Not so long ago, Michal Weiss was a figure skater with a go-for-broke attitude. In the season leading up to the 1998 Winter Olympics, he attracted attention by putting the difficult quadruple Lutz into his program.

He never landed the jump cleanly in competition, but he established himself as one of the world's elite male skaters.

This season, the 22-year-old from Fairfax has chosen a different approach, and he is awaiting the payoff as he prepares for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Slat Lake City this week.

"Last year, I wasn't one of the favorites to win an Olympic Medal," Weiss said. "I had to go out there and try everything, try to beat everybody, try the hardest stuff...This year I'm in a different position. Now I'm one of the favorites. Now I really have to just go ofr consistency and make sure that I put out a quality performance each time and not take as big a risk as I did before."

Since the five-time U.S. title-holder Todd Eldrege is skipping the national championships this year, Weiss enters the competetion with his best opportunity to capture the title after finishing second the previous two years. A strong showing this week would gie Weiss,who finished 7th at the Nagano Olympics, a huge confidence boost as he prepares for two other major competitions: The Grand Prix Final in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the world championships in helsinki. Both take place in March and are expected to be dominated by Russians Alexi Yagudin, Yvegeny Plushenko and Alexi Urmanov.

The role of the favorite is new, but not unwelcome to Weiss.

"It's just a different role to play and you have to learn to play it." Weiss said. "It's a different feeling, but it's a good feeling because it's like everybody believes in you now. So you get that much more confiedence going into it. You have a little bit more pride to live up to what people think now as opposed to before, where you're just out there doing it to tru to get everybody's attention."

Instead of the quad toe Lutz, Weiss has installe d a quad toe loop, whish is slightly less difficult and has vecome a standard emement in the pograms of most of the world's elite men. He continues topractuce the quad Lutz, but sas he would try it during a comperirion only if he falters in his shor program and decides to risk everything in the long program. But for now, he has bee landing the quad toe loop consistenly.

This season his long program is set to music from Disney's Mulan. Wiess chose the music after he played the warrior sidekick to Michelle Kwan in the special.

During the intense and dramatic program choerographed by Brian Wright, Weiss tells a story of preparing for war, going off to battle and emerging victorious.

"We've tried every year to come up with a different look for him," Weiss's lontime coach, Audrey Weisinger, said. "I would like to think he keeps reinventing himself."

It was Weisinger's idea to send Weiss to Conn. for five days in October to work with renowned Russian Pairs coach Tamars Moskvina. Weiss had worked with her several years ago when Moskvina came to Faifax for a seminar.

Moskvina didn't tinker with Weiss's jumps, considered the strongest aspect of his skating. Instead, she refined the artistic nuances of his program, helping him move swiftly and efficiently from one element to another and maintain good posture on the ice.

"I just added some little touches," Moskvina said. "That is all...I respect his coach very much. She is a very good coach with a great understnding that he needs this input and is not afraid to ask me for it. I felt a great responsibility cecause of her respect for me and trustin me to add something."

While hes sessions with Moskvina helped add artistic maturity to his skating, Weiss has found another kind of maturity on the ice.Weiss's wife, Lisa, gave birth to their daughter, Annie Mae, in Sept. Weiss said that since her birth he has been skating particularly well and with new inspiration.

"He's probably more focused on what's going to work for him now as opposed to who does he have to beat." Weisinger said. "he used to be motivated when I would say that Todd is doing this and this. But now what motivates him is what he thinks he can do."

No longer the underdog desperately seeking attention, Weiss has chosen to impress the judges in other ways. Now he is concentrating on giving his best al;l-around performance rather than relying on one difficult jump to make or break him.

"I believe the man that does a clean short and a clean long becomes a world champion right now," Weisinger siad. "That's the way the sport is going....If I thought it was about one jump then we'd change our Strategy."

The Washington Post, Kathy Orton

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