Todd Eldredge

Figure skating

Todd Eldredge skated off the ice, barely paused to remove the figure skates that had brought him to this precipice of personal angst - and bolted out the door of the skating arena at the Trophy Lalique.

A young man can lose himself in Paris. But what America’s best hope for a men’s Olympic figure skating medal - the short program will be contested at Nagano’s White Ring Thursday - was trying to find himself on that November day three months ago.

“I was embarrassed at the fact that I had skated that bad,” Eldredge said of a fourth-place finish.

“I guess I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I’m not one for excuses.”

At 26 and the elder statesman of the American singles skating scene, Elder felt more vulnerable than venerable or veteran.

“I needed to get away,” Eldredge said. “I needed a few hours by myself. I thought about a lot of stuff. That was the worst skate I’ve had in a long time. It brings back memories of older times. I really had to hash those over and get them out of my mind.”

Eldredge ultimately stopped under a park bridge. And there he sat. For 2 hours. Asking himself questions, trying to come up with answers. As rain fell steadily.

Some of the answers he found involved an equilibrium of the mind. Two years previously he had finished down in the pack at the Championship Series Final, another big international event.

“Then I won Worlds,” he told himself.

Sure, he had skated badly. He felt terrible.

“Honest, my legs were gone,” he remembered. “I went out for a little skate around and my legs didn’t feel good. Whenever I went out there and tried to do something I had to think about it a little bit more.”

Eldredge appears to have found himself again. Whether it was under that bridge in the park in Paris, or somewhere else, doesn’t much matter.

Thursday in the short program in Nagano and Saturday in the long program, Eldredge is going to find out if figure skating’s powers that be like what he has rediscovered.