Eldredge Lands Fifth Title, Not Quad U.S. Championship Caps Comeback From String Of Disappointments
Todd barely missed his quad, but landed a fifth national title.
Oh yes, he is headed to the Olympics again.
Todd Eldredge capped a memorable comeback from the depths of figure skating Thursday night by winning the U.S. championship. Although he didn’t hit his quadruple toe loop in his first competitive attempt at it, he didn’t miss by much.
“I was inches away from my landing that quad,” Eldredge said. “I had it, but just got back on one foot and let it go.”
His top competitors at the Olympics, Elvis Stojko of Canada and Ilia Kulik of Russia, always include the quad in their programs, and hit it often.
“It was a personal thing for me,” Eldredge said. “I felt good and wanted to try it.”
In the women’s competition, Michelle Kwan, out of competition since early November with a stress fracture in her left foot, got seven 6.0s and two 5.9s for presentation Thursday as she swept the short program.
Eldredge, the premier American skater of the decade, now has more American titles than such illustrious predecessors as Scott Hamilton, Brian Boitano, Hayes Jenkins and David Jenkins, and all of them won Olympic gold.
Eldredge’s routine included six triple jumps. He hit a triple axel-double toe loop combo right after failing on the quad and, 4:20 into the routine, the 26-year-old Eldredge did another triple axel.
A national champion at 18 and again at 19, Eldredge seemed destined to climb the Olympics medal podium in 1992. Instead, he barely got to Albertville as a bad back forced him out of the U.S. championships that year.
He was given a medical bye onto the Olympic team, but the back began bothering him again on the flight to France. Lacking stamina and confidence, he finished 10th.
That began a spiral that reached its lowest point at the 1994 nationals. Eldredge, of Chatham, Mass., was skating well entering those championships, but he caught the flu and even passed out face-first into the sink in his hotel bathroom.
For Kwan, the future is starting to look golden, especially after defending world and U.S. champ Tara Lipinski crashed to the ice and finished fourth.
It was Lipinski’s triple flip that failed her. Her body was tilted as she launched into the air and she came crashing down, sprawling across the ice on her backside.
Saturday’s ladies long program will be the final determining factor in which three women will earn a place on the U.S. Olympic team.
xxxx On TV Saturday: U.S. championships, 4:30 p.m., ABC.