Centerpiece: A humble champion

In the end, there was no Olympic gold. Indeed, there was no medal at all.

Todd Eldredge finished sixth in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Ironic, because six times he's been the national champion in his sport of men's figure skating.

He's received plenty of metal on other occasions: He's been world champion, masters champion, junior champion and novice champion. He's won the Nations Cup, the Lalique Trophy, the Grand Slam and the Goodwill Games. He's topped the Japan Open, the Canadian Open and he's won Skate America four times.

There are still more competitions where he's walked off with first prize, and still more where he finished among the top honors. The list is so long it's almost tedious. Eldredge may be the most decorated athlete in American men's figure skating.

Now the three-time Olympian is coming to town with Target's Stars on Ice.

Fort Myers will be Eldredge's eighth stop on his first officially "professional" tour, since he gave up his amateur status after Salt Lake.

Not that it makes much practical difference. The barriers to "amateur" athletes earning money from their performances have long since dissolved to mere technicalities.

"It's really changed a lot for all the skaters," says Eldredge, who previously performed with Champions on Ice. "A lot of the events we do are for prize monies. It seems crazy to call it 'amateurs' and 'professionals.' We all make the same before and after."

But emotionally, it's a quantum leap - or maybe a triple jump - of change.

"It's definitely a completely different feeling. It's such a change of pace, just a lot of fun," he says. "All the other skaters are in the show, Kristi, Steve, Jenni, Todd, Tara, the others. And it's just fun to get out here in much more relaxed atmosphere and have a good time."

It might be a different pace, but that doesn't mean slower. Eldredge and those other skaters - that would be Kristi Yamaguchi, Steve Cousins, Jenni Menno and pairs partner Todd Sand, Tara Lipinski and Kurt Browning, along with Katarina Witt, Ilia Kulik Anjelika Krylova and partner Oleg Ovsiannikov, Denis Petrov and Lucinda Ruh - are keeping up with a ruthless schedule of appearances in this 61-city tour.

"They have a private plane, and they just dive out of a building and into that plane," says Stars on Ice spokesman Todd Fraser. "It's unbelievably grueling."

Still, their Gulf Coast stop will afford the skaters one of their few breaks, three days off for rest and fun in the sun, and Eldredge took a moment to reflect on his sport and now, his profession.

The natural

Eldredge is used to a brutal pace. He's been keeping one since childhood. A fisherman's son from Chatham, Mass., a fishing town on Cape Cod, he got his first skates at age 5. In a matter of weeks he was amazing his parents with his devotion, getting on the ice daily, before and after kindergarten. By age 7, he was in summer camps for extra training. It was an unusual passion for a boy from blue-collar Chatham.

"Young kids like to tease about anything. I did get it (teasing) for a little while, but after that period, it was more like 'You get to get out of school more than we do,' and it turned around," Eldredge recalls. "They thought it was cool that I got to travel and do all these things."

And at the tender age of 10, his parents reluctantly consented to let him move to Philadelphia for advanced training with Richard Callaghan, who remained his coach for his entire amateur career. When he was 18, he became the youngest man ever to win the national novice, junior and senior titles, as well as the World Junior Championships.

He's been among the generation of skaters that propelled men's figures to a new level of athleticism, with triple after triple perfected to a science, and those now giving way to the new goal: quads. Some critics say the artistry of men's skating is being sacrificed for shows of sheer dominance over gravity. Eldredge disagrees, saying men's performances were never about the ethereal grace of women's skating, and that nothing is being lost.

"Men's skating has always been known as powerful and strong, with the big jumps," he says. "But they're also going to have that smoothness, if you want to call it balletic, that will always be there."

A narrower audience

Yet Eldredge, like most male skaters, never became a billboard name outside of the sports world until now. Short of Olympic medalists like Brian Boitano and Stars on Ice founder Scott Hamilton, most male figure skaters labor in obscurity, perfecting their talents and performances for a smaller audience of skating aficionados, while ice princesses like Michelle Kwan, Lipinski and Yamaguchi bathe in a much brighter limelight.

"There always has been more attention on the ladies," Eldredge says. "It's a media thing.

Guys like Scott, Brian, even myself, have tried to do what we can to bring men's skating to a higher level. Both of them have done that in their careers. Eight years ago there was so much more emphasis put on the women with the Tanya (Harding) and Nancy (Kerrigan) thing. If the guys want to be on that level (of media visibility), then we've got to have some sort of crazy controversy. Obviously that's not what we want."

Obviously not. Today Harding is preparing for a bout against Paula Jones on NBC's Celebrity Boxing, and Eldredge is skating harmoniously with Hamilton's show. Stars spokesman Fraser says the cast is close-knit.

"They will be on the road for four or five months," Fraser says. "They do live, eat, rehearse and perform together. It's a family that lives and plays together and is ridiculously non-dysfunctional."

Fraser says the chemistry is magical, particularly given that the stars have all been just that - stars in their own right - in a sport of individual attention and accomplishment.

"These are individuals, they have athlete's egos, but it's a true ensemble," Fraser says. "Scott started this thing 15 years ago when there wasn't anything for skaters to do (after amateur competition). There was Ice Capades or skating with the Smurfs."

This generation of skaters seems pleased to have more options, and to continue working with other athletes they've basically grown up with. And Eldredge says the audiences who come to see the big-name ice princesses often surprise themselves the first time they witness the male skaters explode off the ice like human spin-bombs.

"It's funny. You look at a show and they watch for the ladies, but a lot of people will be just as entertained by the men," he says. "To see it live and experience it live is completely different."

More to do

It's different for Eldredge, too. Olympic commentators frequently referred to the 30-year-old skater as "the elder statesman" of the American sport, a label that gave him a wry chuckle, as though he had one foot on the ice and the other in the grave.

"Yeah, AARP here I come, right," he laughs.

He's just getting started.

"I look at Scott Hamilton as a role model. He's still skating at 43. He's been through a lot more than I've been through, with his cancer," Eldredge says. "Somebody like that is an inspiration."

He's signed on for six years with Stars on Ice, though there won't be any press conferences announcing multi-million dollar contracts. He's not telling at all, saying only that it's "enough to keep me happy for a long time."

He's ready to look for a little more personal happiness, too. An avid golfer with a six handicap, he brought his sticks along on this tour, in case he has time for a few holes here or there. And he may have just a little more time to look for someone to share that interest with him.

"The last year and a half, it's been concentrated on skating, getting ready for the Olympics. Now it will be a little different. If somebody comes along, great. If somebody outside of skating comes along, great," he laughs. "That would give me something to talk about besides what I do every day."

That will come as good news to his growing legion of fans, many of who have constructed Web sites in his honor. He gets love letters; the Internet sites are full of tributes to his style, talent and not incidentally, smashing good looks. But with all his awards, all his accomplishments, all his adoring, starry-eyed fans, he's still basically a humble champion.