SAN JOSE, Calif. — It was the jump heard around the world. That it came at a little meet in Colorado Springs a year after the Olympics and didn’t make much noise didn’t matter to Brandon Mroz.
The Colorado Springs skater can forever say that, on Sept. 16 at the Colorado Springs Invitational in the World Arena, he became the first skater to land a quad Lutz jump in competition.
“I like a challenge,” said Mroz, 21. “I hadn’t worked on new jumps in a while. I had the toe back in ’09 and I was like, ‘All right, I’ll do something fresh.’ “
The Lutz is one of the hardest quads (four rotations) for a skater to land. The skater starts an entry glide going clockwise and jumps counterclockwise, unlike other jumps that go in one direction.
“It inspired people,” Mroz said. “It brought something fresh to the sport. It needed something cool.”
He landed it again in the short program in the NHK Trophy meet in Sapporo, Japan, but he hasn’t put together two good programs in a row and finished ninth at the NHK and at the Rostelecom Cup in Moscow later that month.
Mroz, along with two other Colorado Springs men, will try to make a splash tonight at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Max Aaron makes his senior debut after winning the Junior Nationals last year, only two years after fracturing his back and missing a year.
“It’s a big jump, not only mentally but physically. You have to mature as a man,” said Aaron, 19, a Scottsdale, Ariz., native who spent his senior year at Cheyenne Mountain High School. “You’re going up against the great ones, and you don’t want to get lost in that transition.”
Joshua Farris, 17, returns after breaking his ankle early in last year’s long program and limping to a 21st-place finish.
He said his health now is “A-plus.”
