Home-ice advantage for Bay Area stars?
Could there be a little hometown magic inside SAP Center next week?
The U.S. Figure Skating Championships return to San Jose, beginning this weekend and running through Jan. 7.
Unlike the previous two times the championships were held in San Jose, in 1996 and 2012, this competition also serves as the unofficial trials for the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
With so much at stake, there is sure to be drama.
But could there possibly be as much drama as there was 22 years ago?
“The building where I had my magical moment,” is how Rudy Galindo describes the location.
The most exciting sporting performance ever held inside
the arena came in 1996, when San Jose native Galindo skated the program of his life to win the men’s championship.
No offense to Sharks stars like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Arturs Irbe. Sorry, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and all the other superstars who have performed inside the building on West Santa Clara Street. There has never been such an exciting 4½ minutes, never been so many tears or goose bumps or chills as Galindo caused.
Once again, there are local skaters competing at the championships, hoping to earn a trip to South Korea. Both Karen Chen in the ladies’ singles and Vincent Zhou in the men’s singles will be trying to capture a hometown boost.
Though both skaters train outside of the Bay Area, their permanent homes are nearby, and they should have large rooting sections.
“I still have a connection to the Bay Area because my father is there, and my mother will organize a cheering section,” said Zhou, who won the novice men’s title in 2012, the last time the championships were in San Jose. “I’m very excited about the support I have here.”
But both Zhou and Chen have struggled in the past year. Zhou, 17, who was born in San Jose and spent his early years in Palo Alto, is the reigning world junior champion and won silver at last year’s national championships. But he lacked confidence and had a difficult performance at the International Grand Prix in France in November, one he would like to forget.
Chen, 18, was the surprise gold medalist at the national championships in January and finished fourth at worlds. Since then, the Fremont native, who trains in Southern California, has turned in uneven skates and has changed her long program.
“The nationals will be in my hometown, and I want to be happy and excited about that,” Chen said in March. “I don’t want to be afraid. That’s when I make my most mistakes.”
The erratic performances leading up to nationals during an Olympic year could prove problematic for Zhou and Chen. The Olympic team is not simply made up of the top finishers at nationals. Instead, it is chosen by committee, and the national championship is only the final qualifying event considered. The others include top 2017 competitions such as the world championships, the Grand Prix series and the Four Continents competition.
“Just looking at what they’ve done internationally, I think they’re both really going to have to fight,” Galindo said of Zhou and Chen. “They’ll have to skate their hearts out.”
Neither teenager has the dramatic backstory that Galindo brought to the ice in 1996. As a young skater, Galindo had stepped away from his singles career to concentrate on pairs with Kristi Yamaguchi. After that partnership ended, and having lost two coaches and a brother to AIDS-related illness and his father to a heart attack, Galindo was grieving and unmotivated and stopped skating.
However, excited by the prospect of competing in his hometown, he returned to the ice, coached by his sister Laura. But, always an outsider in skating’s establishment, he was considered a long shot and past his prime.
Shortly before the 1996 nationals, he came out as gay — the first active skater to do so — making the spotlight more intense. When he took the ice to skate to “Swan Lake,” he had nothing to lose. He skated with abandon, even waving to friends in the audience. He dazzled the judges and the crowd, which rose to its feet and chanted his name. At 26, he became the oldest men’s champion in 70 years.
It’s a performance that stands the test of time.
“I’ve watched it multiple times,” said Zhou, who was born four years after Galindo’s dramatic skate. “What a performance. I really hope I’m able to do something like that.”
Galindo is now coaching, and he has local skaters entered in the intermediate ladies’ and the novice men’s competitions, which will conclude before the headline action begins.
“So I’ll be sitting in the stands, watching,” Galindo said. “And sending some of that South Bay magic to Karen and Vincent.”