Men’s runner-up left off U.S. team
Skating officials pass over Miner for Olympics
SAN JOSE – The 2018 U.S. national figure skating championships ended Sunday just as any self-respecting skating competition should, in a blaze of glorious controversy and life-altering drama as a committee overturned the results of the men’s event based on a series of criteria that allowed U.S. skating officials to pick and choose whoever they wanted to send to the Olympic Games next month in Pyeongchang.
Ah, figure skating. It never, ever, ever disappoints.
None of the backroom politics changes the figure skating medal chances for the United States: Nathan Chen, the runaway winner of the men’s event Saturday night, will be favored to win a medal, potentially gold. The U.S. women are expected to be shut out of the individual medals for the third Olympics in a row. A U.S. ice dance team will likely win the bronze, and the Americans will probably win a team bronze as well.
But as exuberance built for the big send-off of the newest crop of American Olympians, the arcane ways of the U.S. Figure Skating selection process brought real heartache to a highly re- garded former skater turned respected coach, and shined a bright light on the capricious nature of selecting an Olympic team any which way officials want to.
In a particularly cruel twist of fate, Mark Mitchell, who was dropped from the 1992 Olympic team for a more decorated skater after finishing third at those nationals, watched as the skater he coaches, Ross Miner, was dealt a similar fate here.
Miner, a 26-year-old Bostonian who last finished in the top three of a nationals five years ago, was the only man to skate two clean programs here, including an exhilarating long program that found him in second place, behind only Chen, when all was said and done.
If he were a swimmer or a runner, he would have been headed to the Olympic Games. But because he is a figure skater, he (his fate, actually) was headed right to a committee meeting room, where, by an 11-1 vote, he was left off the U.S. Olympic team, replaced by 28-year-old Adam Rippon, who has been on a roll this season but bombed in his long program, finishing not third, but fourth overall.
If you’ve been paying attention to skating the last week, you know the word “criteria” has been mentioned more than the word “salchow.” A threetiered system of ranking athletes on competitions past and present, the cri- teria make you think there’s some kind of real system behind what U.S. officials are doing, when the fact is they can do whatever the heck they want.
So they booted Miner off the team and moved Rippon into his spot, then added another insult to the poor guy, refusing to even give him the honor of be- ing first alternate to the Olympic team. They moved 2014 Olympian Jason Brown, who bombed even worse than Rippon Saturday night, into that spot, dropping Miner to second alternate.
Mitchell, one of the classiest acts in a sport that tries one’s patience on a daily if not hourly basis, was understandably livid.
“I feel like if U.S. Figure Skating knew they weren’t going to send Ross, it’s really gutless of them to not tell him in advance,” he said in an interview Sunday morning. “You let him spend all this money and time and energy to try and achieve his dream. If you knew he couldn’t make it, why did we fly here, why did we pay for a hotel, why did we pay for training, if it was decided already?”
Mitchell wasn’t done, and who could blame him?
“How do I continue to teach kids day in and day out with hopes and dreams of making the Olympics? I would tell them work hard and do your job and it will pay off. My little kids all watched last night. Why would they come back to the rink?”
Good questions all, but questions that will remain unanswered as the American figure skating community quickly pivoted toward Pyeongchang, leaving Mitchell and Miner and all this controversy behind.