Defending pairs champions botch short program

At age 81, in his 49th year of coaching, it figured John Nicks would say he isn’t surprised by much.

So Nicks initially said he was disappointed rather than surprised in how badly his athletes, Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker, had skated Friday afternoon in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Spokane Arena.

A few minutes later, Nicks changed his mind.

“These last three or so days here, they have practiced as well as any pair I have taught,” Nicks said. “I was surprised.”

Who wouldn’t have been after seeing the reigning U.S. champions slop their way into seventh place in the short program with a performance that included her falling twice, once on a move where that rarely happens?

“They are the best pair out there, I have no doubt about that,” Nicks said, “but they have got to go out and lay down [perform] what they can lay down. They didn’t today.

“Sometimes that kind of performance does wake you up and encourages a better one.”

McLaughlin, of Los Angeles, and Brubaker, of Algonquin, Ill., are so far behind the leaders they seem unlikely to win a third straight national title. But there is so much wiggle room in U.S. Figure Skating Olympic selection criteria they can earn one of the two pairs spots in the Winter Games with a strong performance in today’s free skate.

“They have a big challenge,” Nicks said. “They have a lot of work to do.”

The champion will get one of the spots, although USFS rules are purposefully vague on that to avoid having the U.S. Olympic Committee consider these championships an Olympic trials, which would mean turning over TV rights to the USOC.

Results of these nationals and several other past competitions factor into the choice of the other pair going to Vancouver.

McLaughlin and Brubaker are 10.46 points behind leaders Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett, 9.54 behind the surprising second-place team, Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin, and 6.21 behind third finishers Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig.

Brubaker insisted he would not go into the free skate fearful about missing the Olympics.

“You can’t skate afraid,” Brubaker said. “When you skate afraid like we did today, you make mistakes.”

They made both big and little ones after McLaughlin fell on a triple salchow jump, the third element of eight in their 2 minute, 45-second program. McLaughlin had a more stunning fall on a death spiral after she lost focus, leaned too far back and caught her blade heel in the ice.

“Instead of keeping myself positive, I was thinking, ‘I hope I don’t mess up,’ ” she said.

Nicks called the fall on the death spiral “absolutely ridiculous. They haven’t done one like that in six months.”

Surprise, surprise.

phersh@tribune.com