Competitive events finished up here today (Saturday) with the Junior Dance free dance and the Senior Men and Senior Ladies free skating. The men's event while exciting did not finish up much different than expected, but the ladies event was a real shocker. Tomorrow is the exhibition, and then off to the next stop - Hamilton, Ontario and the Champions Series final.
In winning the ladies event, Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest U.S. National Champion, and with Todd repeating as National Champion their coach, Richard Callaghan repeats as one of only two coaches to have both the ladies and men's champion in the same year. Lipinski also enters the record book as the first U.S. lady to land triple loop - triple loop in competition.
Michael Weiss attempted quad toe loop, but the video replay shows it was two-footed. That one does not go into the record book.
We regret getting postings up slower than previously. The USFSA does not support on-line services in the press room which required doing uploads from our hotel. As the week progressed the schedule did always allow enough time to return to the hotel during the day to service the site. . The crappy connection to our service provider via Sprint, and outages by our service provider didn't help either. We expect less of a problem in Canada at the end of the month, where the CFSA is much more cooperative in aiding the media.
Following several days of speculation, it was announced early today (Friday) that Sydne Vogel has withdrawn from the ladies event due to an injury - described alternately as severe shin splints or a small stress fracture. This should take some of the edge off the event since Vogel was the only skater who was viewed as having a chance to knock one of the reigning medalist out of the top three spots.
The Tonya Harding alleged kidnapping attempt is viewed by most here as a twisted attempt to get publicity and perhaps a reaction to her being turned down in her attempt to be allowed to skate for Norway. Won't everyone feel pretty stupid if it turns out she is telling the truth.
The trade show is a bust, with foot traffic down due to the terrible location, and business off. Workman continue their efforts to complete the building. In another month it may actually be ready for this event. Also causing an amusing stir is the nude photo spread of a recently retired pairs skater in a gay porno magazine.
All in all it has been a well run competition thus far, better than most, and a great improvement over San Jose. For the most part, the people in the arena are certainly a lot more helpful and a lot more friendly.
Tickets went on sale here for 2000 Nationals in Cleveland. An All-Event ticket and an Exhibition ticket in the lower bowl will cost a total of $570, versus $425 here and in Philadelphia. SHOW ME THE MONEY!
The size of the events here is a record. Before Vogel withdrew, 21 ladies were set to compete. In the absence of byes there should only be 13 entrants in an event, which is just about right, since eight of the ladies really cannot skate at the senior level. With so many byes to the better skaters, the third and fourth place finishers at sectionals who qualify for Nationals are pretty sad. If USFSA cannot get the bye situation under control - it has tried many times and failed - maybe Nationals should adopt the practice used at Worlds and only allow the top 12 entrants after the short program and original dance to skate the free skate and free dance in the final round. This would greatly streamline a bloated and exhausting event, and would not deny any competent skater the chance to win a medal.
Competition continued with the opening parts of two more events - the junior men's short program and the senior pairs short program - and the second part of the senior ice dance event - the original dance. The junior men were a bit of a snooze a times, and the original dances for the most part weren't (original, that is), but the senior pairs short program was a different story. There was some fine skating, a few surprises, and 8 of 15 teams attempted side-by-side triple jumps including triple toe loops, triple Salchows, and triple loops.
The opening ceremony was one of the better one to be seen at Nationals in several years. It began with a 30 minute number consisting of local skaters performing to a comteporary peice of classical music. It was followed by two numbers by the country western band Diamond Rio, who were joined in the second number by a local gospel choir. Not only could the featured skaters actually skate, but we were spared the usual insipid synchronized skating routine. By the end of the show the arena was rockin.
The ladies' practices gave some further insight into what to expect this week. Tonia Kwiatkowski looks hot - and her skating is pretty good too. Vogel looks a little under the weather and not very happy. Bobek is struggling badly. She seems to have triple toe and triple Salchow but is not doing too well with triple flip or triple Lutz. I don't think this is going to be pretty.
With the men, Allen is looking good as are Hollander, Weiss, and Goebel, while Chack and Zivanovic are struggling. Clark is reportedly planning a triple Axel - triple loop combination for this week
. Coming into Nationals there was some indication that the USFSA might not send a full compliment of skaters to Worlds in order to maximize our potential to send skaters in 1998 under the new point system that determines entires to Worlds. Today USFSA President, Morry Stillwell, announced that all skaters eligible to go will be sent.
The trade show is in its second day, and as was the case last years people are not happy. It is located in an out of the way unfinished room with poor lighting and worse traffic flow. The vendors, who paid about $3000 each to be there are hurting. There is plenty of room out in the main concourse, but only official souvenir stands and association marketing booths have been set up there. Petitions are being circulated to protest this situation, but we suspect they will have little effect. Our take on this is that the organizers have adopted the motto from Jerry Maguire ("SHOW ME THE MONEY!").
The first events to be held in the new Nashville Arena were held today with the junior pairs and junior ladies short programs taking place this afternoon, and the senior compulsory dances this evening. The arena is so new that not only is the paint barely dry, in many areas there is no paint at all. The arena is like most modern arenas, large, open, and well lit with a good quality ice surface. The seating area is mainly unfinished (as in unpainted) concrete with cheesey plastic seats, while elsewhere the building looks like it was thrown together at the last minute - which it was to a large extent, to get ready for this event, the first large event to be held in the building.
Thusfar events have been running smoothly with nary a controversy to enjoy. The rumor mill has it that Vogel may be ill and is not at 100%. If true, she has three days to get it together. Bobek appears to have a tough row to hoe. She has not had many competition opportunites this season and her training has been sporadic. While she may be able to hold on in the short program, it seems she will have a hard time keeping a spot in the top five by the end of the week. But time will tell.
The 1997 U. S. National Championships kicked off this weekend (8-9 Feb.) with the novice and figure events. These events were held in two satellite arenas. Figures and the novice singles events were held in the Municipal Auditorium, an older arena with seating for about 6,000, while the novice pairs and dance took place in a modern recreational sports complex which includes a rink with seating for 700, and which is the home ice for the Nashville Figure skating club. Both facilities were clean and well lit, and except for the few minor delays one would expect from time to time at a large skating competitions the events at these arenas ran smoothly.
Due to the limited seating in the satellite arenas, the LOC decided to withhold tickets to these events from the All Event ticket holders, and to charge an addition admission fee to these events on a first-come-first-served basis. It also appears that the pairs and dance events were held in the arena with the smaller seating under the assumption that there would be less demand for these events. On this count they were wrong. On both Saturday and Sunday the dance and pairs event were well attended with the arena comfortably full at nearly total capacity. The singles events, in contrast, were not nearly as well attended with the arena mostly empty. It would appear that the LOC's fear of having inadequate seats in the Municipal Auditorium led to their making no effort to fill the seats, and as a result the arena instead ended up mostly empty. Unlike at Nationals in recent years, no attempt was made to bring in school classes or other groups to give the novices an audience, and to use the novice events to promote skating local interest in skating - a great opportunity missed.
Compared with the last few years, the schedule this year is almost leasurely. Breaking out the figures and novice events on the opening weekend is looking to be a good idea depite a few shortcoming in its implementation here. One aspect of this we particularly like is that there were few cross-scheduled events - the only exception being the figure events scheduled against the compulsory dances. Next year this will not be an issue as in the future figures will not be held in conjunction with this competition.
Today (Monday) is a day of practice only for the juniors and seniors, with competitive events begining again in the new Nashville Arena tomorrow.