For Skaters, These Trials Truly Aren’t

With visions of next month’s Winter Olympics in Calgary performing toe-loops in their heads, the nation’s best figure skaters are here this week for the national championship competition, the Olympic trials in everything but name.

What’s in a name?

For one thing, a profit. By not designating this competition as Olympic trials, the United States Figure Skating Assn. does not have to share the revenues with the United States Olympic Committee. Considering that record crowds are expected for the championship events at McNichols Arena and that ABC paid $750,000 for the television rights, USFSA officials expect to earn about $1 million to finance this year’s developmental programs.

Also, the USFSA retains flexibility in selecting the Olympic team. If this competition had been designated as Olympic trials, USFSA officials believe they would have been committed to sending the top three finishers in the men’s, women’s and pairs’ events and the top two finishers in ice dancing to Calgary.

But by declaring that the nationals are only part of the selection process, the USFSA can guarantee that a minor injury or a rare off-day will not prevent Brian Boitano or Debi Thomas, both former world champions, from representing the United States in the Olympics.

That policy has led to speculation about the USFSA’s position on two less celebrated skaters, Christopher Bowman and Scott Gregory.

Second in the nation and seventh in the world last year, Bowman, who is from Van Nuys, is considered Boitano’s eventual successor as the top American. This year’s Olympics not only would provide Bowman, 20, with experience but also would give him an opportunity to enhance his reputation with international judges.

But he has a sprained left ankle that has prevented him from training for three weeks. Although he may return to form in time for the Olympics, he will not be in top shape when the men’s competition begins here Wednesday. If he does not finish among the top three, the USFSA will be faced with a difficult decision.

Gregory, who teamed with Suzanne Semanick to finish first in the nation and fifth in the world last year in ice dancing, has a more serious injury, a herniated disk that prevents him from performing lifts. If he and Semanick do not finish among the top three, the USFSA might not send them to Calgary, figuring that Gregory will not recover within the next six weeks.

The competition in his event began Monday night at Littleton’s South Suburban Ice Center with the compulsory dances.

In politics, campaigning begins long before voters go to the polls. The situation is similar in figure skating. Even though the women’s competition here will not begin until Thursday, coaches already have begun trying to influence judges.

Thomas’ coach, Alex McGowan, told the Denver Post that Thomas is the only skater who can prevent East German Katarina Witt from repeating as the Olympic champion.

He bases that opinion on Thomas’ victory over Witt in the 1986 world championships, the East German’s only loss in a major international competition since 1983. But he said that Thomas can win the gold medal only if she goes to Calgary as the national champion.

“It’s a psychological thing,” McGowan said. “If Katarina gets to the Olympics and finds out that Debi has been beaten in her own country, she’s going to be super-confident. But if Debi is the U.S. champ going in, (Witt will) know she has some top-notch competition from her.”

Thomas lost her national championship last year to Jill Trenary, then finished second to Witt at the world championships.

“I’m sure . . . that when Katarina heard that Debi had been beaten in the U.S. championships last year, they threw a big party in East Germany,” McGowan said.

Of course, Carlo Fassi disagreed. He coaches Trenary and Caryn Kadavy, third in the world last year. Both are considered capable of winning here.

“I really don’t believe winning nationals will make you automatically first or second in the Olympics,” Fassi told the Post. “(McGowan) said that because he wants to force the judges to make Thomas win nationals. . . . He kind of tells the judges, ‘Please, if you don’t put my skater first, she has no chance to win the Olympics.’

“I don’t believe all this chicanery. . . . I think it’s time skating got over all of this. It’s a competition. Talking about this and that and the judges . . . hell, let the best skater win.”

Boitano, who has failed four times to become the first person to complete a quadruple jump--four revolutions--in competition, has, at the urging of his coach, Linda Leaver, given up temporarily.

He has taken the jump out of his program for the national competition and probably will not put it back until the World Championships, one month after the Olympics.

“She (Leaver) kept taking it out, and I kept putting it back in,” Boitano said. “I really wanted to do it, but I was worrying so much that I didn’t think it was worth it. I said, ‘Hey, give yourself a little bit of a break here. You’re going to do it before you retire.’

“This is technically the most difficult program anyone will try. To do that and to do the artsy stuff and to do the quad, too, it’s almost like packing bricks on my back and saying, ‘Now, do a program.’ I need something that is for sure. When I step onto the ice, I want to be able to say, ‘I’m sure I can do this.’ ”