FIGURE SKATING U.S. MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS : Bowman Wins Safely; Eldredge Gets a Spot

Christopher Bowman won on the ice, Todd Eldredge won in the conference room, and Paul Wylie won in the judges’ hearts. So where did that leave Mark Mitchell, figure skating’s hard-luck kid? Out. Again.

In again was Bowman, the free spirit from Van Nuys who won the men’s title at the U.S. championships Saturday for the second time in four years with a 4 1/2-minute freestyle program that was, while not spectacular, good enough.

Two-time Olympic gold-medalist Dick Button, an ABC-TV commentator, had other words for it. “Ordinary, boring, slow, conservative, sedate,” he said.

Otherwise, he loved it.

Well, perhaps not, but he did concede that it was the best performance of the afternoon before an Orlando Arena crowd of 10,065.

“It wasn’t an outstanding men’s championship,” Button said. “You know when it really rises to a great level, and this one didn’t.”

The performance were so ordinary that Wylie, a 27-year-old Harvard graduate from Denver and the first of the five leading contenders to skate, was changing into his street clothes and preparing his retirement speech when he learned that he finished second.

That guaranteed him a place on the U.S. team for next month’s Winter Olympics at Albertville, France. Ordinarily, the first three finishers from the national championships are selected, but it was a foregone conclusion that the last spot this year would go to two-time national champion Todd Eldredge, who withdrew from this competition because of a back injury.

The U.S. Figure Skating Assn.’s international committee formalized that after Saturday’s competition but stipulated that Eldredge, who trains in San Diego, must show he is fit by the Jan. 24 deadline for submitting entries to the International Olympic Committee. In case he is not sound, Mitchell, who finished third here, was named to the team as an alternate.

Mitchell, who later was named to the team for the World Championships in March at Oakland instead of Wylie, accepted the international committee’s decision more gracefully than he did his third-place finish. Last year, Mitchell, 23, missed a berth in the World Championships by finishing fourth at the nationals, one place behind Wylie. That decision by the judges was controversial, as was this one.

Mitchell’s coach, Ronna Gladstone, said: “(Paul’s) a favorite in this country. So . . . “

No one quarreled with Bowman’s victory. He left out his most difficult element, a triple axel, but only two of the contenders landed one cleanly. Wylie stepped out both times he tried one. And Bowman was the only skater who did a triple jump in combination. He did two, including one in the dynamic final 20 seconds that brought the crowd to its feet.

“I skated with every drop of my blood,” he said when asked about the conservatism of his program. But then he admitted that he and his coach, John Nicks, agreed to play it safe by eliminating the triple axel.

“Our priority was to get Christopher Bowman on the Olympic team,” Nicks said. “What we did assured that.”

Bowman, 24, laughed when told Button’s remarks.

“Dick Button is a great champion and a great commentator, but he is not, I believe, a fan of mine,” he said. “Everybody is entitled to their opinions, no matter how strange they may be.”

And Bowman had the last word.

“At least I have a full head of hair,” he said.