ish has been fifth.
Like many elite athletes, he’s added a sports psychologist to his team. “I’m doing everything I can to find the missing piece,” he said. “I know I have the potential to be the best in the world. I’ve been trying to figure out what that missing piece to the puzzle is. Yes, I think it’s a bit of a consistency issue — not run-throughs or jumps, but life. I need to not get distracted, stay focused on my goals.”
OLYMPIC DREAM, OLYMPIC NIGHTMARE Abbott began skating when he was 4 years old after watching Robin Cousins
perform in his hometown of Aspen. “He’s a brilliant performer and artist,” Abbott said. “I was so enthralled by his
performance. I said, ‘Mommy, I want to do exactly what he’s doing.’ I was really drawn to the sport because of its artistic side. I had to learn to be an athlete.” He started skating with coach Peggy Behr in 1993, but she encouraged Ab-
bott’s family to allow him to move to a true training town. In 1999, with his family by his side, he joined Tom Zakrajsek and Becky Calvin in Colorado Springs, where he spent a decade under their tutelage. Under Zakrajsek and Calvin, he won his first U.S. title, defeating 2009 World
champion Evan Lysacek, who settled for silver. In 2010, the Olympic year, Abbott made the move to Bloomfield Hills,
Jeremy Abbott energizes the crowd at the 2012 U.S.
Championships. Abbott won his third title in San Jose.
Mich., choosing to work with Sato and Dungjen. Abbott said it was both a career move and a life move, since it was the first
time he lived away from his family. “It’s always been about my career and my path,” Abbott said. “Yuka and Jason
are holding the reins, but I’m in the lead. Each season, I’ve taken more control of my career, and this year I’m in the most control. I get off track easily, even with Yuka and Jason steering the ship. But I’m 27 years old, and I need to be the one doing it. Tey understand that.” Abbott’s mind flashes back to his Olympic moment. His voice gets stronger as
he recalls the memories. “When I moved to Detroit 3½ years ago, I had one goal in mind: I wanted
to make the Olympic team. It’s something I wanted since I was 5 years old. “I skated out of my mind at nationals and made the team. To make the team
and represent my country was crazy. You can’t imagine how proud I was. But I didn’t have a plan for what happens next. My goal — my only goal — was to make the team. I did that. Ten it was, ‘Now what?’ I came back from nationals and I didn’t have more goals, I didn’t have a plan.” Te pressure, he recalls, was suffocating. “Everyone — and it wasn’t just fans, it was officials and people from the fed- eration — told me if I could repeat that performance [from the 2010 U.S. Cham- pionships], I would be [Olympic] champion. But how do you repeat perfection? I didn’t know how I did it in the first place. “I lost all my confidence. I was in a panic for three weeks before going to
Vancouver. I wasn’t excited to go.” Abbott would finish a distant ninth in Vancouver. His rival and teammate,
Lysacek, won the first Olympic title for the American men since Brian Boitano struck gold in 1988. “It was a disaster for me,” Abbott said. But something good, albeit painful, came from the experience. “Watching Evan win was heartbreaking for me because I had beaten him at
nationals,” Abbott said. “Don’t get me wrong, he deserves to be Olympic champi- on. But knowing that if I had done it correctly, I could have been the one on top of the podium. If I had only done things differently — it was hard. “Yuka made me stay and watch the medal ceremony. It was [really] hard. Yuka
said, ‘You need to understand this, to watch and know that it wasn’t you [on the medals podium].’ It sucked. It really, really sucked.” Te pain of that moment seems fresh, motivating. It fuels the focus of what a
Downtown Colorado Springs provided the perfect setting for some classic shots with Abbott.
30 DECEMBER 2012
realistic Abbott knows may be a final chance at an Olympic medal. “I had a revelation right before Champs Camp [in August],” he said. “I’ve been skating for 23 years, and I have 18 to 19 months left out of my entire career. I want to know I gave these last 15 months everything I had. When it’s all said and done, I can be OK if I didn’t win. But I cannot be OK if I didn’t give it my all.” Ever the great performer, Abbott pauses, perhaps for dramatic effect. “Let me be perfectly clear,” he said. “I want to make the team and I want to
win.”
U.S. FIGURE SKATING PHOTO
PHOTO BY WENDY NELSON/BLUE FOX PHOTOGRAPHY
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