U.S. Skaters Stage Worldly Performance Meno, Sand Earn Bronze Medal In Pairs; Eldridge, Davis Rank 1-3 After Short Program

In a contest filled with stumbles, blunders and falls, Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotny of the Czech Republic made the fewest mistakes and won the pairs gold medal Wednesday at the World Figure Skating Championships.

The pair, squeezed out of the medals so many times before by Russian skaters, beat defending champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who took silver. Kovarikova and Novotny became the first Czech pair to win the title.

With U.S. champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand moving up to claim bronze, all three medals went to engaged couples skating classical routines.

Kovarikova and Novotny’s victory followed a dramatic day in the men’s short program, with Americans Todd Eldredge and Scott Davis ranked first and third and defending champion Elvis Stojko of Canada second.

With Novotny dressed in black and Kovarikova in gold, the Czech pair survived her early stumble on a triple-toe loop and her strained landing on the throw-triple salchow in a routine skated to Verdi.

Retaining the lead they held after the short program, their marks ranged from 5.6 to 5.8 for technical merit and 5.7 to 5.9 for presentation.

On an evening when the favorites were not in top form, the cleanest performance of the night came from Meno and Sand, who enchanted the 6,000 fans at the NEC Arena with their romantic routine to Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”

The program, however, lacked the speed and difficulty of the other routines, and their marks ranged between 5.5 to 5.6 and 5.5 to 5.9. They moved from fifth to third overall.

“We thought, of course, that we would be fifth,” Meno said. “We were kind of standing around getting ready to pack up our skates, and suddenly there’s a big roar in the crowd, and we looked up and we were third.”

It was the first U.S. pairs medal at the worlds since 1991, when Sand teamed with Natasha Kuchiki to win bronze.

The 23-year-old Eldridge, undefeated in four major competitions this season after three years of injuries, illness and inconsistency, nailed a triple axel-triple toe loop combination and had only one flaw in his 2-minute short program: He struggled to hold on to a triple lutz and nearly touched his knee to the ice while landing.