My Sporting View

It could be argued that, from a psychological standpoint at least, figure skating may be the cruelest of all sports. Only gymnastics possibly compares.

In other sports, there are margins for considerable failure even for the most successful athletes. Baseball players make the Hall of Fame failing two-thirds of the times they bat. Quarterbacks throw interceptions and fumble and still win Super Bowls. Michael Jordon committed fouls, threw the ball away and missed more three point shots than he made most the games he played. Pete Sampras double faulted en route to Grand Slam titles, and Tiger Wood hit ball into the rough and still won the huge tournaments.

But entire careers in figure skating rise and fall on the ability to "stick" just a couple of key jumping opportunities in any given competition. Miss one of them and you're almost certainly done for. There is simply no margin for error.

It used to be, even in the heyday of Scott Hamilton two decades ago, that it was extremely rare to see a fall at a national figure skating championship. That was because, of course, all the competitors were so skilled.

But at the U.S. National Figure Skating championships last weekend in Atlanta, falls were the order of the day. They've become increasingly common in recent years as promoters and the media have transformed the competition from an exercise in grace and skill to an icy version of an X-Game extreme sport.

Now, winning is all about the two or maybe three mega-jumps and mid-air spins that a skater can pull off. The rest of long and short programs are of a remarkably secondary nature. To lift off, spin and, most importantly, land cleanly on those couple of jumps has become everything in the sport.

Then, to top it off, it all gets finally determined by the subjective decisions of a set of judges.

So, when defending U.S. champions and favorites Michael Weiss (of Northern Virginia) and Timothy Goebel both fell doing their big jumps in Thursday's opening round in Atlanta, they were all but finished. In fact, Goebel fell so gracelessly and often in his routine he said later he'd never skated more poorly even in practice and was "mortified." He finished 10th in that round, and felt so disgraced that he withdrew from the finals.

Weiss was in fourth place after the first day, and let it be known that his only chance of coming back to win on Saturday was by attempting a jump more complicated and elaborate than anything that had ever been attempted successfully in a championship before. He ultimately didn't try it, saying it didn't "feel right" in practice. Thus, his only chance remained in the failure of others. It didn't happen.

On the contrary, the ultimate winner was a 19 year old who, ironically enough, almost killed himself, at least figuratively, with a disastrous fall that inflicted a serious injury the year before.

Johnny Weir's success last weekend has to be one of the great sports stories of the decade to date.

A year earlier at the U.S. championships, this native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and former U.S. junior champion had barely started his long program when, in a bizarre accident, one of his skates got caught in a small crevice between the ice and the sideboards. He went down hard. He limped up and tried to proceed, but could not.

After conferring with officials, he was permitted to start his routine from the beginning again. But he fell again, right away, from the injury and had to withdraw.

It was an excruciatingly painful experience for both the young skater and everyone watching, including on national TV.

No one knew at first whether he'd skate again, or, certainly, whether he'd ever overcome the psychological blow of the disastrous episode to achieve his earlier potential. As he recovered from the injury, it was thought that, over time, he perhaps could slowly come back.

Johnny Weir didn't wait. Early on the short program Thursday last week, he was flawless. But he drew little attention as the TV announcers were focused on the big name favorites still to come. That was when Goebel, Weiss and others began pratfalling all over the ice. When it was all over, Weir somehow wound up in the lead.

On Saturday, ABC-TV's announcers still hardly mentioned Weir as the final, long-program competition got underway. He was technically in first place, but he would be the last to perform, and it was suggested that the tension would almost certainly get to him. Remember what he did last year!

Goebel had withdrawn from the competition and others failed to overcome their lesser performances from the first day. Weiss decided against trying his monster jump, but did a respectable job.

Then it all came down to Weir. A TV camera focused a close-up on his emotionless face as he stood at center ice ready to begin. How could any young man put the disaster of just one year earlier out of his mind in such a critical moment?

The music from Dr. Zhivago swelled up, and Weir took off.

It was an exquisite and flawless performance. Every jump was landed with grace and precision. Every move was like the music flowed through it.

When he paused at the end and the cheers and applause exploded, for an instant the full weight of the emotion he'd checked overtook him in a single gesture. Then he straightened up, lifted his arms and grinned from ear to ear.

It was a slam dunk with the judges. One even gave him a perfect score.

The TV announcers were stunned. The venerable announcer Dick Button, throughout the performance, was blown away. He could barely do more than oooh and aaah.

Sport had a new champion. Although so young, Weir shocked the skating world with the swiftness and boldness of his rebound from the depths of a seemingly hopeless setback and subsequent obscurity to the height of heights in a single year. It was amazing.

E-Mail the author at nfbenton@fcnp.com.