Okay, this is gonna be brief because I am QUITE exhausted and tomorrow's gonna be a long night as well..

The morning started with the junior ladies short program and Lindsey Weber got things started right away with a great program that was error-free. However, she was one of the only ones to not have problems. Louann Donovan fell on two required elements, and even last year's novice champion Colette Irving had a fall but still managed to place well. The best performance of the day was from Joan Cristobal, who skated last to Life is Beautiful and was perfect. My mother said that Joan reminded her of Michelle Kwan in a lot of ways... and speaking of Michelle Kwan, guess who appeared right behind us during hte juniors competition? Michelle was talking to the lady behind us (my mom nearly did a double take) and was looking for Frank Carroll... who was downstairs and was talking about how he was going to go see "some boat"... I think he meant the U.S.S Constitution, but I could have heard wrong. ;)

After that, we jumped on a subway, wolfed down some mcdonalds, and BARELY made it to the Fleet Center in time for the junior pair's short program. This was a pretty fun competition, but as the second place team of Kristen ROth & Michael McPherson went into a lift a minute into their so-far-so-good program, he slipped, dropped his partner, and appeared to have the wind knocked out of him. They spent a few minutes regrouping and went on to nail the rest of their program and finish to a standing ovation. They were followed by the soon-to-be champions, Deborah Blinder & Jeremy Allen, who skated a winning program to a Dvorak Cello Concerto.

After that, it was time fo the ladies practice. I wrote down details on what a lot of skaters landed, but I'll just stick ot the gist of things---First group included Jenny Kirk and Michelle Kwan. Jenny was once again solid as a rock, her ONLY mistake in her runthrough was falling on a triple lutz. But I never saw her skip even a BEAT during this session, not a single mistake under my eye! Michelle, however, had a big problem early in her runthrough-- barely 15 seconds into her program, she was skating towards where we were sitting, doing turns into a triple loop when her skate caught and she went FLYING down and slid full-speed into the boards. A collective audience gasp (a lot of people were hanging around for these sessions), but Michelle got up, talked to Frank Carroll (while the music continued). She tried to pick it up for the 3lutz/2toe combination, but she popped and tripped over that jump, still clearly shooken up.

The rest of Michelle's practice was rather good! She landed every 3toe/3toe she attempted (only the first one had a slightly wonky landing), landed quite a few 3lutzes after that, from both entrances, and hit the terrifying 3loop as well.

Group B contained Andrea Gardiner and Amber Corwin... Angela Nikodinov was the only no-show of the day. Andrea hit MOST of her triples including her combinations, with a few small problems. Amber was definitly ON this session, did not make any mistakes in her runthrough (I don't think...), and even hit her 3toe/3toe. She had this look to her that if any of those top ladies give, she might be able to creep up in the standings from how she's been finishing.

Group C had Sarah Hughes, and boy is Sarah here to win! She nailed everything, didn't try all her jumps in her actual program, but landed a few 3sal/3loops, and even a 3toe/3loop. If she hits these like she has been, she is very poised to do well in the competition because her presentation is very good, at least in my eyes! What I'd love to see is MIchelle and Sarah skating perfect programs... that would be truly exciting!

Next was the Free Dance, and there wasn't much to say other than how amazing Lang and Tchernyshev were! Just in carriage alone you could see why they are our national champions. They weren't perfect, but they carried that program to the finish! The other story of dance was the return of Jessica Joseph and her new partner, Brandon Forsyth. They had a great free-dance, and to the crowd's approval, slipped back into third place after having been in 4th going into the free-dance.

The men's short program was more or less an splat-fest.... skater after skater missing element after element! There was only ONE totally clean performance that I recall, and that would be from Trifun Zivanovic, who skated cleanly with a 3flip/3toe combination, a 3axel, and a 3lutz. (His coach was going nuts while he was skating!). Todd Eldredge came out and landed 2 perfect quad salchows (okay, apparently they were quad toe loops, but they looked like salchows from my seat!) in practice... but popped it went it counted. He nailed his 3axel, though, and 3lutz later in his program, his presentation carrying him to a second place finish.

Timothy Goebel is still working on that presentation, but is WORLDS better than it was... he nailed hsi quad salchow/double toe combination, but that was it for his techincal mastery of jumps tonight... he fell out of his triple axel, and tripped over a triple lutz as well. But he has definitly improved since switching over to Frank Carroll... his posture is worlds better, his spinds are not hunched over as muhc, and you can tell he's working on all that "other stuff" to skating. I hope he keeps it up and gets his legs under him by Satuday.

Michael Weiss, what can I say, he rocked the place! He may have 2-footed his quad, but other than that, every part of is program was clean and secure. He got a standing ovation for this great program. No complaints about the placement there. Easily in first place.

Tomorrow is Ladies Short program & Pair's free skate, so stay tuned!

Photos From Today