WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Eldredge Gets 2-Week Reprieve

Two-time national figure skating champion Todd Eldredge will not have to break his back to prove he is healthy enough to compete in the Winter Olympics next month at Albertville, France.

After withdrawing from the national championships earlier this month because of severe pain in his lower back, Eldredge was added to the Olympic team on the condition that he prove his fitness by Jan. 24, the date by which the USFSA believed it was required to submit entries to the International Olympic Committee.

But the USFSA received a clarification last week from the IOC. Paul George, the USFSA’s representative on the U.S. Olympic Committee’s board of directors, said association officials learned they can name an alternate to replace an injured or ill skater until Feb. 7, one day before the opening ceremony. The men’s figure skating competition is scheduled to begin Feb. 13.

That gives Eldredge two extra weeks to strengthen his back.

“It’s very, very important that Todd train and rehabilitate in an orderly way and not do anything that might further injure his back,” George said. “I was the team manager in 1980 and saw what happened with Randy Gardner in a situation where everything was rushed. We tried to hurry a healing process that required time.”

Eldredge is based in San Diego, but he has been training since the national championships in the Boston area so that he can be near his orthopedist, Red Sox team doctor Arthur Pappas. Eldredge is from South Chatham, Mass., where his father is a commercial fisherman.

George, who also is from the Boston area, said that he has seen Eldredge skate and believes he is making progress.

“He’s gone through his long program, substituting doubles jumps for triples,” George said. “But he’s done four triple jumps outside the program.”

If Eldredge cannot compete at Albertville, he will be replaced by Mark Mitchell of Hamden, Conn. He became the alternate after finishing third in the national championships behind Christopher Bowman of Van Nuys and Paul Wylie of Denver.

But the USFSA raised questions by choosing Mitchell to represent the United States in the World Championships in March at Oakland instead of Wylie. The decision, however, was not as bold as it might appear considering Wylie has announced he will retire after this season. Looking ahead to the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway, the USFSA wants to begin giving Mitchell international exposure.

The European figure skating championships begin this week at Lausanne, Switzerland. The main question is whether Viktor Petrenko, who won the men’s title for the Soviet Union last year, is fit.

Like Eldredge and world champion Kurt Browning of Canada, Petrenko has a bad back and recently finished third in his national championships. Could it be the critics were right when they said the elimination of compulsory figures would turn figure skating into jumping contests that would result in more injuries?

The IOC meeting scheduled for Courcheval, France, in the week before the opening of the Winter Games down the hill in Albertville could be interesting. As a result of the investigation that led to U.S. member Robert Helmick’s resignation, IOC sources say that as many as 18 of the other 91 members could be asked to answer to conflict of interest charges. Or worse.

According to one source, an IOC member from a Third World country allegedly pocketed $28,000 after turning in the same, first-class, round-trip airline tickets for himself and his wife for reimbursement to three cities that were bidding for the Games.

Speaking of Helmick, the IOC will not name his replacement until its meeting before the Summer Olympics at Barcelona, Spain. Although there is no guarantee that the person chosen must be from the United States, it would be a shock if the IOC decided to leave one of its most important nations with only one member, even if that member is the increasingly influential Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles.

In a Washington Post article last week, IOC vice-president Richard Pound of Canada said he has advised DeFrantz to seek election to the powerful 11-member executive board in 1993.

“I told her that the most important time for a U.S. representative to be on the executive board would be 1993-96, leading up to the Atlanta Games,” he said. “If she picks the time right, I think she would be a shoo-in.”

The U.S. national soccer team is scheduled to play for the first time this year Saturday at Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium against the Commonwealth of Independent States, formerly the Soviet Union.

Joe Robbie Stadium, considered the Rose Bowl’s primary rival to be selected as host of the 1994 World Cup final, had a setback recently when the retractable seating mechanism used to convert the field from football to baseball and vice versa jumped its track and chewed up eight rows of seats.

The U.S. Postal Service, a worldwide Olympic sponsor, is offering a program that will help two family members of each U.S. Olympian to attend the Winter Games. The family members are responsible for transportation to France, but the postal service will provide housing, meals and transportation for them after they arrive.

The USOC made the sort of headlines that make George Bush sick last week when it was revealed that sweaters to be worn by U.S. athletes in the opening ceremony at Albertville were made in Hong Kong.

“One item out of 12 was manufactured outside the United States, and now we’re getting calls from Congress and the unions,” USOC spokesman Mike Moran said. He said that Henry Grethel, who designed the outfits for J.C. Penney, tried to have the sweaters made in the United States, but couldn’t find a manufacturer to take on the job because of the small quantity and the odd sizes needed.