By Amy Mossman

Jayson performed a new short program and last year's long program at this competition. The new short program is to Fever. The costume is black jeans and a red long sleeve shirt. The shirt has a satiny finish and a zipper so it almost looks like a jacket with the top of a white tee showing at the neck. In fact, it looks alot like the Jukebox medley costume, but without detachable sleeves! He opened with a huge triple lutz, so high that he put a hand down. Then a perfect triple axel - double toe. Two spins right in a row are next, first the change sit then a death drop. Circular footwork with lots of lunges, which goes well with the music. The double axel and then a straight line footwork sequence down the diagonal of the rink. This was probably the only weak point, since it got a bit slow at the end but looked like it had some difficult steps in it. Last was the combination spin with a bent knee forward camel before the forward sit. The program went over very well and I think it will get better throughout the season. It's a program with alot of opportunities for Jayson's personality to shine through. Right now it still looked like it was being learned but it was already exciting to watch.

I was bit confused when Jayson came out for the long wearing last years costume. I had heard in the spring that he would have a new long program and I hoped that perhaps he just didn't have the costume ready. But, it appears that the whole program wasn't ready or something because he took his opening pose and the music was quite familiar. But, back to warm up, because I found Jayson's warm up very amusing. While the other skaters did bits and peices of their programs, he skated around a few times, did (in order) perfect double axel, triple toe, triple flip, triple axel. That was all. Then he proceeded to skate the program almost flawlessly. The only problem was a hand down on the triple loop. Where the second triple axel normally was, he did a double axel, and the salchow was replaced by a split jump. There was also one big addition from last year, a triple flip-triple toe, with the second jump just as nice as the first. That got a big cheer from the skating knowledgeable audience. Overall, he skated very well in both programs and seemed confident and relaxed. I wish I had seen two new programs but I guess I'll have to wait until later in the season (and wish I was going to Nebelhorn.....)

AEM 8/10/99

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