Meno, Sand Are Right on Schedule This Time

The question had to be asked, worded delicately, posed as politely as proper figure skating decorum decrees.

“So,” Jenni Meno was asked, “do you thank your husband when he doesn’t drop you on your head?”

Meno blushed and her husband, Todd Sand, laughed.

A good sign, this, coming four weeks after their ill-fated short program at the U.S. national championships, which carried the subtitle Crashville in Nashville.

“I’m not going to live that one down,” Sand mused.

No, but living with it is easier when another short program is attempted at the World Figure Skating Championships and is completed cleanly, with Sand not losing his grip during the death spiral and not letting Meno bang her bright red ponytail hard against Swiss ice.

“Better than Nashville, I’ll tell you,” said the pair’s coach, John Nicks, after Meno and Sand skated off the ice at Malley Sports Center on Tuesday.

No falls, no glitches, no bumped noggins, no score lower than 5.5.

It was the kind of short program Meno and Sand expected in Nashville. When it didn’t happen, the three-time American champions failed to make it four--losing their U.S. title to longtime rivals Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen.

“Nashville was an aberration,” Nicks said Tuesday. “They just got a little careless there. That was a mishap, something that never happens to them. I knew they could correct it.”

Meno and Sand finished the short program portion of the competition in fourth place, still within striking distance of the gold medal.

Positioned above them, in order, are 1996 world silver medalists Mandy Wotzel and Ingo Steuer of Germany, three-time world champions Marina Eltsova and Andrei Bushkov of Russia and another Russian tandem, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.

Berezhnaya spent a month in a Latvian hospital last year after fracturing her skull in a freak training accident with her former partner, Oleg Sliakhov. They were practicing a side-by-side camel spin in January 1996 when Sliakhov’s toe pick caught Berezhnaya in the side of the head.

Berezhnaya underwent emergency surgery, the injury leaving her with blurred vision and impaired speech. She didn’t resume skating until May, and when she did, it was with a new partner, Sikharulidze.

Tamara Moskvina, the duo’s coach, remembers visiting Berezhnaya in the hospital, seeing the skater “motionless, speechless.”

“I am not emotional,” Moskvina said, “but if I was her mother, I would cry.”

Berezhnaya returned to the ice “very afraid to work,” Moskvina said. “We consulted the doctors and decided to do everything carefully.”

More than a year after the injury, Berezhnaya continues to speak with a slur.

“I got too close,” is Berezhnaya’s simple assessment of the accident. Now, she said, “I don’t have any problem. I feel good. I have no problems with my health.”

And if she and Sikharulidze hold their position through tonight’s long program, Moskvina has big plans for the future.

“Right now, I am open to discussion to sell the rights,” Moskvina quipped.

The United States has never won two pairs medals at a single world championship, but is positioned to do so tonight. Right behind fourth-place Meno and Sand are Ina and Dungjen in fifth. The third American pair, Stephanie Stiegler and John Zimmerman, are 13th.

“”They’re in the top four after the short program,” Nicks said of Meno and Sand, “and their history is to come up in the long program.”

Figure Skating Notes

The United States’ two ice dancing teams are sixth and 17th after compulsory competition. Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow, two-time U.S. champions, placed sixth in both dances Tuesday, with Eva Chalom and Mathew Gates tied for 17th with the Israeli team of Galit Chait and Sergey Sakhnovsky. . . . Russia continues to dominate the ice dance, with three-time world champions Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov leading the group, followed by 1996 world silver medalists Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov. The Canadian team of Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, bronze medalists in 1996, are third again entering Thursday’s final round. . . . Along with the pairs long program, today’s schedule also features the men’s short program. Gold-medal contenders include defending world champion Todd Eldredge of the United States, 1994 and 1995 world champion Elvis Stojko of Canada and Russians Ilia Kulik and Alexei Urmanov.

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World Figure Skating

Championships

Schedule for the World Figure Skating Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland:

* TODAY--Men’s short program; pairs free skate (long program); pairs medals awarded.

* THURSDAY--Original dance; men’s free skate (long program); men’s medals awarded.

* FRIDAY--Women’s short program; dance free skate (long program); dance medals awarded.

* SATURDAY--Women’s free skate (long program); women’s medals awarded.