By Sandra Loosemore
SportsLine Sports Writer

DETROIT -- Last week, the International Skating Union Junior Grand Prix Final -- the first ISU junior event held in the United States since the 1994 World Junior Championships in Colorado Springs -- offered American skating fans a rare glimpse of young, up-and-coming skaters from around the world.

"Junior," in ISU parlance, is an age division for skaters between the ages of 13 and 18 as of the previous July 1 (although junior male pair and dance skaters may be up to 20 years old). There is, as a result, some overlap with the senior division, where skaters must now be at least 15 to compete in the World Championships or Olympic Games and 14 to participate in ordinary international competitions.

While the ISU has raised the minimum age for competing in senior international events, it has also expanded the circuit of junior competitions to provide more opportunities for young skaters to compete. This season's Junior Grand Prix series comprised eight competitions last fall, which served as qualifying events for the Final in Detroit.

Not only do these competitions offer support for skating at the developmental level in the form of prize money, but all the skaters involved gain valuable competition experience. And when the ISU stages competitions in countries that are not traditional powers in the sport -- including Mexico and China -- skaters and coaches in those countries gain useful exposure to the international skating scene, which also aids in the development of their own skating programs.

IT WOULD PROBABLY BENEFIT THE U.S. skating program to have a regular junior international event held in this country. Although Americans regularly send teams to overseas junior competitions, these events are never televised and most junior-level competitors in the U.S., who are not themselves selected to compete internationally, have no real idea what their peers in other countries are doing.

Americans Laura Handy and Paul Binnebose finished second in the pairs competition.(Allsport)

This isolationism is especially evident when it comes to U.S. junior men. The overall technical level of skating by junior men at the last couple of U.S. national championships was abysmal, and it was obvious at the Junior Grand Prix Final that even the best of the American senior men simply are not competitive with young men from other countries.

It really speaks for the lack of depth in the U.S. men when Matt Savoie, one of the country's top senior-level skaters, could do no better than sixth in a field of eight at this international junior event. Ryan Bradley, who won the national junior title in February and is considered a remarkable talent by U.S. standards, finished dead last in Detroit.

The real star of the men's competition in Detroit was Ilia Klimkin, the latest in the string of talented young male Russian skaters. While he had an uneven free skate with several mistakes and wound up finishing second after being outjumped by Vincent Restencourt of France, his originality and creativity were astonishing.

Klimkin's programs included several unusual spin and jump variations, such as a combination of camel spins in both directions, with a triple salchow jump done directly out of the second spin. The quality of Klimkin's spins is in itself notable because the Russian men have not been known as strong spinners in the past.

THE TOP COMPETITORS AT THE INTERNATIONAL junior level are attempting more or less the same technical elements as the senior-level skaters, but still lack consistency and experience with pulling off the difficult tricks in the pressure of competition. There were many high-quality triple jumps landed at this event by the men and the ladies, but most competitors had trouble putting together two clean performances.

Irina Nikolaeva, for example, skated a short program that would have been competitive with the best senior ladies in the world -- including a triple lutz combination, triple loop out of footwork, and a spectacular spiral sequence -- but then crumbled completely in the free skating and landed only one triple jump cleanly. But the ability and potential are there, and with a cleaner program Nikolaeva would instantly rank as a serious contender at the senior world level.

Surprisingly, the real stars of the junior circuit this season have turned out to be the U.S. dance team of Jamie Silverstein and Justin Pekarek, who added a convincing victory at the Junior Grand Prix Final to their earlier triumph at the World Junior Championships. In Detroit, no other competitors so totally dominated their event as this dance team, which handily won all three phases of the competition.

Silverstein and Pekarek's rise is surprising in part because it has been many years since U.S. teams have been much of a factor in international ice dance competition. But this particular team has improved spectacularly in the past year: last season they were only 10th at World Juniors, and such huge leaps in the standings from year to year are almost unheard of in the dance world.

IT APPEARS MUCH OF THEIR IMPROVEMENT is due purely to increasing physical maturity -- they are now only 15 and 17 years old, respectively -- as they say they have not made any significant changes in their training. It also seems the good competition results they have had throughout the season have been reflected in the growth of their confidence and security in their skating from one event to the next.

Another factor in Silverstein and Pekarek's success this season is the high quality of their competition programs. Their waltz original dance works on many levels, with changes of tempo, speed, and intensity; and their free dance has a romantic, flowing quality to it, with seamless transitions in and out of the lifts and other technical elements that are now required by the ISU dance regulations. In both cases, the choreography emphasizes their smooth, soft-kneed skating style and is very well suited to them.

Historically, competitive success at the international junior level has not been a sure-fire predictor of future success at the senior level. Probably as many junior champions have faded into obscurity or left the sport as have continued on to win medals as seniors. But junior competitions are worthwhile in themselves, and the Detroit event in particular was notable as a chance to see high-quality skating without the relentless hype and commercialism that now saturates the sport's senior levels.