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Weiss no longer chasing Eldredge
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Like a pesky kid brother, Michael Weiss has been chasing Todd Eldredge the past few years.Anything Weiss tried, Eldredge would do better. Improving his artistry, skating faster, even trying a quadruple jump -- you name it, Weiss did it. And Eldredge always stayed comfortably on top.
No more.
A botched short program has Eldredge in fourth place at the World Figure Skating Championships, while Weiss is third. The free skate, worth two-thirds of the total score, is tonight.
"One of my goals was to try and beat him before he turns pro," said Weiss, second to Eldredge at the last two U.S. championships. "He's a great champ and a great gy to chase. He's made my skating better, so it's important for me to do this."
Alexei Yagudin of Russia, fifth at the Olympics, was in first after a technically superb but uninspiring program. Yevgeny Plushenko, who isn't even supposed to be here, was second. The 15-year-old is actually too young to compete, but as junior world champion was allowed to replace Olympic gold medalist Ilya Kulik, who withdrew Saturday with back pain.
At 21, Weiss is still growing as a skater. He won the world junior championships in 1994, and then struggled to work his way up at the senior level.
Always athletic, he worked on his artistic style, searching for something to set him apart. His breakthrough year came in 1997. Skating to Santana in a tie-dyed T-shirt, Weiss attempted a quadruple toe loop jump at the U.S. championships, and for a few hours at least, appeared to be the first American man to land one.
Even though the jump was later disallowed, Weiss had arrived. But he still had a ways to go to catch Eldredge, who was winning the fourth of his five U.S. titles.
This year, while Eldredge was trying to catch the rest of the top skaters by perfecting his quad, Weiss was making big strides again. He traded the tie-dye for a tuxedo, skating to Beethoven to show off his artistry. He made the quadruple lutz, a jump no one else even tries, a staple of his program.
Finally, it's all paying off. While he was a little more conservative than usual, settling for the easier triple axel-double toe jump combination instead of a triple-triple, the rest of his program carried him into the top three.
"After I didn't do the triple-triple, I tried to make up for it in other areas," he said. "My spins were faster, I got all the artistic stuff in there and I got the second mark up."
Up high enough to pass Eldredge, who wants so badly to win a world title and erase the bad memory of Nagano. He went to the Olympicsas a favorite for a medal, but finished fourth after a horrible free skate.
With a home crowd and Kulik, Elvis Stojko and Philippe Candeloro all skipping the world championships, this seemed destined to be Eldredge's time.
Or maybe not. Eldredge had to be almost perfect to match Yagudin's near-flawless program. Instead, he stepped out of the landing on his triple axel, the first jump in his combination, and then cut down a planned triple toe loop to a double.
A brief look of disgust crossed his face, but he buried it. As the music from "Les Miserables" ended, he shook his head and half-smiled, as if to say, "Nope, not this time."
"My performance could have been better," he said. "Maybe I tried a little too hard."
Eldredge can still win the world title, but it's going to take the skate of his life and some help. He has to win the free skate and finish at least two spots ahead of the 18-year-old Yagudin.
"Everything is still possible," Yagudin said. "Plushenko can win, Todd can win, I can win. You just have to do the skating."
Don't forget Weiss. In third place, he's definitely still in the mix.
"My long program is always my strength and I'm in the top three after the short program at the world championships -- one, two, three, it's all pretty much the same going in," Weiss said. "I'll ride the crowd and have fun with it."