Sand, Meno Pass on Skate America

The last full figure skating season before the 1998 Winter Olympics begins in earnest tonight at the United States’ most prestigious invitational, Skate America, but not for two Americans who should be among the favorites for medals in Nagano, Japan.

Todd Sand and Jenni Meno, the husband and wife pairs team from Costa Mesa who finished third in the world the last two years, have postponed the debut of their new programs until next month. Only last week did they begin practicing lifts after she broke her wrist six weeks ago in a collision with another pairs team during a workout at Lake Arrowhead’s Ice Castle International training center.

“It’s disappointing because we’d like to do our own country’s invitational,” Sand said. “On the other hand, it’s been great to be home for a while. It’s the only time since we got married more than two years ago that we’ve had an extended period of time when we weren’t doing shows or competitions.”

Since last summer, they have been living and training at Lake Arrowhead. Their coach, John Nicks, occasionally makes the drive up the hill from Costa Mesa to supervise them. When he cannot be there, they are under the superb watch of Irina Rodnina, the Russian who won 13 Olympic and world pairs titles with two partners. She also coached 1995 world champions Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotny of the Czech Republic at Lake Arrowhead.

Favorites for Skate America in the Springfield Civic Center include the reigning men’s and women’s world champions from the United States, Todd Eldredge of Detroit and Michelle Kwan of Torrance, and the Russian pairs team of Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev. With another partner, he was a two-time world champion and 1992 Olympic champion.

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There are two ways to look at last weekend’s U.S. Olympic Committee presidential election. The narrow loss by Michael Lenard of Los Angeles, a 1984 Olympian in team handball, was either a blow to athletes who have worked so hard to earn a voice within the committee or a testament to how far they have come.

Bill Hybl, who won the election with the support of the major sports governing bodies such as track and field, swimming, gymnastics and figure skating, says that he will work to win the confidence of the athletes.

But, ultimately, the athletes themselves will determine whether they preserve the gains won through the leadership over the last decade of Lenard, Mike Plant, Bonny Warner, Carol Brown, John Ruger and others active in the Athletes Advisory Council. If their successors are as diligent on behalf of athletes’ rights, the most important voice in the movement will not be muted.

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Billy Payne, president of the Atlanta organizing committee, predicted this week that the financial numbers from the Summer Games when the books are closed next March will be black. Or at least dark gray.

“We don’t expect tens of millions in surplus,” he said. “But we’re going to be above the zero line.”

Waiting for the trickle down, however small, is the USOC, which, through September, had received $25 million less than anticipated from its joint marketing agreement with Atlanta organizers.

The USOC, however, did win a long, sometimes loud battle with the International Olympic Committee, negotiating a raise for itself from 10% of the rights fees paid for the Games by U.S. television networks to 12.75%. That could add $73 million to the USOC’s budget by 2008.

What did the IOC receive in return?

“Peace and quiet,” said the IOC’s negotiator, Dick Pound of Canada.

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If the IOC, knowing what it now knows, could go back to 1990 and vote again on the site of the 1996 Summer Games, it still would not choose Athens. It would, some insiders speculate, choose Toronto.