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Sunday, February 06, 2000 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
From the first day, his coach knew. Little Timothy Goebel spent less than five minutes on the ice when he came to Cleveland to try out for legendary figure skating coach Carol Heiss Jenkins. That was all Heiss Jenkins needed to note how high he could jump, how tightly he rotated.
Defending champion Michelle Kwan heads the competition's largest field - 21 skaters. Last year's runner-up, 14-year-old Naomi Nari Nam, heads a group of up-and-comers that also includes Sarah Hughes, 14, and Sasha Cohen, 15.
This is essentially a two-man showdown. Defending champion Michael Weiss, who wanted very much to be the first American to land a quadruple jump, will face stiff competition from Timothy Goebel, who beat Weiss to that milestone and has three quads in his long program.
Injuries have decimated the field: defending champions Danielle and Steve Hartsell are out because of Danielle's fractured kneecap, and Laura Handy and Paul Binnebose haven't competed since Binnebose fell in practice and sustained a skull fracture in practice. Filling the void: silver medalists Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman, and crowd favorites Tiffany and Johnnie Stiegler.
Pittsburgh native Jamie Silverstein and her partner, Justin Pekarek, make their senior-level debut after winning last year's world junior championship. Their competition includes defending champions Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev and last year's bronze medalists, Debbie Koegel and Oleg Fediukov.
"And what I call the wonderful knees," she added. "He could really spring into the air. And that's God-given."
Now everyone else knows, too, that Goebel's jumping talents are revolutionizing the sport.
Already the first American man to land a quadruple jump in competition (he was 17 when he hit the world's first quadruple salchow at the 1998 Junior Grand Prix Finals), he took jumping to a different level this season at SkateAmerica, in which he became the first person to land three quadruple jumps in one program.
No one else in the competition even attempted more than one quad.
Said commentator and 1984 Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton, one of the giants of the sport, "I can't even fathom how hard it would be to do three quads."
In doing so, the 19-year-old Goebel made himself one of the favorites to win the men's title this week at the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships, which are being held in Cleveland, where Goebel lives and trains.
Not that Goebel considers the location an advantage.
"The judges come from all over," he said. "It will be nice to have the crowd behind me, but I really don't think it has an effect."
The hometown crowd will see a Goebel who is not only figure skating's most accomplished jumper, but a skater who has worked hard in the past year to improve the artistic side of his skating.
After finishing 12th at last year's world championships despite a quadruple salchow-triple toe, he began working with choreographer Lori Nichol, who does the graceful Michelle Kwan's programs.
Now he is skating to music from the movie "Seven Years in Tibet" and making moves on the ice with a sense of purpose, not simply to use up time in between jumps.
"I think it was lacking," Goebel said. "I certainly don't think my skating was bad. I think people were a little harsh to criticize because my jumps were so much better, it may have made me look worse to see such a gap between my jumping and artistic.
"I really needed to get my jumps before I worried about artistry. It wasn't that I didn't care, but for men it's a lot more important to hit jumps than look good. That's something that comes later. Todd Eldredge, Elvis [Stojko], they all developed their styles later in their careers. After they got comfortable."
Goebel - who considers Michael Jordan an athletic role model - has made his name through jumping. But he is far from one-dimensional.
Heiss Jenkins requires her skaters to attend public school, and Goebel was an honor-roll student in high school. He is now a part-time freshman at Case Western Reserve University with aspirations of a career in medicine.
This semester, between training and traveling, he is taking Italian (a good follow-up to his four years of high school Latin, he figured, and he'd love to visit the country someday), Asian history and photography.
"I really feel that school has been a good balance for me," he said. "It's good to have something else to focus on. If it's only skating, you spend too much time thinking about skating. It's good to be out interacting with other people my age."
And he still tries to find time on weekend mornings to help coach Special Olympians at the rink. With the traveling, that's been difficult, but Goebel hopes to get to a competition this spring.
"I just think it's good to give back to less fortunate," Goebel said. "It's really, I think, enriched my life. What people can do with limitations is really wonderful. I think it would be good for a lot more people to have that experience."
Goebel opened this season with a silver medal at Skate America, and that performance got the figure skating world buzzing - three quads in the long program.
Only one man had hit more than one quadruple in competition, and China's Zhengxin Guo's two quadruple toe loops in the 1998 Olympics attracted little attention because the rest of his program left much to be desired.
Among Goebel's jumps, however, was the quad salchow - in combination with a triple toe loop.
The jumps were risky. Judges can be sensitive to the idea that the guy with the best jumps wins and subsequently lower scores for artistic impression.
Someone could have told Goebel not to try. Or pointed out that no one else in the world is hitting so many quads, so why bother trying too many and hurting your scores by falling? Or why put that strain on your body?
But no one did, and the chance paid off.
"Being safe," Goebel said, "is very dangerous."
Goebel hasn't landed the three quads since, but his improved artistry has been evident. He went on to finish second at the NHK Trophy competition in Japan, and he qualified for the International Skating Union's Grand Prix final in Lyon, France, which is limited to six skaters.
And then, in mid-January in Lyon, he won a bronze at the Grand Prix final.
"I've actually exceeded my goals," Goebel said. "Coming into this season, I was hoping to medal at one of the Grand Prix events. I really didn't think I had a shot of making [the final]. I've been able to do a lot better than I first planned."
And now many are touting Goebel as a favorite for the men's title, although defending champion Michael Weiss is returning, and Goebel finished third in last year's nationals in Salt Lake City.
To hear Goebel talk, he can't believe such expectations exist.
"If I win, that's great," he said. "But that's really not my goal this year."
So what are Goebel's goals? He wants to land three quads again. He wants to qualify for the world championships, and because the United States earned only two berths to worlds, he will have to improve on last season's finish. And once he gets to worlds, he wants to improve on last year's 12th place finish.
And after that?
Goebel has raised the bar so high that people are actually taking about whether quintuple jumps are possible. Goebel hedges when asked the question, but his coach doesn't.
"I think Tim can do it if anybody can do it," Heiss Jenkins said. "I have no hesitation saying that whatsoever. Once somebody does it, once Tim does it, they'll all try to do it."
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What: U.S. National Figure Skating Championships