Pic of the Week

This is the final Pic of the Week that will focus on great U.S. wins. This time next week I'll be comfortably settled in St. Paul and you can expect pictures and reviews from the competition at U.S. Nationals. But that's next week...

This week I decided to look back at what is not only one of the greatest wins in U.S. Nationals history, but one of the greatest stories too.

Everyone had counted him down and out. Kristi Yamaguchi decided to go with her singles career leaving Rudy Galindo to push forward as a singles skater. He'd been written off and most people were focusing their attention on skaters such as Todd Eldredge, Scott Davis, Michael Weiss, and Dan Hollander.

After the short program Rudy had surprised everyone by placing third and putting himself in contention. Rudy was last to skate the free skate and he had a golden opportunity. Todd Eldredge who was the leader didn't have a great skate. Rudy went on to have the free skate of his life, hitting every triple jump in his program, and winning the men's title with some of the highest marks for a man (under the old 6.0 system) ever.

The cherry on top of it all was that he did at home. U.S. Nationals were in San Jose that year which is Rudy's hometown...what an achievement!