But last year the rules changed. Compulsory figures, those slow-motion tracings of eights and other shapes, were eliminated. TV networks had tired of paying big bucks for a sport that was being decided prematurely by some arcane off-the-air competition. The more exciting and unpredictable free skating, featuring increasingly difficult jumps, became the key competition. As a result, the 1991 U.S. championships produced three first-time winners in the four major events. “There are a lot of wild cards out there,” said Paul Wylie, a 1988 Olympian. “Nobody is a shoo-in in this sport anymore.”
That was the case in Orlando, Fla., last week, when four new national champions were crowned at the 1992 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Each winner was guaranteed a place on the U.S. Winter Olympics team that will compete next month in Albertville, France. As important, each also took another leap toward the lucrative endorsements and skating exhibitions that come with fame on ice. In the women’s finals, defending world titlist Kristi Yamaguchi of Fremont, Calif., glided past defending U.S. champ Tonya Harding. And Christopher Bowman took the men’s title against a field weakened by the absence of two-time men’s champ Todd Eldredge, who withdrew because of a lower-back injury.
Skating’s perennial bad boy, Bowman arrived in Florida with his third coach in less than two years and his reputation for undisciplined training intact. But Bowman also has a reputation for delivering clutch performances, and he skated an unusually conservative program to reclaim the title he won in 1989. “We want to peak in Albertville,” he said, explaining why he didn’t cut loose in his routine until the final moments. Paul Wylie, no shoo-in, finished second and won an Olympic spot, too.
The best surprise of the week was the pairs triumph of the blue-collar tandem of Calla Urbanski and Rocky Marval. Urbanski, at 31 twice as old as some of her rivals, didn’t begin skating pairs until the age of 23, didn’t reach the championships until 26 and only paired up with Marval her sixth partner, 17 months ago. Marval owns a small New Jersey trucking firm and Urbanski supports herself as a waitress. She vowed, gold medal in hand, to return to the tables before next month’s Olympics because the tips should be bigger. “There are a lot of people who’ll be thanking me for showing that you don’t have to quit when you’re 18,” said Urbanski. Another who didn’t quit was ice-dancer April Sargent-Thomas, who had emergency surgery for a ruptured ovarian cyst just 16 days before her event. But on Friday, Sargent-Thomas and her partner, Russ Witherby, won their first-ever gold after three successive second-place finishes.
In the women’s finals on Saturday night, the contest was decided by leaps and landings. Yamaguchi, best known for her delicate artistry, made all seven of the triple jumps that punctuated her program. “This was the best I’ve ever skated at the nationals,” she said later. Harding, suffering from an injured right ankle, fell during her first attempt at a triple. She got up and kept skating, but had clearly lost her chance at retaining the national title. When the competition ended, she ranked third. “I thought I could do everything,” she said tearfully after leaving the ice. “But it didn’t work out that way.” Second place went to Nancy Kerrigan, a very elegant skater with arms like the wings of a swan. She made no major errors, and added an unexpected triple jump to make up for her minor mistakes. All three will compete at the Olympics.
Off-ice, drama built all week. The injury list for the finals was as long as either of the weekend’s NFL championship games. Eldredge stunned his competition by pulling out at the last minute. His coach immediately began lobbying-ultimately successfully-for a waiver that would place last year’s world bronze medalist on the Olympic team. Bowman also detailed some recent injury woes. His problems stemmed not from skating, but, as he tells it, from a bizarre street mugging in Toronto last year. Bowman politely answered questions about that incident, rumors of drug use and even reports that he bleached his hair blond. (It was dark for the finals.) His new coach, John Nicks, pleaded for questions about “Christopher’s triple axel,” the most difficult triple jump which, as it turned out, Bowman never attempted last week.
Reporters always ask Bowman personal questions. But for Harding, it was a new and unpleasant experience-the result of a Sports Illustrated story last week headlined NOT YOUR AVERAGE ICE QUEEN. It detailed Harding’s troubled upbringing (Harding’s father, her mother’s fifth husband, rarely earned more than $5 an hour and was frequently unemployed), her parents’ divorce, her estrangement from her mother, a sexual attack on her by her stepbrother right on through her recent separation amid allegations of abuse, and reconciliation with her husband of just 22 months. She effectively changed the subject by telling a crowded press conference, “My life is going really well. I’m really happy. I’m here to talk about my skating.”
For all the effort in Orlando, none of the American figure skaters will go to Albertville as an Olympic favorite. The Soviet pairs have long been dominant, and France’s best hope for a gold medal rides with the ice-dancing team of Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay. In the glamour events, Canada’s Kurt Browning (if he recovers from his own back problems) and Japan’s Midori Ito are favored in the men’s and women’s singles competitions. Still, America’s 1992 team appears to be its deepest ever. And, as everyone now knows, figure skating these days is nothing if not unpredictable.
