GREENSBORO, N.C. — Standing where he had never been before, Ryan Bradley held the bouquet of flowers atop the victory stand Sunday and took a big whiff.
“I was like, ‘All right, I know you can’t smell in dreams,’ so I’m trying to smell the flowers to make sure I’m awake,” Bradley said.
Yes, for the first time in 11 trips to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Bradley, of Colorado Springs’ Broadmoor Skating Club, finally smelled the roses.
He won his first national title, a year after foot surgery and near retirement. He was the last Colorado man standing in a Rocky Mountain shootout that saw Jeremy Abbott and Brandon Mroz shoot themselves in the feet.
Abbott, an Aspen-raised skater seeking his third straight national title, made crucial mistakes in the middle of his program and dropped from second to fourth, missing the World Championships team. Mroz, Bradley’s training partner in the Springs, fell from third to fifth.
Taking their places in Tokyo will be virtual unknowns.
Richard Dornbush of Riverside, Calif., who just won the Junior Grand Prix final, leaped from seventh to second with 225.56 points. Ross Miner, a Vermont native in his first senior nationals, jumped from sixth to third with 224.35.
Bradley, 27, came really close to feeling only the thorns in those flowers. He had an ambitious program opening with two quads and blew them both, putting a hand down twice.
“Usually in training, that’s when you go over to the music box and go, ‘Stop! Rewind!’ ” he said.
However, the leader after Friday’s short program nailed two triple lutzes and held on the rest of the program to score 231.90. His admittedly premature backflip while leaving the ice turned out to be prophetic.
He already knew that Abbott and Mroz had blown it. Abbott nailed every jump until falling on a triple axel and then he nearly fell on a triple combination.
“I haven’t felt 100 percent with my skates,” said Abbott, who changed skates a month ago. “But when I went out I felt calm and I felt focused and felt very much in control of myself.
“You miss steps, and it’s enough to trip you up.”
Abbott’s consolation is going to Four Continents in Taipei, Taiwan, on Feb. 15-20. Mroz didn’t even make that. He put down a hand on an opening quad and never recovered.
“I’ve had better days,” Mroz said. “It’s tough. There was a lot of force out there going on rather than being effortless.”
The focus now sits on Bradley, who has gone from retirement and teaching skating to kids to completing a run at the Sochi Olympics in 2014.
“I’m sick and tired of getting fourth, second and third,” Bradley said. “I don’t think I’ve won anything in like four years, not even a local competition. I always do something stupid in my long program. Just being able to come down and throw down the short that I did and fight through the long, it’s just an incredible feeling. I’m back at that crossroads again.
“What do I do?”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
