FIGURE SKATING / U.S. CHAMPIONSHIPS : Final Figures In: It’s Nearly Unanimous

BOUNTIFUL, Utah —  As Paul Wylie completed his last loop, he heard enthusiastic applause from a small crowd at the Bountiful Ice Rink. He didn’t believe it was inspired by his performance.

“I think it was for the end of figures,” he said.

The figure finally has been taken out of figure skating at the National Championships. When Wylie, the last of 16 competitors, skated onto the blue ice Thursday, he became the last man to perform compulsory figures as part of the criteria for winning a senior title. The senior women bade farewell to compulsory figures Wednesday.

Defending champion Jill Trenary was an advocate of retaining the figures when they were voted out by the International Skating Union. In the middle of a shaky loop Wednesday, she reconsidered.

“It was very, very nerve-wracking,” said Trenary, who still finished first in the figures.

The defending men’s champion, Christopher Bowman of Van Nuys, experienced nothing Thursday that would change his mind. He reiterated that he will shed no tears after his fourth-place finish. He was in the same position after the figures last year, when he rallied in the freestyle phases.

“Figures are very important fundamentally for our sport,” he said. “But for me, they’re not important at all.”

Some skaters were almost as thrilled as their parents to see the end of figures. Wylie estimated that his family has spent about $100,000 on figures instruction for him in the last 10 years.

No wonder some coaches are still agitated about the rule change.

The ISU decided ice time is too precious in some countries to waste it on an art form that has the entertainment value of listening to someone play the scales on a piano. Spectators didn’t come to see it, judges couldn’t explain it and television would rather show the test pattern. Compulsory figures will be contested for the last time in the World Championships next month at Halifax, Canada.

Franklin Nelson, president of the U.S. Figure Skating Assn., felt a tinge of sadness when he realized Wylie would be the last “figure” skater in the United States. Nelson would like to add a separate compulsory figures category to the National Championships that would not count toward the overall men’s and women’s titles.

“I’m an advocate of figures,” he said. “Whether it will fly or not, I don’t know.”

But would it attract competitors?

Of the men who competed Thursday, the only one who said he would consider competing in such a category was Todd Eldredge, who trains in San Diego. That is hardly surprising since he won the figures ahead of second-place Daniel Doran and third-place Wylie. But when asked about it, his answer was hardly definitive.

“I probably might,” he said.