Slip Is Costly to Top U.S. Pairs Team

Encouraged for years to display more emotion, Todd Sand complied Tuesday night at figure skating’s world championships in the Edmonton Coliseum. Unfortunately, he did it after the short program that he skated with partner Jenni Meno in the pairs competition, punching a hole in a wall in a corridor off the ice.

“I’m just happy it wasn’t the coach he hit,” said John Nicks, who coaches Meno and Sand in Costa Mesa.

Sand was upset because he double-footed his landing in a side-by-side double axel. Compared to the triples that all of the other top teams performed in their required side-by-side jumps, the Sand-Meno element was supposed to be safe.

As a result of his mistake, judges placed the three-time U.S. champions fifth entering tonight’s long program. Germans Mandy Woetzel and Ingo Steuer placed first followed by three Russian pairs.

If there was any consolation for Meno and Sand, it was that they were also fifth after the short program in last year’s world championships and improved to third in the long program, which accounts for two-thirds of the final score.

The other U.S. pairs of Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen and Shelby Lyons and Brian Wells were eighth and 11th, respectively.

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With a Tango Romantica considered particularly sophisticated for U.S. dance teams, national champions Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow improved from eighth after the first compulsory dance to seventh Tuesday. If they continue to skate well through the original dance Thursday and the free dance Friday, the could become the first U.S. team to finish higher than eighth since April Sargent and Joseph Druar’s fourth place in 1990.

Two-time national champions Renee Roca and Gorsha Sur, second in this year’s U.S. championships, were 14th after the two compulsory dances.

Russia’s Oksana Gritschuk and Evgeny Platov, champions in 1994 and ‘95, were first.

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The United States’ Todd Eldredge had a close look at Elvismania during a practice this week. When two-time defending champion Elvis Stojko of Canada arrived, Eldredge was stunned at the response.

“I’d never been in a practice with 6,000 people watching, and I’d never seen flowers thrown in a practice before,” Eldredge said.

Combined with his ability and his reputation, the home ice gives Stojko almost an unfair advantage. His primary competition appears to be Russia’s Aleksei Urmanov, the 1992 Olympic champion, Eldredge and France’s Philippe Candeloro.