Figure Skating

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LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - World champion Evan Lysacek of the United States got some good advice from Olympic champion Scott Hamilton this year. After all, there seems to be a kiss of death for someone who wins a world championship the year before the Olympics, as Lysacek has.

Hamilton told Lysacek: "Don't worry about one single thing. Don't get too excited about anything. Don't get too disappointed about anything.''

So Lysacek has listened and he's staying on his path to Vancouver. And one of those steps was to win the men's short program at Skate America on Friday night, with a score that was more than seven points ahead of the second-placed finisher.

Lysacek won with 79.17 points over Florent Amodio, (72.65) who surprised everybody - and earned a standing ovation - after a clean and expressive program. Amodio was last year's Junior Grand Prix champion and the Brazilian-born Frenchman is making a huge step up in his first year on the senior Grand Prix.

Third is Brandon Mroz, the U.S. silver medalist, still only 18. Amodio is 19. His score was 71.40.

Tomas Verner, fourth in the world last year, had what he called a "disaster program'' and finished only 11th of 12 men with a score of 55.90. He underrotated and fell on his opening quad combination, and turned his next two triple jumps into doubles.

He said that he was tired after a 20-hour trip from Czech Republic to Lake Placid, and that he's been unable to sleep. "I had no more power to do my jumps,'' he said.

Shawn Sawyer of Edmundston, N.B., finished fifth with 65.95 points after flipping out of a triple Axel and doubling a triple Lutz. He was fifth in Canada last year, just behind Kevin Reynolds of Coquitlam, B.C., who showed off a new expressive side, but finished only 10th .last night with 59.05 points.

Judges deemed that Reynolds underrotated his quad Salchow that was part of a quad-triple combination. He was surprised, thinking that he had good flow in the combination. He also singled a triple Axel.

Lysacek said he was confused with his score because he thought it was a better effort than Cup of China, where he finished second a couple of weeks ago. He was about a point lower than in China, but then, he figured it had to do with "that little grey area on the triple Axel.''

Lysacek underrotated the triple Axel. He said he hasn't made that mistake in about a year.

"Each event is a step toward Vancouver,'' Lysacek said. "And China was for me my first step, so it was important to get my legs under me and really get to know these programs.''

He said this event was a new challenge for him. He trains at sea level in Los Angeles, but at Lake Placid, he's in a higher altitude in the Adirondack Mountains.

Lysacek did not attempt a quad, because he's had little time to train it, after recovering from an injury to his left foot suffered at the world championships. He was off for eight weeks, and when he got back onto the ice, he had a busy schedule during the summer.

"I spent tons of time preparing and choreographing and studying character for these two programs and building strength back up in my left foot,'' he said.

He's tried a few quads here and there, but is not ready to include them yet.
Sawyer said he'd been practicing well at home, delivering clean programs, but he ran into trouble with his Lutz by trying to go into it too quickly.

"I have to be a little more focused and not go too fast into my third jump,'' he said. "It's worth a lot of points and I didn't get a lot on that one today. I wasn't mad at myself.''

He said his entire focus this season has been the 2010 Olympics, but it's not just a focus of this season. "It's probably my last season,'' he said. "So I'm giving it my all. It would have been fun to have done a clean short today, but you can't have everything in life, and I'm still happy.''

"Everything that I've been doing my whole career comes down to this. That's what I'm doing this for, not for this year but for this whole career.''

Reynolds said he felt better than at Cup of China, but he still didn't have all the training time he would have liked leading to this event.

He said the triple Axel felt shakey in morning practice. ‘I guess I was just getting nervous with it,'' he said. "It was good in the warmup, so it was just a mental error. But for the long program, I should be more confident with another day's practice.''