Practice Fall Puts Eldredge’s Status in Doubt
Just when Todd Eldredge thought things couldn’t get worse, they did--getting bad enough to jeopardize his chances of performing in the Skate America men’s finale today.
Eldredge, who fell twice in the short program Friday to finish a dispiriting fifth, bruised his lower back in a practice collision Saturday at the Colorado Springs World Arena. He is scheduled to compete today, but he won’t decide until he steps onto the ice for the warmup.
The five-time U.S. champion was practicing a footwork sequence in his long program when he collided with Silvio Smalun of Germany, who had fallen. Eldredge was skating backward at the time and fell over Smalun, landing on his back.
Eldredge briefly resumed practicing but left the ice a short time later to get treatment.
Today’s long program will be worth two-thirds of the total score. Three-time world champion Alexei Yagudin of Russia won the short program ahead of Timothy Goebel, who moved to El Segundo this year to train with coach Frank Carroll. Emanuel Sandhu of Canada is third.
“The short really hasn’t gone well for him yet,” Eldredge’s coach, Richard Callaghan, said Friday. “So we’d like to go home and try to figure why, technically, he’s had problems.”
They won’t have much time because Eldredge is scheduled to compete in Skate Canada next week in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. “We’ve got to figure what to do before Skate Canada,” Callaghan said.
Saturday wasn’t a good day for the Zamboni, either. While grooming the ice before the start of the ice dance final, it cut too deeply into the ice, leaving a depression in the ice that had to be refilled. The process delayed the evening’s events by half an hour.
