OLYMPIC NEWS: U.S. TEAM'S MILESTONES

TORINO, Italy (Feb. 25, 2006) – The 2006 U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Team accomplished several milestones at the XX Winter Olympic Games. The U.S. team captured two silver medals in Torino, Italy, earned 15 personal best scores (amounting to more than 40 percent of their performances), and made pairs history in the process. The 2006 U.S. Figure Skating Team was the largest to attend an Olympics in well over a decade -- since 1992.


Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto won the first U.S. Olympic ice dancing medal in 30 years by capturing the silver, and Sasha Cohen won the silver medal in ladies. Other top U.S. finishes included a fourth-place finish in men’s by Evan Lysacek (despite battling the flu) and a seventh-place finish in pairs by Rena Inoue and John Baldwin, who landed the first throw triple Axel in Olympic history along the way.

ICE DANCING


Three-time U.S. champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto overcame a few small mistakes to win the ice dancing silver medal. It is the first medal the U.S. has won in ice dancing since 1976 when Colleen O’Connor and Jim Millns collected the bronze medal.

“It’s kind of surreal,” Agosto said moments after he learned he won silver. “I don’t think it’s sunken in yet, because I didn’t see it on the screen yet. I think I’ll be pretty amazed when I get the medal.”

The medal is a culmination of a long journey for the duo, who qualified for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games but had to sit it out due to Belbin’s lack of American citizenship. She was finally sworn in as a U.S. citizen on Dec. 31, 2005, after legislation passed in Congress that affected citizenship for aliens of extraordinary ability.

“It’s great now to have a set of World and Olympic silver medals,” Belbin said. “That’s amazing. It’s our first Olympics, and a lot of the teams that are competing with us here are second or third-time Olympians, so it’s great to be able to come here and get a medal our first time out when we didn’t even know we would be here. You can’t ask for more.”

Despite finishing fourth in the free dance, Belbin and Agosto were able to maintain their second place spot overall due to their strong original dance. The U.S. team managed to avoid a series of bad falls by couples in the original dance, which moved them up from sixth after the compulsories to second overall.

Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, and teammates Jamie Silverstein and Ryan O’Meara, finished 14th and 16th, respectively, and both teams announced they plan to continue in the competitive ranks. This Olympics marked the first to welcome three U.S. ice dancing teams since 1984, thanks to high placements by Belbin and Agosto, and Gregory and Petukhov, at the 2005 World Championships.

Gregory was pleased with her performances but said these Olympics didn’t quite fulfill her dreams – yet. “Well, I dreamed I was going to be an Olympic champion and I’m not – not yet anyways,” she laughed. “That was in my dreams, but it’s not a reality yet. Aside from that it’s even more than what I had hoped for, because I’m here with my husband and I’m skating with him, and I’m sharing this with him. The placement aside, it couldn’t have been any better.”

For Silverstein, participating in the Olympics was a personal victory. “Overwhelming is the only word that comes to mind,” she said. “This morning I cried a little bit. I think it kind of hit me - the journey that I've been through personally and the journey of Ryan and I. Everyone kind of rallied around me this afternoon and I hope I did them proud. There's an amazing group of people behind us and they deserve loads of credit.”

Russia’s Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov won the gold, while Ukrainians Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov finished third and collected the bronze medal.

LADIES

Sitting in first place by 0.03 after the short program, two-time World silver medalist Sasha Cohen entered the free skate with confidence and opportunity. Things went awry as she faltered in the first 20 seconds of her program, falling on a triple Lutz (intended to be a Lutz-double toe-double loop combination) and stepping out of the following triple flip attempt (intended to be a triple flip-double toe). However, she didn’t let the mistakes overcome her and went on to skate a near-flawless three and a half minutes to finish out her program to “Romeo and Juliet.”

When she stepped off the ice, Cohen thought she may have no medal at all. However, after other skaters faltered, her performance put her in second place, with Japan’s Shizuka Arakawa in first and Russia’s Irina Slutskaya in third. The silver wasn't the medal Cohen had dreamed about, but she realized the color of a medal isn't always the most important thing. “It's not a one-night journey," she said. "In the process I learned a lot about myself and enjoyed it.”

Cheered on by an enthusiastic crowd, the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic Team – Kimmie Meissner – landed four clean triples in her program to “Belkis, Queen of Sheba,” to place sixth. “It wasn't one of my best programs,” said Meissner. “But it's pretty good for being my first Olympics. This experience tonight definitely inspires me for the next Olympics in 2010. Hard work will eventually pay off.”

Late replacement Emily Hughes, who was the alternate for an injured Michelle Kwan, fell on a triple loop in her free skate but otherwise skated cleanly to place seventh. Like Meissner, she was skating in her first major senior international competition, and a top 10 finish is a medal in itself.

“This whole experience has been so much fun actually, not knowing what to expect,” she said. “It's been the biggest learning experience. It's been a big step up from last year, and I did a personal best. I'll take a lot away.”

No other country finished with all three ladies in the top 10.

MEN

The U.S. men didn’t quite squeak out a medal, but with Evan Lysacek finishing in fourth, Johnny Weir in fifth and Matt Savoie in seventh, the U.S. Team was the only to have more than one skater finish in the top 10.

Lysacek thought he saw his dreams shattered after the short program when he finished 10th. Not only was his performance a disappointment, on the way back to the Olympic Village he started feeling queasy. By Wednesday morning he had a full-blown case of the stomach flu and even considered dropping out of the competition on the way to the Palavela for the free skate.

He chose to carry on, and the determination paid off as Lysacek swept through his “Carmen” free skate, finishing third in that segment of the competition. He moved up six places to fourth overall and went from being the lowest American finisher to the top. He landed eight triples, three in combination, and received level 3s and 4s across the board on other elements.

“With everything that I’ve been through over the course of the last few days I think that I’m really proud of my performance,” he said. “No matter what place I came in I was glad I could go out and finish the competition a lot stronger than I started. I’ve been saying all day that I’ve been dreaming about the Olympics for about a decade, and it never included getting the flu or having IVs. It turned out to be an Olympic experience that I think I’ll always remember. It became about courage and finishing what I started.”

Weir, second after the short program, dropped to fifth overall with a free skate that included six triples and only one combination. “I felt very rushed,” he said. “I missed the bus and had to jump in a car. I got here late. I never caught up to myself, and my body didn’t catch up. I’m very disappointed in myself. I’m beyond angry with myself right now. My elements weren’t strong. I don’t deserve a medal tonight; I didn’t expect one.”

Savoie moved up one spot after the short program to seventh with an elegant program to music from “The Mission.” He was fifth in the free skate but had trouble again with his Lutzes, doubling two of them at the end of the program. Savoie begins Cornell Law School in the fall and does not plan to compete next year. However, he will continue to skate and said he doesn’t know what the future will hold.

“If it were my last performance, I'm proud and I would be happy with it,” he said. “Skating well always makes you want to keep skating. I wish I had been skating this way early in my career. Ending on a high note is something I've always dreamed about as well.”

As predicted, Russia’s Evgeny Plushenko walked away with the gold medal, scoring a world record score in the free skate. Reigning World champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland hung on to the silver medal although he finished behind Lysacek in the free skate. Third place went to Canada’s Jeffrey Buttle.

PAIRS

Two-time U.S. champions Rena Inoue and John Baldwin ended a long journey in the pairs event with a personal best score and a seventh-place finish. They landed the famed throw triple Axel during the short program – the first in Olympic history – and their placement and score were milestones, considering their top finish at the World Championships is 10th.

“I’m very pleased with the way we skated,” Inoue said. “I thought it was a very good overall performance. We made a couple of mistakes so we know we can do better than that, but at least for myself I know I went for every single thing. No regret, and I couldn’t ask myself for anything more than that.”

Skating last in the penultimate group of the free skate, Inoue and Baldwin chose to go after side-by-side triple toes instead of triple Lutzes as the opening move. They landed them and went on to hit a double twist and double Axel-double Axel sequence. Inoue landed the throw triple loop but fell on the throw triple Axel at about the halfway mark of the program.

Americans Marcy Hinzmann and Aaron Parchem remained in 13th position with a strong performance that included no major errors. “We just had a great time tonight,” Parchem said. “The audience was wonderful. We went out there and did the program like we hoped we could. I think regardless of whether we always stay on our feet or not, that’s what important to us at this competition.”

The gold medal went to Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin of Russia, who won with ease. The silver medal went to Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang. Dan Zhang missed the landing of the attempted throw quad Salchow and crashed into the boards; the team had to stop their program for a few minutes to recoup. Clearly injured, Dan bravely continued the program and collected their first Olympic medal. Third place went to the team of Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China.