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U.S. Men's Olympic Team Meets With the Press

Johnny Weir

2006 Olympic Winter Games Photos

(2/7/06) - The United States men's Olympic Figure Skating Team met with the media for the first time in Torino Tuesday morning, Feb. 7. It was a subdued and still jet-lagged trio that filed into the La Mole press conference room in the Main Media Center, as Johnny Weir, Evan Lysacek and Matt Savoie arrived in the city late Sunday night.

Since winning his third straight title in January, Weir has not had time to rest on his laurels. After the 2006 U.S. Championships in January, he scratched his free skate to Maksim Mrvica music and returned to his 2004-05 program set to “Otonal.”

“I saw the video from nationals (of his Mrvica program) and I was bored,” he said. “I landed all the jumps but there was no power or passion. I have a comfort zone in that I feel more alive with my old music.”

The program will be similar to the one fans watched last year, with adjustments and upgrades to spins and steps in accordance with the new judging system.

“I've never switched programs before [in the middle of the season],” he said. “But it was like an old glove … it slipped into place.”

Lysacek, the reigning World bronze medalist, said it will be a “sensitive compromise” between preparing for competition and reveling in the Olympic atmosphere.

“You can only tell yourself so many times that it's just another competition before you look up and see Olympic rings every two feet,” he said.

This has been a season of growth for the 20-year-old. He won the World bronze medal during his first year on the senior international circuit, but he then learned the critical lesson about staying on top.

“A lot of time World medalists go up and fall right back down in the ranks,” he said. “The World Championships were a big accomplishment for me going in for the first time and walking away with a medal. But more than that, I think the difficulty came this season trying to maintain the consistency that I got the ball rolling with last season at the Worlds.”

Savoie, meanwhile, can consider the Olympics as the pinnacle of his career before heading off to Cornell Law School next fall.

“It's a new experience to be at an event where it's not just figure skating and where it has such global attention beyond our sport,” he said. “[But] the only thing that's really changed is the consequences and the fact we've dreamed about it [our whole lives].”