Jenni Meno and Todd Sand: giving double pleasure in pairs skating - Interview

Dance Magazine, March, 1996 by Susan Reiter

Of the four disciplines in figure skating, pairs skating can at times be the most jarring for someone accustomed to watching dance. Packed with difficult, often dangerous-looking required moves, it allows less leeway for interpretive expression and can all too often look tough and circusy. The skill required for executing a tricky maneuver like the throw triple twist, in which the woman is launched into the. air and twists around three times before landing, is certainly impressive, but many of the mainstay moves of pairs skating command attention for the strength and daring involved, thus making it hard to view the program as a continuous whole. Compared to the individuality and creativity of ice dancing, pairs skating is usually less likely to give the viewer artistic satisfaction.

Certainly the sublime pair of Ekaterina Gordeyeva and the late Sergei Grinkov, Olympic champious in 1988 and 1994, were in a class by themselves when it came to pairs skating in which grace, elegance, and musicality captured one's attention as much as the skaters' technical skills. And our country's current leading pairs skaters, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, have emerged as impressive musical interpreters and compelling performers as well as top-level competitors when it comes to technical feats.

Meno and Sand will certainly look back on 1995 as a memorable year both on and off the ice. Professionally, they had their most successful year, repeating as U.S. national champions and taking the bronze medal at the World Figure Skating Championships--the first time they had been on the podium in international competition. On the personal side, they became husband and wife on July 22, three and a half years after sparks first flew in the Olympic Village in Albertville, France.

Charming, attractive, and successful, the two have received considerable media attention for their off-ice partnership; their nuptials even landed them a spread in People. But it is their exceptionally elegant, musical, and technically accomplished skating that merits the spotlight. Their strikingly pure line throughout intricately choreographed programs helps them stand out among less refined pairs, and their intuitive communication and romantic glow enhance their presence on the ice.

Americans have never been as strong in pairs-skating competition as they have in the individual men's and women's events; the last time an American pair took the gold at the World Championships was in 1979, when Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner broke through the Soviet dominance. To find the previous occasion when Americans reached that pinnacle, you have to go back to 1950. Meno and Sand's presence on the podium last March as world bronze medalists was thus significant, announcing the arrival of serious American challengers. The couple hopes to equal or better their achievement when they compete at this month's World Championships in Edmonton, Alberta (March 20 to 24; for ABC Sports coverage of the event, see the "WORLD FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS ON TELEVISION").

Meno and Sand are a striking couple on the ice, making even the most daring technical feats look relaxed rather than straining for effects. Meno, twenty-five, is a petite redhead (even before she committed to pairs skating, she recalls, "People always told me I should do pairs because I'm small") with a mercurial presence. Tall and blond, Sand, thirty-two, provides a contrasting strength and solidity. Their unison moves-side by side double and triple jumps-reveal how closely attuned they are to each other, and how completely they share their response to the music.

Each was competing with a different partner in the early 1990s, but they knew e h other, since both trained at the same Southern California rink with the veteran pairs coach John Nicks, who had guided Babilonia and Gardner, as well as Jo Jo Starbuck and Ken Shelley, to their competitive successes. Meno, whose background also includes gymnastics, competed as a singles skater, reaching the senior national level before switching to pairs at nineteen. In 1991, she and her first partner, Scott Wendland, did well enough in their first national championship to qualify for the U.S. world team that year.

Sand, who started skating at age ten, competed in singles for several years as well. Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, he always wanted to try pairs skating, but there was no coach in the immediate area. At twenty, he hooked up with Nicks and made the switch. "I really liked pairs right away," he says. "You can relate to the other person and be more creative." He and his first partner, Natasha Kuchiki, were moving up among the top U.S. pairs when he met Meno. He had met her at the airport the day, she arrived in California from Ohio to train with Nicks an pair up with Wendland. All four skaters were friends as they pursued their rigorous training at the same rink, but some crucial changes took place during the 1992 Winter Olympics. "We became a lot closer, and talked about a lot of things," Meno recalls. "We realized we really wanted to skate together." "That was a magical couple of weeks," adds Sand. "Our lives really changed. It was a turning point in our lives, professionally and personally, although we didn't realize, it at the time."