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Meissner comes up short in world championships

Kimmie Meissner reacts upon learning her score in the women's free skate at the World Figure Skating Championships.
Kimmie Meissner reacts upon learning her score in the women's free skate at the World Figure Skating Championships. (AP photo)
In many ways, Kimmie Meissner's performance at the World Figure Skating Championships looked a lot like her performance at the U.S Championships.

Except for one major difference: she didn't win here today.

Meissner put her hand down on her opening jump--just as she did at Nationals--and received a downgrade for repeating a triple lutz to prevent her from improving on her fourth-place standing after the short program. A long program score of 115.56 gave her a total of 180.23.

"It was not my best. I can do better. So I'll regroup and come back strong next year," said the defending world champion.

This is the first time since 1994 that U.S. women were kept off the podium at Worlds.

Skating last and before her home crowd, Miki Ando performed flawlessly, in four minutes erasing the memory of a dismal performance at the 2006 Olympics and the Grand Prix final.

Ando, 19, whose best finish at Worlds was fourth in 2004, wept as she completed her program and cried again when her score of 195.09--a personal best--was announced. Tears streamed down her cheeks when the gold medal was placed around her neck.

Meissner, 17, skated just before Ando and after Japan's Mao Asada, who rocked the house even though she could not cleanly land her promised triple axel. Asada, 16, the Japanese national champion and clear crowd favorite, had a long-program personal best of 133.13 that vaulted her from fifth to second. The crowd erupted when her total score of 194.45 was announced.

The Bel Air teen skated around the ice to stay loose and took several deeps breaths to steady herself.

"I tuned out the scores, but I couldn't tune out the screams," she admitted.

Last year, Meissner used the long program to make up a five-point deficit and springboard from fifth place to the top of the podium.

Today, she started one spot closer to the leader but was 7.28 points behind the leader, Yu Na Kim of Korea.

But Kim, who looked like a world beater in the short program, left the door open. After skating flawlessly in the first half of her long program, she turned into a totally different skater in the final two minutes. The Grand Prix final winner fell twice and turned a triple jump into a double, looking for all the world as if she had been possessed by American skater Alissa Czisny, a perennial meltdown artist.

Still, Kim was the most interesting skater to watch today, and with her 186.14 final score--a personal best--gave Korea its first medal at Worlds.

Emily Hughes, who started the day in sixth place, fell once and dropped to 9th place. Czisny fell once and two-footed the landing of a triple loop to finish 15th.

candy.thomson@baltsun.com

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