Russians will skip the worlds

TURIN -- The Russians aren't coming, the Russians aren't coming. With Olympic gold medals in hand, the pair of Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin will skip next month's world championships in Calgary, Alberta, and dance couple Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov almost certainly will stay home, too.

''Ninety percent no," reckoned Navka, who has won the last two titles with Kostomarov and has a 5-year-old daughter to attend to. Though men's titlist Evgeny Plushenko has talked about continuing on to the 2010 Games in Vancouver, he's said nothing about Calgary. Since the world championships are a major anticlimax, there's a long history of Olympic champions sending their regrets. In 2002, only Alexei Yagudin turned up.

Playing it safe
Kimmie Meissner may have the triple axel in her arsenal, but she won't be using it in tomorrow night's long program, even though the 7.5 points it carries could get her a medal, since she's less than that many out of third. ''Some days it's solid, some days it isn't," reports Meissner, who last year was the first American woman to land the sport's toughest triple since Tonya Harding in 1991. Rather than spending precious practice time on an iffy jump, the 16-year-old Meissner has been working on her triple-triple combinations plus her spins and footwork, which are significantly more important under the code of points.

Georgian on their minds
Who is Elene Gedevanishvili, the Georgian girl who finished a startling sixth in last night's short program? She's the youngest skater (just turned 16) in the field, but one of the most promising. Her triple flip-triple toe combination was only one of two triple-triples landed all night. ''I know I'm the youngest, but I feel good," said Gedevanishvili, who finished fifth in last month's European championships. ''I have no problems." . . . Though Emily Hughes is a hefty 9 points out of medal position, she hasn't given up on the possibility of matching her sister Sarah's Great Leap Upward from four years ago. ''You never know," said Hughes, who's in seventh place. ''It's the Olympics. Unexpected things happen." What Hughes will be content with, though, is another clean skate. ''Just making it to the Olympics is a tremendous step for me," she says. ''All it can go is up now."

Little time to celebrate
The celebration would have to wait. Perhaps until the world championships. Too many obligations -- to the media, to the drug testers -- forced Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto into an abbreviated toasting session after winning the first US ice dancing Olympic medal in 30 years on Monday night. The pair got about a half-hour, then were sent packing, as their chosen post-competition venue had a 2 a.m. bedtime. ''It was a very blurry time because everything was happening so quickly," Belbin said. ''We didn't have time to breathe before they had to close down and kick us out." That might be a good thing. With the world championships rapidly approaching there won't be much time for anything other than practice. Because Belbin and Agosto might be primed to take over No. 1. ''I think we have a good shot at worlds," Agosto said. ''The Russians [who won here] are retiring. The door is opening a little further for us to win the world championships. That's our ultimate goal." And then the partying would really begin.

Amalie Benjamin of the Globe staff contributed to this report from Turin.