PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Tara Lipinski won a silver medal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships yesterday, turning in a nearly perfect long program that her coaches thought should have earned the gold.
Lipinski, who was second in the novice ladies division last year, finished second to Sydne Vogel of Anchorage, Alaska, in the junior division this time around.
"I'll beat her next year," said Lipinski, 12.
"She's fighting mad. She'd love to do it all over again, I'm sure," said Ron Ludington, the director of the program at the University of Delaware, where Lipinski trains. "I think her size works against her. She's a little girl and that comes across. Maybe the judges figure her time will come or something."
Lipinski, who lives in Newark, Del., was placed first by only two of nine judges yesterday, compared to six first-place votes for Vogel. She scored well on the technical merit portion of the marks, after landing all six triple jumps in her program with only one bobble. She was marked down, however, on artistic impression.
After the short program of the junior men's division, Derrick Delmore, of Fort Washington, Md., was in seventh place.
Christie Moxley and Tom Gaasbeck, both of whom belong to the University of Delaware club, took the silver medal in novice ice dancing.
In the senior pairs short program last night, the teams of Aimee Offner and Brad Cox, and Nicole Bateson-Rock and Keith Tindall, both of which trained in Newark, Del., placed eighth and ninth. The competition is led by defending champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand.