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Reposting for Fran:

This morning the men had what was for all practical purposes a short program practice session in the Fleet Center, although it was called a "Warm-Up" session. The men practiced in their Start Order groups, which meant Todd was in Group 3, while Michael Weiss and Tim Goebel were both in Group 4.

Todd's group took the ice at exactly 9:35 am. During the initial warm-up period and within 5 minutes of taking the ice, Todd landed a gorgeous triple axel, then moments later landed another one. Then, after landing a nice triple lutz, it was quad time. After tripling the jump three times, he landed a beautiful quad/double toe. Then when his music came up, he did a jumps only run-through, meaning he did the jumps when and where they were supposed to be, but cut out most of the rest of the program (it is never a good idea to do a complete run-through on competition day). First he landed the quad/double toe right where it's supposed to be, and then the triple axel and finally the triple lutz. He seemed fairly pleased after this. He ended his session practicing the triple flip/triple toe combination, as it is still a distinct possibility this (rather than the quad/2t) will be the combination he tries tonight.

He was in a relaxed, really good mood, when he left the ice a couple of minutes early, which extra minutes he used to stop by the boards and sign a number of autographs and pose for pictures with admiring fans.

Tim Goebel looked okay if not spectacular this morning. He did land a few quads and quad combos, although he missed some as well, especially when trying the quad sal/triple toe combo (he did a triple sal/triple toe on one occasion, a quad/double toe on another and fell on the triple toe on yet another). As he also practiced the triple axel/triple toe combo, he might be planning to fall back on his former sp makeup of solo quad sal and then triple axel/triple toe as his combination.

Michael Weiss didn't do too awfully much, as usual. He fell out of a triple axel on his first attempt, then landed a nice triple axel/triple toe. His first quad attempts resulted in a couple of triples and a pop, but then he finally landed a nice quad/triple toe.

Todd has a free skate practice scheduled for Matthews Arena this afternoon at 3:10 pm. I haven't asked whether he plans to attend and, since the competition is but several hours later, wouldn't be surprised if he decided to skip town - I mean, the practice session. Your fearless reporter will be on hand anyway, but by the time she's able to file a report, whatever does or doesn't happen at this practice will be moot anyway.

Expect the next report after the short program competition tonight.

Fran
FranBuhman@aol.com