobble early in her free skate to hold off an amazing field of women and win her fifth title in six years. Behind her, Sarah Hughes, 15, Angela Nikodinov, 20, Jennifer Kirk, 16, and Amber Corwin, 22, all skated brilliantly under pressure. Kwan was still queen, however, reeling in nine perfect 6.0s for presentation from the judges, including seven after her short program, which was as close to a perfect 2:40 of skating as you'll see. Unfortunately, on Saturday night, early in her freestyle program, Kwan ratcheted back a planned triple toe-triple toe combination into a disappointing double-double. Kwan has done this far too often. While it hardly matters when she skates before a panel of U.S. judges, who value her artistry above all else, Kwan should know that international judges expect more athleticism. Twice already this season she has lost to Russia's Irina Slutskaya, who lands triple-triple combinations with ease and will stand between Kwan and her first Olympic gold medal. "I'm pretty disappointed I didn't do the triple-triple," Kwan said. "I've been working really hard at it, and it's been going well in practice, but when it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. What can I say? It's back to the rink." Stand out of the way, boys. In fact, wait until they send in the clowns. Issue date: January 29, 2001
For more Inside Olympic Sports see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, January 24. Click here to subscribe to SI.
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