Russians, Canadians Return to Scene of the Crime

Salt Lake City, scandal and skating. Unless you are trying to overcome a lisp, you have to be talking about the 2002 Winter Olympic Games when you repeat those sibilant words.

Apart from the bidding brouhaha that prefaced the Games, nothing defines the Winter Olympics in memory like the scandal over judging of the pairs skating. Now, the skaters who survived that storm are returning to Salt Lake City for the first time since a French skating judge assured their place in history.

Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the Canadian pairs skaters who saw their silver medals turn to gold amid complaints of judging irregularities, will skate side-by-side with their co-gold medalists. Russian pairs skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze headline with Sale and Pelletier in the Smuckers Stars on Ice touring show, which comes Wednesday to the E Center. This time there will be no tears, no recriminations.

Three-time Olympian Todd Eldredge, who shares a Stars on Ice skating selection with the two couples, told The Salt Lake Tribune that the fracas surrounding the pairs skaters never affected the athletes' relationships.

"It was a situation that happened with the judges, not the two pairs. They are great about it. It's fun to see them on the ice doing their thing and skating side by side. They get along fantastically."

The Stars on Ice tour also features 2002 Olympic gold medalist Alexei Yagudin, who won the highest marks ever by a single skater in Olympic history. Two-time Olympic champion Katarina Witt, four-time world champion Kurt Browning, U.S. national pairs champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, and Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman are also on the tour, along with U.S. national dance champions Rene Roca and Gorsha Sur.

As conflicted as Sale's and Pelletier's memories of Salt Lake City must be, Eldredge's might be more complex. He won his first national championship in 1990 at the old Salt Palace and went on to win five more, a feat equaled only by Roger Turner and Dick Button. Last year's Winter Games encompassed some of the proudest moments of Eldredge's life -- and the only seconds he would relive if he could.

Eldredge considers being among the athletes who carried the flag from the rubble of the World Trade Center during the 2002 Opening Ceremonies one of the proudest moments of his career -- an honor equal to his national titles and 1996 world championship. Last year's Games were Eldredge's third as an Olympian, and his final chance for the medal that had eluded him.

Eldredge attended the 1992 Games in Albertville nursing a back injury and finished 10th; he missed the 1994 Lillehammer Games after a serious bout of flu derailed his qualifying bid. In '98, he was considered a serious contender for gold, but a disastrous fall in the long program put a medal out of reach.

Instead of giving up, Eldredge came back. He won his sixth national championship in 2001 and set his sights on turning in a great performance at the Olympic Games. It was not to be.

Though he says he has no regrets, there is one thing Eldredge would change if he could:

"I would have stood up in the short program on my triple axel in Salt Lake."

Instead, Eldredge crash-landed, and though he moved up three places after a well-received long program, he finished out of the medals in sixth place. Looking back, it all seems worthwhile, he said.

"I think the one thing that will stick in people's minds about me and my skating is perseverance. I kept trying and trying. You never know what you can do unless you give it a shot. A couple of years ago I stepped away to decide whether to go again for the Olympics. I decided I had to at least try one more time. I hope people will always recognize the fact that I never gave up on the dream that I had."

The power of dreams is one of the themes of the Stars on Ice program, a show that gives Eldredge and his fellow athletes a freedom they don't experience in competition. The skaters choose their own music, which ranges from Elvis Presley to Bon Jovi to Tony Bennett to Will Smith. Eldredge, ever the classicist, skates to Andrea Bocelli, but also to a big-band drum solo by Buddy Rich. The emphasis of Stars on Ice is on pleasing audiences, not judges.

"The last time Salt Lake City saw us was in the middle of the Olympic stress and the hype surrounding that," said Eldredge.

"For us to come out relaxed, and enjoy ourselves by having fun with the audience, and going out there to entertain them, really sets this show apart from the competitive side of the sport." %% Smucker's Stars on Ice features a cadre of champion skaters Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the E Center, near the 33rd South exit from I-215 in West Valley City.