Mroz to set bar high at Skate America

Brandon Mroz knew if he had any shot of being a contender for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team in Vancouver that he had to try something bold. He couldn't just waltz into a field with national champions Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir and expect to make his mark with conservative, but clean performances.

He knew what he was up against in his own training facility, in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he practiced alongside of longtime national competitors and world team members Ryan Bradley and Jeremy Abbott.

So even though he had just turned 18 about a month before the 2009 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Cleveland, the high school senior decided to go for it. He landed a quadruple toe loop, one of the hardest maneuvers in the sport, and nailed it. The four-revolution jump landed him on the medal podium, with a silver medal in just his first trip to nationals at the senior level.

"For me, the quad can put you in a different league,'' Mroz said. "It can separate you. It's risky, but it's full of rewards.''

Mroz also knew that if he didn't try the quad at nationals this past year, he would have been all too nervous to have it in his repertoire at nationals in an Olympic year.

"People say to me, you're so young and trying quad toes,'' said Mroz, flashing a smile that also shined his braces. "But at the Olympics, nobody's going to hold back.''

Or will they?

It will be interesting to see how many of the top men's figure skaters in the world will attempt a quad at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Mroz, who will be competing this weekend against some of the top competitors at Skate America, an international competition held in Lake Placid, N.Y., is among one of a few who is planning on landing quads (one in his short program and another in his free skate).

And what better place for Mroz to test his quads than in Lake Placid, where the Olympic Winter Games and miracles on ice occurred nearly 30 years ago.

But these days, a quad is more of an anomaly than the norm.

For a while, especially during the 1990s, the quad became the difference mark of a men's skating champion. Canada's Kurt Browning landed a quad toe at the World Championships in 1988 and then Elvis Stojko, another Canadian, was landing quads in ice rinks all over the world. Americans Todd Eldredge and Michael Weiss tried their best to keep up, but as it turned out it was a junior-level skater named Timothy Goebel who became the first U.S. skater to successfully land a quad in competition in 1998.

The question of to quad or not to quad became so prevalent that Eldredge often joked with reporters that he couldn't get through an interview without discussing what his chances were of landing one. Everywhere you looked, it seemed, men were attempting more and more quads and Goebel was anointed "The Quad King'' when he landed three quads in one program in 1999. Some even wondered if a quint was possible.

"I watched that,'' Mroz said of Goebel's three-quad feat, "and I told myself, 'I want to be the next kind of quad boy.' ''

But after Goebel landed three quads in his free skate to earn a bronze medal at the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games, the quads started to fizzle a bit. The top skaters were doing one. You could count on one hand the number of men who were trying two.

Then the sport was overhauled with a new judging system. No longer were skaters judged based on a perfect 6.0 score. Instead, each element was given a point value. A quad toe is worth 9.8 points, one of the highest elements among the jumps. (A much simpler double toe, by comparison, is worth 1.3). But if a skater tried a quad and didn't get quite all of the rotation, it would be downgraded to a triple toe (worth 4.0 points) and could be further downgraded, making the attempt almost pointless, literally and figuratively.

In short, the risk, for most skaters, hasn't seemed to be worth the reward. So, over time, fewer men were trying them. The last two men to win the world titles, Canada's Jeffrey Buttle (in 2008) and America's Evan Lysacek (in 2009) won gold medals without attempting a quad.

Mroz could have easily followed suit. But that wouldn't have been much fun.

"In the past, you had guys doing three quads and now we have one?'' Mroz said.

"I don't think it should be a question of should we try the quad or not,'' Mroz said a little while later. "I think we should all try for the quad. To achieve anything great, you have to take risks.''

Goebel, now retired from competitive skating and on track to graduate from Columbia University in May, welcomes Mroz's chutzpah. Goebel is training to become a technical specialist in skating and was working on the judging side of a Chicago competition in which Mroz competed in this summer. He liked what he saw.

"I think it's great that Brandon is doing this stuff,'' Goebel said. "People did less to win a world title than I did to win a Junior Grand Prix event. The biggest program is there is no reward for taking the risk. Brandon is wise beyond his years. He's doing the quad because he can.''

Interestingly, Goebel became the first man to land three quads in one program at nationals when they were held in Cleveland in 2000. Nine years later, on that same ice, Mroz landed his quad at nationals.

Still, skaters like Mroz, are somewhat of a rarity these days. In the four Grand Prix events this season, Japan's Nobunari Oda won twice without attempting a quad. Brian Joubert of France landed one in Japan. Russia's Evgeni Plushenko, meanwhile, is making a remarkable comeback after winning the Olympic gold medal in 2006 and then taking the next three years off from competitive skating. He landed a quad in the short program and a quad-triple combination in the free skate to win the Rostelecom Cup late last month in Moscow and is now talking about doing two at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

A handful of other competitors are trying them (and the occasional skater is landing one) but their overall skating is so poor that the quad cannot compensate for a subpar performance. Some of the top competitors, including reigning world champion Evan Lysacek, who has landed quads in the past, has yet to attempt one in competition this season.

The fact that there are few quads to be seen these days doesn't seem to bother Mroz. He's on his own track.

Mroz gets his fight honestly. A native of St. Louis, he is the son of a former hockey player dad and a synchronized skater mom. He started out playing hockey, but often found himself on the bench or in the penalty box.

He switched to figure skating and left home at a young age to train in Canada with a coach named Doug Leigh. Leigh just happens to be the man who guided Stojko in his quad-filled career. Then, when Mroz decided to change coaches, he didn't pick a place where he would be the elite skater in the rink. He went to work with Tom Zakrajsek and Becky Calvin in Colorado Springs where every day he skated alongside of Abbott and Bradley. Every day, he would see the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

"I pass those Olympic rings all the time,'' Mroz said. "Sometimes, I look at them and think, 'I want to make the Olympics so bad.' ''

If he does make the team, Mroz said he plans on getting the Olympic rings tattooed on his body.

But with all of this zeal comes a heavy heart. He nearly quit the sport after his mother and brother were severely injured in a car accident in 2005. His mother required heart surgery, and his brother remains paralyzed from the waist down. They had been returning from a visit with Brandon, and the guilt weighed on him heavily.

Ultimately, however, Mroz decided to return to the ice. He idolizes Pat Rummerfeld, reportedly the world's first fully recovered quadriplegic who has gone on to compete in Ironman triathlons and marathons, and hopes his brother will one day walk again.

So it's no wonder that for Mroz, it's all or nothing.

At times, Mroz has learned that his risk-taking ways, calculated though as they are, can cost him. His first Grand Prix event of the season was the Rostelecom Cup in Moscow. In the short program, Mroz botched his quad and found himself last among the 11 competitors. He redeemed himself, however, landing a quad toe to finish fourth in the free skate, but placed seventh overall.

Yet it's the fear of not going for it all that seems to drive Mroz the most.

"I love the passion of the risk,'' Mroz said. "I love the challenge for me. Even last year at nationals, people kept telling me, 'Whoa, whoa, you can hit the brakes.' Even my coach said, 'You know you don't have to try (the quad).' But I refused to take the high-risk elements out of my program.''

And with the Olympic Winter Games less than 100 days away, Mroz isn't about to veer off course now. He had a big setback in Russia for sure, but the quads are in his program for Skate America. Zakrajsek, his coach, said Mroz is training for two quads in his free skate program but probably won't test that until nationals. For Mroz, there's no other way to skate.

"And this year,'' he said, "I don't think there's going to be any mercy.''

Certainly not from him.

Amy Rosewater is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.

Tags: 2009 Cancer.Net Skate America , Amy Rosewater, Becky Calvin, Brandon Mroz, Evan Lysacek, Jeremy Abbott, Johnny Weir, Ryan Bradley, Timothy Goebel, Tom Zakrajsek, U.S. Figure Skating, Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games