When he won bronze at last year’s world figure skating championships in Sweden, Johnny Weir helped nail down a third spot for the American men at this year’s world championships, in March in Los Angeles.

So, even though Weir finished fifth at the U.S. Figure Skating championships, which wrapped up Sunday in Cleveland, Jeremy Abbott winning, 18-year-old Brandon Mroz second, 2007 and 2008 U.S. champion Evan Lysacek third, there’s an argument that Weir deserved to go to Los Angeles.

The hard part is — who do you bump? Certainly not Abbott. Not Lysacek, who like Weir is a proven medal contender on the international stage. Mroz? With his performance Sunday, landing a quad and a bushel of triples, Mroz may have established himself as an up-and-coming star pointing toward the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.

Coming off the ice, Mroz described hitting that quad as an “incredible, incredible feeling,” and said, “During it, I was trying to stay level-headed and get everything done and afterward, I was saying, ‘Thank you, god!’ ”

Abbott broke through Sunday to win his first U.S. championship after setting the stage Friday with a dominating short program. He said Sunday evening, “I woke up this morning so nervous. The more you win and the closer you get to the top, the harder it gets.”

Great stuff, and as U.S. Figure Skating officials look toward Vancouver, and new stars on the stage — maybe there they are.

Even so, in naming the 1-2-3 finishers Sunday in Cleveland to the team in L.A., and denying Weir, those same U.S. Figure Skating officials are taking the most calculated of risks.

At stake at the 2009 worlds, among other things, are the number of spots the U.S. men can earn at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Just like the U.S. women, the American men must in Los Angeles earn a combined placement of 13 (the top two men coming in first and 12th, for instance, or sixth or seventh, any such combination) to keep three Olympic spots.

Johnny Weir is a proven performer. He has been slowed this year by illness. It showed in Cleveland. By the world championships, the last week in March, he figured to be better, and to do better.

“I fought back,” Weir said after turning in a decent-enough free skate Sunday, that free skate following the clunker of a short program Friday that had left him far back in the standings. And that might well be the best of many of the reasons to consider Johnny Weir, a point that sometimes gets lost amid everything else that’s part of the Weir package. In competition, he is, truly, a fighter.

That, and the obvious: figure skating is not, say, track and field, where you finish first, second or third or you go home.

It’s more like gymnastics. The sports’ officials can consider body of work.

Think back to last June, and the U.S. Olympic Trials in gymnastics. An injured Paul Hamm didn’t compete but nonetheless got named to the U.S. team. Why? Because he was a proven champion. (Hamm would ultimately not compete in the 2008 Games in Beijing, his injuries too much to overcome.)

To those who would say that naming Weir to the world team would grossly devalue the competition in Cleveland — the answer starts and ends with rules that allow for consideration of body of work. Another example: David Sender is the 2008 U.S. men’s national champion in men’s gymnastics. He did not go to Beijing.

Earlier Sunday, ice dancers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto were named to the world team.

Agosto has been battling a back injury. He, too, figures to be better by March, Belbin saying Sunday, “He’s recovering quickly.” Belbin and Agosto are three-time world medalists and the silver medalists in ice dance at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics.

If you had the chance to put that kind of experience and talent on your team, wouldn’t you?

Now — same question as it pertains to Weir, a three-time national champion, the 2008 U.S. silver medalist and the world 2008 bronze winner.

This season, moreover, Weir won silver at Skate America, in October. In November, at the NHK Trophy, he took silver. At the 2008 Grand Prix Final in South Korea, he won bronze.

Then consider further:

Belbin and Agosto withdrew Jan. 8 from the Cleveland championships. They didn’t want to risk aggravating his condition further.

If Weir had similarly withdrawn from the U.S. championships, wouldn’t he be all but a lock for the world team?

Should Weir thus be punished for showing up in Cleveland and trying to compete even though he, and everyone else, knew going in that he wasn’t his usual self?

Weir spent Christmas Eve in a South Korean hospital with what he described Sunday as a stomach virus that caused him to lose eight pounds. “When you’re already a slight person, it’s difficult to come back,” he said, adding that the situation “absolutely affected my preparation.”

These 2009 U.S. championships marked Mroz’s first at the senior level. His appearance at the words will be his first at that level as well, and he vowed Sunday evening from the arena in Cleveland to make his showing in L.A. “even better than it was here.”

If he makes the 2010 Olympic team, Mroz’s 2009 worlds experience will of course be invaluable. Same for Abbott.

Weir may yet make the 2010 Olympic team. But the question now is, how many Olympic spots will there be?

“I have experience,” Weir was saying Sunday evening, a few minutes before the announcement came out that he would not, in fact, be going to Los Angeles.

“I have been to the Olympic Games and many world championships. I’m a world medalist. I have been one of the main faces of U.S. figure skating for the past several years. I think my experience will help you get one of the three spots for Vancouver.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 6:29 pm and is filed under alanabrahamson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.