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Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker grab some big air and the lead after the pairs short program. (ANDY KING/ASSOCIATED PRESS) |
ST. PAUL - How did this happen? Three years ago, Kimmie Meissner was everybody's kid sister. Now, at 18, she's Grandma. "It's different, I suppose, but I'd like it if they'd call me 'more mature' instead of 'old,' " said America's ice queen, who'll be defending her US figure skating crown from the Attack of the Giant Four-Footers tonight at the
Compared with her fellow competitors, Meissner could qualify for an AARP card. Three of her main rivals - 14-year-olds Caroline Zhang and Mirai Nagasu and 15-year-old Rachael Flatt - aren't old enough to go to the world championships in Sweden even if they make the team.
Thus has the women's guard changed since the Winter Olympics two years ago, with Meissner the only team member here. Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen are no longer competing and Emily Hughes, now a Harvard freshman, withdrew with a hip injury. Yet Meissner, after an uneven Grand Prix season, is no sure thing to repeat.
"It's been a hard year for me with everything being up and down," said the former world champion, who struggled with a balky right ankle and finished at the bottom in last month's Grand Prix final in Turin after falling three times in the free skate.
No women's titlist has been dethroned since Tara Lipinski shocked Kwan in 1997, but Zhang and Nagasu have the game to do it if Meissner is off form. But no matter what happens, Meissner easily should make the world team. That's one advantage of being a Grandma among kids, no matter how grand they are.
With NBC's shaken-up schedule, the men will be back in prime time (albeit taped on Sunday). And even though it will be a marquee matchup between Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir, both are downplaying what has become the biggest domestic rivalry since Todd Eldredge and Michael Weiss. "The most important thing, as my coach tells me, is mind your own business," said Lysacek, who ended Weir's three-year reign last time. "Don't think about anyone else, don't talk about anyone else."
Weir, who finished a crestfallen third in Spokane, Wash., said he's better prepared than ever after changing everything from his coach (now Galina Zmievskaya) to his residence (Lyndhurst, N.J.). "I changed everything I could about my life," said Weir, who's even planning to do a quadruple jump.
The side story will be the fight for third place among Ryan Bradley, last year's surprise runner-up, Wakefield native (and Boston College freshman) Stephen Carriere, Jeremy Abbott, and Scott Smith. If it's Carriere, he'll be the first Massachusetts men's skater to make a global team since Eldredge six years ago. "Hopefully, my two performances can take me there or Four Continents," said Carriere.
The pairs are as up for grabs as they could possibly be. With none of last year's medalists - Brooke Castile-Ben Okolski, Rena Inoue-John Baldwin, and Naomi Nari Nam-Themi Leftheris - having competed all season, rising stars Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker, just up from juniors, grabbed the lead after last night's short program by more than a point ahead of Inoue and Baldwin. Experience and soundness, though, favor the Olympians and two-time former champions, who skipped the fall campaign to prepare for this week. But after Castile and Okolski vaulted seven places in one year to win last year's crown, nobody's betting against another surprise victor.
Only three couples ever have won five straight dance titles, but Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto are odds-on to do it. "It's certainly an honor to be mentioned in the same phrase with those teams," said Belbin, who with Agosto leads after yesterday's compulsory dance. Naomi Lang-Peter Tchernyshev, Judy Blumberg-Michael Seibert, and Judy Schwomeyer-James Sladky are the others in the pantheon. With four-time runners-up Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov absent after a nasty practice fall in November, Belbin and Agosto figure to win in a waltz over Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who should join them on the world team.
John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
