Weir Doesn’t Freeze Up in Clutch

He seized his head in his hands in disbelief, needing something to hold onto while the world around him was spinning wildly.

As the crowd at Philips Arena gave Johnny Weir a standing ovation, knowing he had won his first U.S. men’s figure skating title even before a perfect 6.0 appeared among his presentation marks, he leaned over to kiss his hand and touch it to the ice.

“I was thanking the ice in Atlanta for letting me do my best,” the 19-year-old Pennsylvanian said. “I was completely ecstatic.”

It was a moment he missed a year ago when he was second after the short program but fell twice in his long program and had to quit. Nothing stopped him Saturday, not even his trepidation about being in first place before the long program and last to skate.

“I was pretending I was on vacation and there was no skating involved,” said Weir, the 2001 world junior champion. “I just completely went into my own little world.”

Weir, who designed his own ice-blue costume and icicle designs, tamed his nerves enough to touch down softly after each of his eight triple jumps. His routine to music from “Dr. Zhivago” was more sure than spectacular, which also applied to most of the top men.

No one landed a clean quad but none of the top contenders fell, a welcome change from their flopping a year ago at Dallas. Even Michael Weiss of Fairfax, Va., who landed nine triples and barely missed repeating last year’s fourth-to-first rally when he rose from fourth to second, saw the value of salvaging self-respect.

“It’s nice to see a competition in which all the men skated well,” said Weiss, who could have won again only if his long program had been ranked first and Weir’s had been third or lower. “I’m proud of myself and I’m proud of everybody.”

Matt Savoie of Peoria, Ill., second after the short program, dropped to third but wasn’t disappointed. It was an improvement over last year, when he was third after the short program and fell to fifth, and a reward for the work he did after knee surgery last April. Evan Lysacek, who trains in El Segundo, dropped from third place after the short program to fifth despite skating capably.

“I still have to keep this in the context of recovery,” Savoie said. “It was fun to be part of as impressive event as it was.”

Reigning world champion Evgeni Plushenko isn’t quaking in his boots -- he reportedly landed a quad-triple combination in his short program at the Russian championships and a quad-triple-double in his victorious long program -- but the U.S. men were respectable and Weir was technically sound.

The credit for that goes to his coach, Priscilla Hill, a former national competitor. She was so sure of his talent that after his parents said they could get him to the rink in Newark, Del., only a few times a week, she picked him up every day from the time he was in seventh grade through high school.

“I had been in first place a few times and not stayed in first,” she said. “I called [fellow coach] Karl Kurtz, and he asked me what had happened to me. I said I thought too much, and he said, ‘Then you know what to tell him.’ I just told him to do his own thing.”

His career is taking off, and he plans to add a quadruple toe-triple toe combination at the world championships in March in Dortmund, Germany.

“I’m really pleased I came back and shut up everyone who wanted to count me out,” he said.