Eldredge, Kwan win against strong fields

Copyright 1998 the Associated Press. -- All Rights Reserved

Todd Eldredge staged a successful conclusion to his competitive season Thursday night, winning the Ultimate Four figure skating event.

Skating against four-time world champion Kurt Browning from Canada and Olympic champions Ilya Kulik and Alexei Urmanov of Russia, Eldredge repeated the title that he won in the event in 1996.

''I doubled the last triple, but other than that I skated very well,'' said Eldredge, of Chatham, Mass. ''I hit all the other triples.''

Eldredge, who had a disappointing Olympics, finishing fourth, then was second at the world championships, received a standing ovation before he started skating. He performed his short program to music from ''Les Miserables'' and finished first, with 1994 Olympic champion Urmanov second, Nagano gold medalist Kulik third and Browning fourth.

Although he was second to Browning in the long program, Eldredge had a big enough margin to finish first overall.

Browning, who landed the first quadruple jump in competition in 1988 and hit one again during a Stars on Ice show on the 10th anniversary of the first quad, barely missed another quad Thursday.

''I just did the best I can. I was incredibly inspired by the people I skate with and against,'' said Browning, who has been a professional since 1994. ''I never try it unless I'm up against the best in the world.

''I can't go head-to-head with them technically, so I tried to pull one out of the bag to see what would happen.''

Kwan, the silver medalist at Nagano and winner of her second world championship last month, earned four perfect marks from the five judges for presentation in the free skate. She had three 6.0s in the short program.

''It has been a long season and a long day,'' Kwan said, ''but it was special tonight. I was really into the program and really into the music.''

Kwan was followed by Russia's Maria Butyrskaya, who was fourth in the short program and second in the free skate. Another Russian, Irina Slutskaya, was third, followed by Yuka Sato of Japan, who has been a pro since 1995.

Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, current world champs and the Olympic silver medalists, edged world runners-up Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, in pairs. Nagano champions Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev were third, followed by two-time U.S. champions Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen.