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| | Monday, February 14 | |||||
| CLEVELAND, Ohio--Naomi Lang and Russian-born partner Peter Tchernyshev became two-time U.S. ice dance champions on Thursday.
In a split decision, defending men's champion Michael Weiss, ranked first in round one of his event with two 19-year-olds hot on his heels -- Timothy Goebel and Matt Savoie.
Each of the three men garnered three first-place votes. The national title will go to the winner of Saturday's final freeskate, worth two-thirds of the final score.
Lang and Tchernyshev's light and lyrical freedance, performed to Sarah Brightman's "Anytime, Anywhere," was clearly the finest program of the evening despite his slip on a spin.
The pair received a surprising 6.0 from one of the nine judges.
"It gives us a lot of confidence, a boost of energy going into our next competition in Japan," said Tchernyshev in reference to Four Continents which begins February 21.
The couple, ranked 10th in the world, will go to the world championships in Nice, France, in late March.
Silver medallists Jamie Silverstein and Justin Pekarek, the 1999 world junior champions who train with Lang and Tchernyshev in Detroit, will also travel to Japan and France.
The bronze medal was awarded to Debbie Koegel and another Russian import: Oleg Fediukov, who became a U.S. citizen last month.
That made Koegel and Fediukov eligible to represent the United States at the 2002 Winter Olympics. The gold medallists have not yet crossed that hurdle.
"I'm following in Oleg's footsteps, about a month behind," Tchernyshev reported regarding his citizenship case.
"I have filled out applications, been fingerprinted. I'm waiting for my interview schedule," he said.
Meanwhile, Weiss's first-place ranking puzzled some onlookers. He did a relatively simple triple toe loop jump where a quadruple had been planned and tacked only a double toe onto his triple Axel.
By contrast, Goebel delivered a triple-triple combination and almost had the quadruple salchow. He landed it on one foot but flipped off the landing edge.
"I got a little cautious and that's always very costly," said Goebel, who went down in history this season as the first to land three quadruple jumps in one programme.
Weiss, 23, the 1999 world bronze medallist, said: "Whenever I miss something like that (the quad), I really try to focus on the little things that I know get the extra points back from the judges -- the sharpness, hold the spins a little longer, get the positions a little more solid, the footwork."
Thursday night that strategy worked for Weiss, whose training was hampered earlier in the season by a stress fracture in his left ankle.
Goebel, the hometown favorite who has trained in Cleveland for the last several years, garnered the biggest ovation of the night.
Following his skate, appreciative fans littered the ice with stuffed animals of every species and color. "The crowd pumped me up a lot before the beginning. I never had that much applause going out onto the ice," he said.
Weiss has one quad jump planned in the finale while Goebel, the third-place finisher at the recent ISU Grand Prix final, intends to execute three. Savoie does not do a quad.
Also on the line Saturday are the two berths for the world championships.
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