That the key decision involving the U.S. men`s figure skating team for the 1992 Olympics was made in a committee meeting seemed appropriate. What happened on the Orlando Arena ice Saturday afternoon in full view of 10,065 spectators and nine judges was too muddled to determine the status of the top men in the country.
Christopher Bowman, 24, of Van Nuys, Calif., won his second national title with a long program notable mainly for what wasn`t in it. Paul Wylie, 27, of Denver, won a second Olympics chance after a performance that sent him to the locker room thinking he wouldn`t be back for the awards ceremony.
And Mark Mitchell, 23, of Hamden, Ct., now a three-time loser, has to wonder why the judges have it in for him after finishing right behind Wylie in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships for the second straight year.
For the second time in three years, Mitchell also has become the odd man out when the team selection for the most important international event of the year has been left to a committee decision instead of a skating judges`
verdict.
In 1990, it involved the World Championships. This time, the Olympics were at stake.
The 38 voting members of the U.S. Figure Skating Association`s international committee chose to give the third Olympic team spot to 1990-91 national champion Todd Eldredge, 20, of South Chatham, Mass., who had to withdraw from this competition with a bad back. That move is covered by a USFSA rule that allows displacing one of the top three at nationals with a skater who has won a medal at the most recent World Championships but was ill or injured at nationals.
Eldredge, bronze medalist at the 1991 worlds, will go to the Winter Games opening Feb. 8 in Albertville, France, if he can show his fitness by Jan. 24, when the figure skating rosters must be submitted. In the 12 days before then, U.S. skating officials will have two judges monitor Eldredge`s progress.
That leaves the third-place Mitchell in the position of cheering a friend`s misfortune. Of course, he would not have faced that predicament had the judges not let their hearts sway their minds and give the popular Wylie better scores for an apparently lesser performance than Mitchell`s again.
They also did it last year in Minneapolis, where Wylie`s third-place finish kept Mitchell from the world championship meet team.
”I should ask the judges what they want from me,” Mitchell said.
Maybe he should ask just one judge, Steve Winkler of Copalis Beach, Wash. Winkler gave Mitchell his lowest score (5.6 of 6.0) for composition and style. One-tenth of a point more, and Mitchell would have beat Wylie.
”Paul is a wonderful skater, and he didn`t make any major errors,” Mitchell said. ”He is loved in this country.”
Mitchell was the only one of the top three finishers to land cleanly a triple Axel, the most difficult jump attempted by any of the 19 men who skated Saturday. He did five clean triples in a program that failed to excite the crowd. Mitchell`s one mistake was on the latter of a combination of triples.
Wylie put together a program of surpassing beauty executed with mixed technical success. After finishing fourth in Friday`s original program, when he fell, Wylie stayed on his feet but did not complete either of two triple Axel attempts.
”When I was getting changed (into street clothes), I was not thinking I would be in the awards ceremony,” Wylie said.
There was no doubt Bowman would headline it, even with a program that skating doyen and long-time Bowman dectractor Dick Button described as
”ordinary, boring, slow, conservative and sedate.”
At the advice of his new coach, John A.W. Nicks, Bowman eschewed the triple Axel entirely. He nevertheless completed six triples and was the only one of the top three men to do a clean jump combination. That allowed him to win both the original and free skating programs and to regain the title he also had won in 1989.
”We will up (the difficulty) for Albertville,” Nicks said. ”This is the program Christopher needed at this time.”
Bowman did seven triple jumps, including a combination of them. His skating between the jumps was flat and slow until the final 30 seconds of the 4-minute, 30-second program. Bowman upped his tempo then to earn a standing ovation that rang in the judges` ears.
