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In the course of his six-year competitive career, Kulik, who
moved to Marlborough, Mass., from Moscow in 1996, has not always
performed so brilliantly. In recent months, though, he has moved
up the rankings, largely thanks to his work with Russian
ice-dancing coach Tatiana Tarasova, who two years ago came out
of retirement to oversee Kulik's career. Last summer she put him
on a regimen of cycling, running and weight lifting to bolster
his conditioning. In December, Kulik, who has never won a world
championship, defeated Stojko and Eldredge in Munich at the
Champions Series final.
Stojko's long program last week seemed more labored than usual.
Skating to the sound track from the movie The Ghost and the
Darkness, he seemed sapped and uninspired. The sport's most
explosive jumper, he failed to awe the audience as he so often
does. Although a master of the four-revolution jump (he was the
first skater to land a quad-triple combination in competition),
he couldn't muster the fortitude to show one off in Nagano.
Moreover, he was sloppy in landing a triple loop, normally an
easy move for him. Stojko had hoped to break the "Canada curse"
and win for his country its first gold medal in men's figure
skating.
Eldredge too had high hopes of overcoming what seemed like a
curse. After falling out of a simple double Axel and finishing
10th at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, he failed even to
qualify for a spot at Lillehammer, owing to a bout with the flu.
Nagano looked promising. Eldredge ranked third after the short
program, but bad luck returned to escort him through the long
one. He turned two triple-triple jump combinations into
triple-doubles, singled one triple Axel and fell while trying to
insert another at the end. Watching the performance, his
training partner and friend, gold-medal contender Tara Lipinski,
nervously gripped the arm of U.S. pairs skater Jenni Meno. When
Eldredge fell, Lipinski covered her eyes in sadness. "Nothing
went all that great," he said later. "I'm disappointed. It took
me six years to get here. Maybe I wanted the medal too badly."
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