Hartsells Look Ahead, Not Back

SALT LAKE CITY —  They were the forgotten medalists of the 1998 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, winning the bronze in Philadelphia but being left behind on the road to Nagano.

Danielle and Steve Hartsell picked the wrong year to finish third. Because of circumstances beyond their control--basically, a lackluster showing by their American counterparts at the 1998 world championships--the United States was limited to two berths in the Olympic pairs competition in Japan. One went to Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen, another to Jenni Meno and Todd Sand . . . and there were the Hartsells, left to sit at home and dream about 2002.

The road to Salt Lake City 2002 runs through, well, Salt Lake City, host city of the 1999 U.S. championships. There on the Delta Center ice Wednesday night, the Hartsells took the first step of a long journey by winning the short program of the pairs competition.

The sister-brother team from Ann Arbor, Mich., did not skate spectacularly, but they skated efficiently--and, more importantly, on a night when knock-kneed skaters littered the ice, they stayed on their feet.

They also outskated the favorites here, Ina and her new partner, John Zimmerman, who looked every bit the unfamiliar team still working the kinks out. Zimmerman stumbled mere seconds into their program, Ina barely saved a landing out of a throw triple salchow and both labored, slightly out of sync, to get through the program with no major glitches.

Ina and Zimmerman earned only one score higher than 5.6--a solitary 5.7 for presentation--to leave the door open for the Hartsells.

“This is a big shock,” Danielle admitted with a nervous laugh. “All we were hoping for here is to be in the top three and make the world team.”

Ina and Zimmerman placed second in the short program, disappointed with the result, but not despondent.

“We’re still getting used to each other as a team,” Zimmerman said. “This being our first nationals together, we had a little bit of the jitters.

“This is just a part of the process.”

They were hardly the only ones displaying nerves during a rough and ragged session. Tiffany and Johnnie Stiegler, the sister-brother team from Los Angeles, finished the evening in fourth place, behind Laura Handy and J. Paul Binnebose of Newark, Del.--following a jittery routine that began with Johnnie slipping and falling less than 10 seconds into the program.

The pairs long program is scheduled for Friday evening, with the top three teams qualifying for the world championships in Helsinki in March.