Dark Night

Short program

We were in line for the arena when I heard my name and looked around. To my surprise, Todd was trotting over to give me a hug. He and Nancy had competed the night before and were currently positioned fifth. I congratulated him, and he rolled his eyes. "I swear Nancy's put on a couple of pounds, but she denies it. Firmly. But she's harder to lift and throw, I guarantee it." I introduced him to my parents and Grandpa, who'd heard about Todd but hadn't met him yet. We chatted as the line advanced, then once inside, he left to rejoin the rest of the US skating team who were watching. "Paul's in section 33, I ran into him earlier today," he said before he departed. We found our seats in section 45, and I hopped up to see if I could find my friend.

He and his parents were also in their seats, and I said hi to them before Paul and I caught up. They'd been touring Beijing, and he immediately asked his parents if they could go to the Great Wall one day. I said that I was looking forward to seeing the Forbidden City the next day. It turned out that their hotel was just down the street from ours, which would be nice if we could find some mutually agreeable time to get together. Then skaters from the first group came onto the ice, and I quickly said goodbye and scuttled back to my seat.

We would be seeing thirty skaters tonight, then for the long program there would be a cut where the six lowest-scoring skaters would be done. I looked around the rink with interest. There was the panel of nine judges and there was a referee and five technical people to evaluate each element of each skater's program and provide data. I was glad that I wouldn't have to suffer through the commentators, who could be too arch and snide for my taste. The first group to skate contained athletes from smaller countries from the former Soviet Union and one of the Israelis. After the first group, which had pretty good skating but nothing spectacular, I got up to go to the bathroom and brought back some bottles of water. I'd also gotten a small pair of binoculars, cheap, they weren't great but would let me watch the skaters better. Grandpa was immediately interested and went to get another pair as the next group finished their warmups. He returned with two for my parents as well, which was good, because I hadn't planned on sharing.

The next group had Andrew Faber, some Europeans, and a couple of athletes from Asian countries, but none of the favorites yet. And the falls started. I winced as Andrew wiped out on his first quad, and after him, they started falling like dominoes. My hands started to sweat at all the carnage. The next group warmed up, the quality of the skating getting steadily better in general, but the falls and stumbles kept trending.

The next group came out, and this one had the second Israeli man--their program was developing impressively--some of the top Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian men, and John. He looked calm and ready. The wipeouts continued, with four of the next five men making substantial errors. One of them, unbelievably, did...something very bad on a flying camel. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen an error like that on a spin. And John was up last in his group. I slid to the edge of my seat and pressed the binoculars to my face as he skated to center ice, smiling and shaking his hands out. It seemed to take an eternity for the first note of Sing Sing Sing to sound in the hushed arena. I folded my fingers to my mouth as he completed an improved step sequence; it was more stompy than it had been, with a little extra bravura, then he started the glide to his first quad. He looked a little tilted in the air, but he landed solidly on his dodgy ankle and I let out a huge sigh of relief. After that, he seemed to skate with more confidence, landing each jump like his foot had been nailed to the ground, his footwork flashy, his spins a great combination of fast and slow, very precise, and not traveling on the ice, which showed very good control. His smile throughout never faltered, and his joy at landing his quad axel evident and was rewarded with applause and cheers from the crowd. He ended his program with a bang, and I sat back, greatly relieved. He bowed to the crowd, waved, and skated off to await his score. Which was a whopping 113.23. There had been no deductions. Now if my brother could only skate as well.