Mroz checks in as Broadmoor's top man now

Ryan Bradley slowly faded from the spotlight, his crowd-pleasing moves not enough to offset inconsistent results. Jeremy Abbott quickly skipped town, convinced he needed a coaching change following perhaps the most embarrassing performance of his career.

Without much attention, Brandon Mroz has continued an improbable climb toward the top of The Broadmoor Skating Club, evolving from an undeveloped afterthought better suited for a hockey rink to a refined showman on the verge of an Olympic berth.

The Cheyenne Mountain High School graduate helped the U.S. qualify three men's spots for the 2010 Vancouver Games by placing ninth at the world championships in March, and to claim one of them, he's preparing for an "all-out brawl" against the nation's best.

Last month, Mroz, 18, visited his choreographer, Lori Nichol, in Toronto, planning a long program he calls "my new weapon in my arsenal, going against the big guys." It features two quadruple jumps, seven triple jumps and a pair of songs by Beethoven.

He'll spend the next four months - his major competitions before the U.S. Olympic trials in January in Spokane, Wash., are the Rostelecom Cup in October in Moscow and Skate America in November in Lake Placid, N.Y. - building stamina for his long and perfecting a jazzy short in which he'll "shake my hips but also rock the house with a quad."

If Mroz, a former hockey player, masters the quad and executes clean programs like he did in a runner-up finish at the U.S. Championships in January, he should have an edge over Bradley, a once-vibrant world competitor nearing the end of the line, and Abbott, whose 11th-place showing at worlds after a national title prompted a move to Michigan.

Plus, Mroz proved at nationals he's capable of beating Evan Lysacek, the reigning world champion and fourth-place finisher at the 2006 Olympics, and Johnny Weir, the fifth-place finisher in 2006 and a 2008 world bronze medalist.

"Just because they have those titles doesn't mean it's necessarily given," Mroz said. "There are breakthroughs, as you could see in me. You never know what can happen in an Olympic year. It could be anybody's day."

Broadmoor coach Tom Zakrajsek likes Mroz's chances "not just based on what he did last year, but based on what he has done the last five years. He understands the success formula. He sets goals and works hard to achieve them. He's a steady and reliable competitor. He competes at a certain level, and you can expect a certain performance."

Mroz has shown he often performs at his peak in high-stress situations.

He thinks his cool demeanor comes from his mother, Cindy, a retired synchronized skater he describes as "very intense," and his father, Mike, also a former hockey player whom he labels "this cool, collected guy who knows how to handle great pressure."

"I feel pressure, but I don't let it get to my head, and I'm never intimated by who I compete against," Mroz said. "I'm all for a challenge. I think it's just that drive. And I would hate to see something like pressure get in my way."