See Spots; See Spots Fly Graceful Kulik Tops Ailing Stojko As Eldredge Falls To Fourth

They said giraffes would fly before Elvis Stojko won an Olympic gold medal, and that’s exactly what happened Saturday night at the quadrennial animation festival known as the Olympic men’s figure skating long program.

Ilia Kulik, a 20-year-old Russian who defies the laws of physics as well as the concept of dressing for success, won the championship by spending more time in the air than your average commuter flight, landing one quadruple and eight triple jumps while wearing his infamous giraffe-spotted rain slicker, believed to be on loan from the Moscow Zoo.

Looking like the logo for Toys R Us, Kulik completed what figure skating experts were calling the most difficult technical program ever seen at the Olympic Games - and dressed like that, how could it not be?

Skating to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” - or, as it is known in the States, the United Airlines theme song - Kulik went airborne for a full 29 revolutions above the ice, unprecedented in Olympic history.

At the same time, Kulik overwhelmed an arena full of compelling mini-dramas, including:

Elvis leaving the building in agony, having aggravated a groin injury he and his coach hid from the media, an injury that prevented him from attempting his quadruple-toe, triple-toe combination.

D’Artagnan winning the bronze medal with the fiercest display of air-sword fighting ever seen in a non-fencing Olympic event.

Todd Eldredge ending his final bid for an Olympic medal with a thud, crashing on a late attempt to stretch a double axel into a triple and finishing fourth.

Alexei Yagudin coming down with the flu on the biggest night of his young life, unable to stomach anything stronger than hot tea, and falling twice en route to fifth place.

The U.S. has now gone 10 years and three Winter Olympics without winning the men’s figure skating gold medal. Since Brian Boitano’s victory in Calgary in 1988, the lone American male to win an Olympic figure skating medal was Paul Wylie, second-place finisher in 1992.

The mantle of world supremacy in the sport has swung from the Americans to a coalition of skaters from former Soviet republics. Since Boitano’s triumph, the list of men’s gold medalists reads:

1992: Viktor Petrenko, Ukraine.

1994: Alexei Urmanov, Russia.

1998: Ilia Kulik, Russia.

Silver and bronze medalists, however, remained unchanged from Lillehammer. Stojko duplicated the silver medal he won in 1994 and France’s Philippe Candeloro - a.k.a. D’Artagnan, the third musketeer - repeated as bronze medalist.

Kulik is the first male skater in 50 years to win the gold medal in his first Olympic appearance, a streak dating to American Dick Button and 1948.

Predictably, Kulik spent most of Saturday with his stomach turning triple flips, fretting about a 4-1/2-minute exercise he described as “unbelievable pressure.”

“All these eight days, such a big pressure was on me,” Kulik said. “Each practice, each day, I have to concentrate so much. Each practice was like a full competition. It was unbelievable.

“I normally sleep during the day of a competition, but today that was not possible. I skated the program in my mind all of the time. While waiting to go on the ice, I was very nervous.”

Going out and nailing a quad on your first jump can have a tremendous calming effect, however. Once Kulik completed that difficult assignment, he began to ease into the rest of the program.

Stojko never attempted the quad-triple combination, the linch-pin of his routine, and winced through seven triple jumps, landing each cleanly but tentatively.

The moment the music stopped, signaling the end of his program, Stojko’s knees buckled and he doubled over in pain. Shortly after he limped off the ice and withstood the medal ceremony with his right leg tightly wrapped, Stojko was transported to a nearby medical center for treatment.

“If there’s a medal for bravery, he should get one,” said Doug Leigh, Stojko’s coach. “That’s what he’s all about.

“This happened a month ago, at the Canadian nationals. We kept it to ourselves and tried to push through it because the Olympics come and go - you don’t get many chances like this. We just decided to do whatever it takes.

“Tonight, it took a lot.”

Eldredge, five times the U.S. champion, had failed to win a medal in his only other Olympic appearance, in 1992, when he placed 10th. (Eldredge failed to qualify for the 1994 Games.) He was third here after the short program but watched the bronze medal vanish when he doubled his first two planned triple jumps and took a head-first dive while trying to throw in a makeup triple axel near the end of his routine.

Skating off with his hands on his hips, Eldredge said later he knew then that the medal was gone.

Candeloro, fifth after the short program, vaulted over Eldredge with a crowd-thrilling routine performed to “The Three Musketeers” by Maxim Rodriguez, with Candeloro in the swashbuckling role of D’Artagnan.