1998 U.S. Figure Skating Championships


The 1998 U.S. Figure Skating Championships took place on January 4–11, 1998 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Skaters competed in five disciplines across three levels. The disciplines of the competition were men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, ice dancing, and compulsory figures. The levels of competition were senior, junior, and novice. Medals were awarded in four colors: gold, silver, bronze, and pewter.
The event served to help choose the U.S. teams to the 1998 Winter Olympics and the 1998 World Championships. The 1998 World Junior Championships had been held prior to the national championships and so the World Junior Championships team had been chosen at a World Juniors selection competition earlier in the year.
This was the penultimate year of compulsory figures being competed at the U.S. Championships. The novice competitors skated one figure, the juniors and seniors skated three.

Competition notes

  • During this competition, Michael Weiss attempted a quadruple lutz jump in his free skating. He put his free foot down on the landing and so the jump was not ratified as complete.
  • Despite withdrawing with injury, Jenni Meno / Todd Sand were named to the Olympic Team.
  • In the senior ladies event, Amber Corwin, Andrea Gardiner, and Sydne Vogel tied for 7th place in the free skating on Majority Of Placements. Through the Total Ordinary Majority tiebreak, Vogel's portion of the tie was broken and she placed 9th in that segment. Corwin and Gardiner's tie was unbreakable and so they shared the placement of 7th in the free skating.
  • In the novice pairs event, five teams tied for 8th place in the short program. The tie between Vise/Bradley, Christensen/Gibbons and McCloy/McCloy was broken through the Total Ordinary Majority tiebreak. The tie between Rogeness/Rogeness and Ross/McPherson was unbreakable and so they shared the placement of 11th in the short program.
  • There were several unbreakable ties in the figures competition on the junior and senior levels. Kharen Kloeffler and Brooke Pitman tied for the junior gold, Josselyn Baumgartner and Alecia Moore tied for the junior bronze, Jessica Koslow and Amy Miyoshi tied for seventh place in juniors, Olivia Baer and Sara Stach tied for eleventh place in juniors, and Jaime Clark and Jamie Walzer tied for eighth place in seniors.

Senior results

Men

In his winning free skating, Eldredge attempted but fell on a quad toe loop attempt.
RankNameTFPSPFS
1Todd Eldredge1.511
2Michael Weiss3.022
3Scott Davis4.533
4Shepherd Clark6.044
5Derrick Delmore9.595
6Dan Hollander9.576
7Trifun Zivanovic11.559
8Ryan Jahnke13.5118
9Michael Chack14.0147
10Matthew Kessinger16.01011
11Matthew Savoie16.51310
12John Baldwin17.0813
13Jere Michael18.01212
14Jeff Merica22.01614
15Eric Bohnstedt22.51515
16Brian Buetsch25.01816
17Michael Edgren25.51717
WDTimothy Goebel6