SKOKIE, Ill. — A broken skate blade cut Evan Lysacek’s season short, cost him a chance at another world championship medal and damaged his arm so badly he still bears the scars six months later.
Might be one of the best things that’s happened to him.
That broken blade and the layoff that followed reminded Lysacek of how much he loves skating, and why he spends all these hours on the ice and in the gym. With the Vancouver Olympics less than 18 months away, the two-time U.S. champion begins this all-important season with only good vibes.
“I’m just lucky to be on the ice every single day,” said Lysacek, who takes on longtime rival Johnny Weir next weekend at Skate America, the season’s first Grand Prix event.
“My life has just changed so much in the last several months, just in so many ways. I feel really lucky to have gone through everything I’ve gone through. I’m so happy with everything.”
Lysacek has always had a Zen-like air about him, laid-back and cheery no matter the occasion. But staying upbeat wasn’t so easy last year, as he discovered the U.S. title he’d dreamed of carries with it some burdensome pressures.
Not just on the ice, either. Sponsors asked more and more of him, and he wanted to make them happy so he said “yes” to just about everything. Soon, though, he found he was running ragged. Skating was becoming a job, not a joy.
“I just was unhappy and I didn’t love skating,” the 23-year-old Lysacek said. “If I’m doing as my career something that I absolutely love, then I should love it every day. I shouldn’t be nervous or dreading things or being like, ‘I have to go to China today, I don’t have time to do this.’ It should be something amazing.”
Then, six days before the world championships began, Lysacek’s skate blade broke as he landed a triple axel, sending him crashing to the ice.
He initially thought he had broken his left arm in the hard fall, but he had actually dislocated his shoulder. It was put back in place the next day, but the delay caused severe damage to the ligaments in his shoulder and elbow.
“It felt like (skating) was taken away from me when I was like, ‘I can’t go to worlds, I don’t have skates to skate on, I can’t move my arm, I can’t put my own pants on, I can’t make myself a bagel in the morning,’ ” he said.
“Even though it was just for a while, it felt like it (took) it all being taken away for me to appreciate it.”
Now, plenty of athletes talk that same game about an injury brings a new appreciation of their sport. But Lysacek took it a step further. With healing came a new effort to get better.
With extra time in his offseason because of a reduction in skating’s touring schedule, Lysacek told coach Frank Carroll he wanted to go to Russia and work with Tatiana Tarasova, who coached Olympic gold medalists Ilia Kulik and Alexei Yagudin.
Carroll signed off on the idea, and so did Tarasova. When he arrived in Moscow, not only had Tarasova picked out music for his programs — “Bolero” for the short, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” for the long — she had them choreographed and had drawings of his costumes.
“It’s a very, very different style for me, which I like,” Lysacek said. “It’s like when people say, ‘This is a gift I would never have bought for myself, but it’s interesting and cool and it’s something different.’ This is music and these are programs I would have never chosen for myself.”
Lysacek’s biggest strength has been his animation and personality, making big, dramatic programs like “Tosca” and “Carmen” a perfect fit for him. But “Bolero” is more rhythmic and Gershwin more classical, and Lysacek has found himself working harder than ever.
When he was in Russia, he spent 1 1/2 hours a day just doing ballet with a former dancer from the Bolshoi Ballet.
The changes didn’t stop on the ice. Lysacek has always dabbled in charity work, doing things for organizations like the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Figure Skating in Harlem. But when he was taking a look at his life and what made him happy, he decided he wanted to do more than just the occasional celebrity appearances.
“I know that after my career, I’ll have plenty of time to do what I want, working with nonprofits. But right now I think I have a platform,” he said. “I want to take full advantage of this opportunity.”
So when jet lag threw his body clock off in Russia, Lysacek spent the late-night hours calling and e-mailing people back in the United States to set up a benefit show for a childhood friend, Stephanie Joseph, who died of cancer in February.
Joseph’s family and friends had established a memorial fund after she died, and the thought was to do a fundraiser.
But the more people Lysacek approached, the bigger it got.
Advertisers got involved. So did a star-studded list of skaters, including Lysacek’s longtime girlfriend, Tanith Belbin, her ice dance partner Ben Agosto, and 2006 world champion Kimmie Meissner. The event, on Sept. 27, drew more than 1,500 people in Chicago.
“Everything in life is a process,” Lysacek said. “If you’re not learning from something, whether it’s good or bad, then what’s the point in going through with it at all? I’m trying to learn and grown from every experience, whether it’s negative or positive.”
