Weir wears underdog label

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Johnny Weir may have won three straight United States figure skating titles, but he still finds himself considered the underdog to Evan Lysacek, who has beaten him at the last two world championships and the Olympics.

"I'm not always going to be invincible, not always going to be top dog," says Weir, who takes the ice this afternoon in his quest to be the first man since Brian Boitano to win four in a row. "All the chatter about being an underdog, about not having a chance against Evan, is just talk."

Lysacek, who was second to Weir last year, says his only expectation here is to "put my best foot forward," but he clearly considers himself a top contender. "This year, a lot of the quote-unquote veteran skaters have either retired or fallen down the ranks," says the two-time world medalist.

With former champions Michael Weiss and Tim Goebel and Olympian Matt Savoie departed, the third spot on the world team is wide open. In the chase will be two local competitors -- Scott Smith of the Skating Club of Boston, who was fifth last year, and Stephen Carriere of Wakefield, Mass., last year's junior titlist.

About that skirt and high heels that Weir wore for a BlackBook fashion magazine photo shoot.

"It was a really cool Gucci minidress that they wrapped around my waist," he says. "I didn't have it all the way around, so it wasn't a drag picture. There were a lot crazier things than the heels I was in that day."

Weir, who has done some designing of his own, was puzzled by the gender-bender fuss. "It's not as if I went in and said, I want heels, I want fur, I want glitter, and I want you to make me up totally like Amanda Lepore," he says. "It's not like that at all."

Rena Inoue and John Baldwin wiggled and wobbled but managed to win the pairs short program, holding off Naomi Nari Nam and Themi Leftheris by less than half a point. "A little shaky here and there," conceded Inoue, who with Baldwin is chasing their third title in four years. The three pairs who finished behind Inoue-Baldwin last year -- Marcy Hinzmann-Aaron Parchem, Katie Orscher-Garrett Lucash, and Tiffany Scott-Rusty Fein -- all have moved on. Placing ninth in their senior debut were Julia Vlassov of Hudson, Mass., and Wellesley's Drew Meekins, who were undone by twin mistakes on their triple salchows. "It was interesting, at least," mused Meekins, who won the world junior title with Vlassov last year. "We've never skated in front of so many people before." . . . With Spokane already smashing the attendance record (more than 146,000 tickets sold as of yesterday), US Figure Skating's new philosophy of putting the national championships in towns where it'll be a huge event obviously paid off. The association learned expensive lessons by going to Dallas and Atlanta in 2003 and 2004, where the arenas were half-empty (or worse) for most of the week. "If they're not going to embrace us," says president Ron Hershberger, "we're not going to go there."