Brian Boitano : This Soldier’s No Toy

Three days. Two Brians. One gold medal. So the tense scene was set as America’s Brian Boitano and Canada’s Brian Orser faced off Saturday evening in the Olympic Saddledome. The compulsory figures and short program had decided nothing. The final verdict would, after all, come down to 4 1/2 lonely minutes on the ice. True to form, the much touted similarities between the two friends and rivals continued to the very last. Apparently they knew there was a war on, because each was dressed military-style, Boitano in blue, Orser in crimson, both their costumes brightened by gold braid. Each skated everything he had, bringing the best of his skill and grace to the impossibly tense moment. Their clash was the most exciting men’s final in memory. When it was all done, Orser had captured the competition’s only perfect 6.0. But Boitano had laid claim to the gold.

While the men’s contest of wills remained undecided until the last score flashed, the outcome of the pairs competition was all but foreordained. The incandescent young Soviet couple, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, secured a healthy lead during the short program, then skated away from the pack with a seemingly flawless performance in the longer freestyle event. The Soviets, who have claimed every Olympic pairs gold medal since 1964, also placed second and fourth. The top U.S. pair, Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard, survived an awkward spill early in the long program to capture the bronze and win America’s first medal at Calgary.

Boitano could be counted on to enrich the trophy trove, but as he went into the final program, the hue was anything but certain. In addition, as the men approached the long segment, which counts for 50% of the total score, Boitano held the narrowest of leads. His stronger showing in the painstaking figures (worth 30%) gave him the edge, despite Orser’s higher marks in the short program (worth just 20%). But that segment, lasting no longer than 2 1/4 minutes, was a boost for both men. Orser delivered a jazzy Fred Astaire send- up that he later called “my best short program ever in competition.” Boitano was also pleased, humbly mouthing “Thank you, God” just seconds after completing an elegant program that featured a cocky young skater at play.

As Boitano waited to take the ice Saturday night, all traces of that assumed arrogance had vanished. Hovering near the edges of the rink, he blew his nose repeatedly and nervously tightened his laces. Later he would describe the battle raging in his head as he skated to the center of the rink, one voice goading, “This is it! This is it!” while another soothed, “You know what to do.” When the elaborate music of Carmine Coppola’s Napoleon filled the Saddledome, Boitano inhaled deeply, then focused his 16 years of training on the moment.

Soundly landing the first jump, his trademark ‘Tano triple, which adds the gravitational challenge of an upstretched arm to a triple Lutz, Boitano moved through a quick series of military gestures. His recent emphasis on choreography was paying off. Then he glided into a difficult combination jump. As he nailed the landing, his choreographer, Sandra Bezic, started jumping up and down. Even Boitano seemed to let go some of his tension. Only in the final moments, however, did he indulge his mounting exuberance. As he swirled into his final spin, he broke into a radiant smile. Then he came to a triumphant halt — and fought back tears of joy.

Orser also skated brilliantly, so powerfully in fact that four of the nine judges rated his performance higher than Boitano’s. Clearly the Canadian audience adored him. During his program, the cheers were so loud that it was sometimes impossible to hear Shostakovich’s The Bolt. As Orser finished, teddy bears and hundreds of flowers rained onto the ice. When he learned that he had again, as in 1984, placed second, he fought back tears and said, “I’m disappointed. What can I say?”

There were other setbacks. Alexander Fadeev, a Soviet skater who had been touted for the bronze, stumbled twice, enabling his younger teammate, Viktor Petrenko, to take the medal. And Canadian Kurt Browning braved the one quadruple jump of the Olympic competition, only to fall. U.S. Skater Christopher Bowman finished a solid seventh, and Teammate Paul Wylie, who recovered from two early spills to hand in a graceful performance, placed tenth.

If the men’s competition will be remembered as the final showdown in a battle that has set the Brians blade to blade since 1978, the pairs event will live as the moment when the world gave its heart to a tiny wisp of a girl named Katya. Not quite 5 ft. and not quite 90 lbs., Ekaterina Gordeeva was not quite like anyone else in the Saddledome. Fragile, with a smile that comes from over the rainbow, Katya has the gift of making her audience happy. Part of her secret may be that glorious smile. She has superb technique based on first-rate ballet training, but she makes even a triple throw look spontaneous. She has the innocence and sheer energy that enable her, like earlier East bloc sweethearts Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci, to slay hearts on both sides of the Great Power divide.

Oh, yes. She also has a partner — that handsome chap Grinkov, who tossed Gordeeva so effortlessly around the rink. Twinned by Moscow’s Central Army Sports Club six years ago, neither has ever had another partner. Yet they spend little time together off the ice. Grinkov is 21, and his tastes run to books and ice hockey, while Gordeeva likes to collect toys, sew and surprise her teammates with batches of home-baked cookies. “We just practice together,” says Grinkov. Romantics can take heart that perhaps it is just the age difference. Gordeeva is, after all, only 16. With her wide-eyed fawn’s gaze, she is still a giggly high school girl, while Grinkov is a self-assured college man.

On the ice they are one. Skating to the lilting strains of Chopin and Mendelssohn, Gordeeva and Grinkov flowed balletically from one move to the next, perfectly synchronized at every turn. The marks in their long program testified to their near perfection: in two sets of ratings from nine judges for technical and artistic merit, the Soviet sensations earned 14 scores of 5.9. It could have caused a furor that they received not a single perfect 6.0. (Katya’s smile dimmed when the scoreboard turned up 5.8s and 5.9s after their short program.) But no other pair received a 5.9 in any part of the competition, assuring Gordeeva and Grinkov the gold they so richly deserved.

The dimpled doll and her gallant prince with the chiseled cheekbones simply skated the other pairs off the ice. Even Silver Medalists Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev, a married pair who won the gold in 1984, had a bad moment when he teetered on a triple toe loop. But as much as skaters like to complain about “bad ice,” Olympic jitters seemed the larger evil. While audiences were able to lose themselves in the grace and fluidity of Gordeeva and Grinkov’s confident performance, it was a rare break. Most of the evening, spectators held their breath as the other pairs wobbled their way through tricky throws and mirroring jumps. Says U.S. Skater Natalie Seybold, who with her brother Wayne finished tenth: “There’s too much emphasis on throws and triples.”

The emphasis on difficulty also took its toll in the men’s competition. But many of the skaters who failed to meet their own high expectations will undoubtedly be back in 1992, staking a more mature claim to the medals ahead. For the two Brians, this is the end of a long-traveled road. Both say they will retire from amateur skating next month after the world championships. For Gordeeva and Grinkov, this is only the beginning. Whatever future competitions may bring, Calgary will always summon up the haunting memory of Brian Boitano’s triumphant tears and Katya’s elusive smile.