SPOKANE, Wash. — The Vancouver Olympics are so close to Jeremy Abbott’s grasp, he will taste maple syrup when he wakes up this morning. Like his favorite pop song, he can’t keep “O Canada” from running through his head. His hotel clerk curiously looks like Miga, the Vancouver Games’ stupid, little sea bear mascot.
The Aspen native can’t book a plane ticket yet, but with the lead he compiled Friday in the short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, he probably can afford a map of Vancouver.
“He’s got a pretty substantial lead,” Abbott’s coach, Jason Dungjen, said Saturday. “It will probably take some pretty big mistakes for that type of lead to disappear.”
It wouldn’t be quite like the Broncos blowing a three-game lead in the AFC West with three to play. It would be worse. In today’s long program, Abbott would have to free fall past three other skaters, the third of which is about a $20 cab ride away.
Abbott’s personal-best 87.85 score leads world champion Evan Lysacek (83.69) and three-time U.S. champion Johnny Weir (83.51). Three go to the Olympics. Way back in fourth is Adam Rippon (72.91).
“I feel great about my chances,” Abbott said Friday night. “Ice is slippery and anything is possible, but I’ve been skating very well this season. I’ve been training very well.”
At last year’s nationals in Cleveland, no one made up a 15-point deficit in the long program. Rippon came the closest. He scored 193.76 to make up nearly a 14-point gap on Parker Pennington to finish seventh.
But this is Abbott, the defending champion, we’re talking about. He led after last year’s short, and this year he knows he merely needs to remain in the top three to realize his Olympic dream.
“Defending my title this year is not my goal,” he said. “I just want to go out and produce solid performances and build on each one and peak at the right time. I have a plan and I’m going to stick to my plan. My plan’s never been to be conservative.”
That plan includes a quad, and while the risk-reward factor of skating’s most difficult jump has been a raging controversy for years, Abbott must blow more than a quad to blow an Olympic berth.
Adding to Abbott’s repertoire is a stronger mental approach. A self-described “head case” at one time, Abbott always has been a deep thinker. Sometimes in skating that makes ice even more slippery.
Friday night, he had more nerves than he had all year, yet had the best performance of his life.
“I’ve come to realize everyone has these feelings,” Abbott said. “Everyone gets nervous. Everyone gets a little scared. I always felt like, ‘Why does this happen to me?’ I felt like I was such a unique case, that I was such a head case. No, these things happen to everyone.”
With the three favorites opening a massive gap on the field, today’s program may be more of a coronation and Vancouver preview than anything. The last group, beginning with Colorado Springs’ sixth-place Ryan Bradley, begins skating at 2:53 p.m. MST with Lysacek at 3:19, Weir at 3:28 and Abbott ending the competition at 3:37.
“We’ll all probably use it as a tool,” Lysacek said. “I don’t think any of us are thinking about winning.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
