BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — This suburb sits in the middle of a mosaic that has become an escape from Detroit since the 1960s.

Bordering 16 Mile Road, Bloomfield Hills straddles the strip mall chasm between tiny Birmingham to the south and gritty Pontiac to the north. Still blighting Pontiac is the closed GM plant, a gargantuan mustard-and-brick collection of smokehouses straight out of the industrialized science-fiction flick "Metropolis."

Four miles from GM Pontiac and 8 from the Silverdome, which looks like a concrete landfill behind a cyclone fence, Jeremy Abbott sits on the edge of his couch. For the defending U.S. figure skating champion from Aspen, suburban Detroit has become central Shangri-La.

At 24, he is on his own for the first time. Amid a humongous Target, several chain restaurants and Carl's Golfland in this white-collar town, Abbott has launched his campaign to make the Olympic team. From the outside, his move here eight months ago seemed as risky as trying a triple axel on Lake Erie. In March. How thin is the ice when you're the defending national and Grand Prix final champion, then suddenly drop your coach and leave home for the first time to join two coaches who never coached an international elite skater?

The U.S. nationals in Spokane, Wash., are four days away. The top three skaters go to next month's Vancouver Olympics. Every practice jump, every competition, even every meal, is calculated toward making the team.

The move to Michigan wasn't Abbott's escape as much as his strategy. He jettisoned one aspect of his life in order to become an Olympian. The change, to him, was as obvious as the GM plant down the street.

"It was time to grow up," he said.

Falling on deaf ears

Abbott's upstairs apartment is in a modern brick-and-wood structure at the end of a narrow, windy access road lined with tasteful lampposts. The ugly netting of Golfland's driving range is more obvious

with the surrounding trees barren from a wicked winter.

Above his couch he points to a giant black-and-white print of a canal scene in Amsterdam.

"It was the first country I'd ever been to," he said.

No, he didn't bring back the print from Holland. He bought it at a nearby Ikea. Furnishing an apartment was one of the simple pleasures he discovered after his arrival. While most 18-year-olds go off to college, Abbott stayed with his mom and stepfather in their modest bungalow in Colorado Springs' Lower Skyway neighborhood near the Broadmoor.

Sure, they turned his space into an apartment and he could come and go as he pleased. But hey, you're 24. You don't want to hang with your mom forever. In Michigan, he only occasionally calls her, such as when he has an emergency question about cooking chicken. He even found joy in writing his first rental check.

"I said, 'This is all me.' "

What does the proper temp for chicken Marsala and interior decorating have to do with landing a quad at nationals? Abbott calls it "peace of mind." It's hard to land jumps while looking over your shoulder thinking you could have had something better.

"Like having to be responsible for every aspect of my life, it definitely carries over into my skating," he said. "Just getting myself organized off the ice gets me organized on the ice.

"I'm really happy here."

The timing, however, could not have been more curious. Abbott started pursuing

a new home and coach in April, one month after finishing 11th at the world championships. Soon, he had dropped his coach of 10 years, Tom Zakrajsek, hooked up with coaches Yuka Sato and her husband, Jason Dungjen, and moved 1,300 miles away.

"This was not a sudden decision," said his mother, Allison Scott, the Broadmoor's director of communications. "This had been contemplated for almost three years. It's hard to leave something that's comfortable even when you know a change needs to be made."

Even Mom knew.

"He's been restless at home for years," she said. "We didn't want him to stay. Was it difficult for him to leave? It's always difficult when your youngest leaves. Was it necessary? Absolutely."

Abbott said his move had to do with his failure at worlds "as much as my performance at nationals." He had heard Zakrajsek give the same instructions so many times, the words started losing their meaning.

Also, in figure skating's odd multiplayer-coach relationships, Zakrajsek coached Brandon Mroz and Ryan Bradley, who will challenge for Olympic berths. Abbott is Sato and Dungjen's only elite client.

"It was time to move on," Abbott said. "It's a huge risk, because you never know what the outcome's going to be — but I really took the time to think it out and I looked at all sides of it. For me, it wasn't a risk.

"This is something I have to do."

Change is good

Not only is Abbott's apartment a few double salchows away from Panera and K-Mart, it's also less than a mile from the Detroit Skating Club. One of only two privately owned skating clubs in the country, its focus is on shaping elite athletes, not making money.

The old brick façade has seen its share of glory in its 51 years. Tara Lipinski, the 1998 Olympic champion, and Todd Eldredge, the 1996 world champ, trained here. So did defending Olympic silver medalist ice dancers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto. National champion Alissa Czisny trains here now.

So did Dungjen. He grew up in Troy, just east of Bloomfield Hills, and knows a little bit about changing coaches. In 1993, he switched pairs partners, fired his coach and moved to New York to train under Peter Burrows with partner Kyoko Ina.

The next year they made the Olympic team. Four years later, they finished fourth at the Nagano Olympics. Japan's Shizuka Arakawa switched coaches the year she won the 2006 Olympics. Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek, Abbott's biggest competition in Spokane, have both changed coaches.

To Dungjen, the risk of change is outweighed by an athlete's burning desire to prove the decision was the right one.

"Listen to what the coaches say," Dungjen said. "Sometimes, after a while, you work with the same person for so long, sometimes you're not hearing what they're saying."

Abbott heard enough from Zakrajsek to learn a quad and shock the world at nationals last year. After worlds, it was clear Abbott wasn't happy. He psychoanalyzed each performance to the point where he tried to repeat the past rather than grasp the future.

"I needed to shake things up, get a new perspective, an outside opinion, someone who's impartial, someone who hasn't worked with you or had a vested interest in your career before," he said.

Sato was the 1994 world champion and two-time Olympian who is the daughter of two of the most famous skating coaches in Japanese history. In April, she met Abbott at a skating show in South Korea. He picked her brain about coaching and training.

The two connected, and Abbott went to Japan in May for a four-day tryout. He wound up staying 10 days. He returned home, packed up and moved to Bloomfield Hills, where Sato and Dungjen live and work.

Her skating sold Abbott as much as her coaching.

"She has this amazing quality about her that you can't help but watch," he said. "But at the same time she's very grounded and very contained over her skates. I feel like that's definitely something I've been getting from her. I feel much more stable, and when I compete I don't feel quite so frantic and off balance as I used to."

Lysacek switched to Frank Carroll, who has coached countless Olympians. Weir went to Galina Zmievskaya, who coached Oksana Baiul, Ukraine's 1994 Olympic champion. Abbott is the first elite skater for Sato and Dungjen.

"Maybe on paper we look a little bit more inexperienced," Dungjen said. "On the flip side of it, we skated 10 years pro."

They also know what it's like to stand in front of a packed arena with the next six minutes determining whether you make the Olympic team, or win an Olympic medal. They've prepared four years for a few minutes of white-hot pressure.

They've already made their presence felt. Abbott has consistently landed a quad he didn't even try at worlds. Although he fell on it at last month's Grand Prix final, his flawless performance at Skate Canada had qualified him for the Grand Prix.

The pressure in Spokane will be mind-numbing. Win or lose, Abbott will return to suburban Detroit to train. And he'll happily pay another month's rent.

"I really truly believe I'll be on the Olympic team this season," he said. "But if for some reason the results don't turn out in my favor, I have no regrets."

John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com

Abbott facts

A closer look at Jeremy Abbott, one of Team USA's top hopefuls in men's figure skating, who was born and raised in Aspen.

Age: 24.

Height: 5-feet-9.

Career highlights: 2009 U.S. champion, 2008 Grand Prix Final gold medalist, 2007 Four Continents bronze medalist; 11th place at 2008 and 2009 World Championships; 2005 U.S. Junior champion.

Personal: Began skating at age 4, inspired by watching British 1980 Olympic men's gold medalist Robin Cousins skate in a show in Aspen. . . . A fractured vertebra sidelined him for 15 weeks in 2003. . . . Abbott started the Jeremy Abbott Training Fund with the Aspen Skating Club, his first club, to support competitive local male figure skaters.

Source: U.S. Figure Skating