SPOKANE, Wash • Ryan Bradley had the performance most skaters can only dream about at the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Sunday.

Unfortunately, it came two days too late.

Bradley’s playful, funny and technically dazzling free skate — he was the only skater to land two quadruple jumps, along with managing to channel a campy Mozart — had the crowd bursting with laughter and applause. Fans sent him off the ice with a raucous standing ovation.

When it was over, Colorado Springs’ Bradley, the veteran Broadmoor Skating Club fixture, had skated the day’s second-best long program to finish fourth, one spot off the podium and one place short of the promised land — the  U.S. Olympic team. He is the Olympic team alternate.

Former Colorado Springs skater Jeremy Abbott, who had been Bradley’s training partner under Tom Zakrajacek, won his second-straight national title by a mile, scoring 263.66 points over defending world champion Evan Lysacek with 238.63. Johnny Weir was third, posting a score of 232.09.

That top-three order did not change from Friday’s short program, where a nervous Bradley dug himself into a hole, landing a quad but winding up sixth after turning two triple jumps to doubles. Now he can only wonder what might have been.

“This was a little hard, because I left the door open, wide open, on Friday,” said Bradley, whose score was 225.97.

So did Brandon Mroz, the promising Colorado Springs 19-year-old. He finished sixth. Last year, Mroz defeated Lysecek and Weir to finish national runner-up in his first year of senior competition. What a difference an Olympic year makes.

Mroz’s result was an improvement from Friday, when a dismal short program put Mroz in 10th, all but out of contention for the Olympics.

 He botched his triple axel, what Mroz called a “foundation” jump for him, and that resulted in his worst short-program score (64.45) since his junior days. On Sunday, he landed his opening quad but failed to land either triple axel cleanly. He was heartened by his performance, though, especially after he kept his composure when his right skate boot loosened halfway through.

But he allowed the prospect of making an Olympic team proved too much of a distraction Friday.

“Sometimes I can get lost with what I want so badly, sometimes it eats (away at) me,” he said. “I’m still trying to learn with that. Because I wanted Vancouver real bad.”

Mroz vows he’ll never let the details get lost in the big picture again.

“I’ll be changing,” he said. “Mark my words.”

Bradley’s only mistake in Sunday’s free skate came on a faulty triple axel. After an hour or so absorbing Friday’s disaster, he vowed to come out with blades a-blazing.

“It was just, `You know, this isn’t over.’ I’m not going to go quietly,” Bradley said. “I don’t like to roll up in a ball and play dead. I was going to kick and scream today, and I did. Those boys, they deserved it. If they hadn’t skated well, they wouldn’t be going. I put that pressure on them and they answered it.”

Skating so well was poignant, because it might be his final competition. He moved to Colorado Springs at age 12 to skate, and now Bradley is contemplating retirement. After completing studies at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, he wants to attend grad school. He’ll wait until the end of the season to decide. A natural showman, Bradley has a future in skating exhibitions. But it would be hard to call it a career after days like this.

“I feel like I’m getting better. I’m putting up bigger numbers, so it’s hard to say I’m done. Then again, I’m old and I hurt. So, you never know.”

Just minutes removed from what might have been his finest hour, Bradley was circumspect about his career.

“The difference between me and Johnny and Evan and Jeremy, is they’ve consistently established themselves … and I haven’t done that,” Bradley said. “I haven’t been able to consistently put it out there … My hat’s off to those boys.”

Barring illness or injury to a team member, as the Olympic alternate, Bradley won’t go to Vancouver or march in the Opening Ceremony. He plans to buy a new, comfy sofa and watch the Games from Colorado Springs. Probably not skating, though.

“That’d be a heartbreaker to try to watch that,” he said.

Ryan Bradley of the Broadmoor Skating Club is the alternate for the U.S. Olympic team. Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS