LionDen
02-23-2006, 04:53 PM
Skater's top-six effort in short program establishes her as future headliner
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/7858/torino20066uq.jpg
TURIN, Italy - She is the forgotten American figure skater here at the Winter Games. Kimmie Meissner isn’t as accomplished as Sasha Cohen, doesn’t sit in first place going into the long program at the Olympics. And she isn’t the understudy for Michelle Kwan, the center of a storm, like seventh-place Emily Hughes.
Instead, Meissner, 16, merely skated lights out in her short program on Tuesday and is a marginal medal contender at Torino 2006, after becoming one of only two top-level skaters to nail a triple-triple combination.
She is in fifth place with 59.40 points, her personal best in the short. She is a hefty but not unreachable 6.62 points out of third. Meissner will become the Queen of Sheba in her long program, a routine that is technically difficult enough to catch and pass any of the women in front of her – provided they tumble, stumble or step out of one too many jumps.
“I think anything is possible,” Meissner said. “I think I have a good shot. I think everybody in the last group does.”
Carol Heiss Jenkins, the former U.S. gold medalist, agreed with Meissner, said that Evan Lysacek proved in the men’s competition that anything can happen under the new scoring system, by coming back from 10th to fourth place.
Even if Meissner finishes fourth or fifth, as expected, she will have established herself as a figure skating force for the future. Slutskaya, 27, and Arakawa, 24, are both expected to retire soon. Cohen may do the same, particularly if she wins the gold medal and cashes in like every other Olympic champion of the past 20 years. Already, Cohen admits, the joints ache and she calls herself, “Grandma.”
Meissner and Mao Asada, a younger 16 and the Japanese star who is ineligible here because of age restrictions, would seem to qualify as the leading lights going into the next quadrennium. Asada might even be the gold medal favorite here, if the door hadn’t been slammed in her face.
Elene Gedevanishvili, 16, and Hughes, 17, who sit sixth and seventh in the competition, are other names to watch. Gedevanishvili was the other triple-triple kid on Tuesday. Emily Hughes may head off to college before the next Olympics, like her sister, Sarah. Already, she’s studying for those SATs, the first sign that an Ivy League diploma and not podium flowers are in her future.
Meissner, though, is a keeper. You can tell that. She is bubbly, giggly, a bit reminiscent of Monica Seles in her younger, carefree days. Meissner, the silver medalist at nationals, is light on her skates, a bit lacking in international skating experience.
She started skating at age 6, following her brothers to the hockey rink. There is air to her jumps, and she has the pedigree in Delaware. Her choreographer is Lori Nichol, who laid out some of Kwan’s best stuff.
Meissner is still learning her craft, and it showed a bit on Tuesday when she became too excited about her own program. She was so busy checking off her jumps in her own mind, she fudged up her footwork a bit and it cost her.
“The judges know what they’re doing,” she said, another lesson learned.
While Cohen took the day off to rest yesterday, napping well into the afternoon, Meissner seemed limber and ready at practice. Meissner was on the ice with top rivals because she will be in the same last group of six contenders on Thursday. Meissner called that accomplishment, “a really neat feeling.”
It will be far different than on Tuesday, when she was the second skater overall on the ice after a fluky, random draw.
Meissner felt that she’d skated her short program so early that evening, “it felt like days ago.”
“I might have surprised some people, but I didn’t surprise myself,” she said. “I’m confident in my jumps. I’m anxious to get out there.
“It exceeded my expectations,” Meissner said, of her first skate here. “It felt awesome. I wanted to skate a clean short and I feel like I got an ‘A’ for that. ”
Queen of Sheba on Thursday, queen of figure skating at Vancouver? Don’t be too surprised. The kid has pace, has wings, has legs. What she does in Torino is prologue to medal stands far, far away.
MSNBC Interactive
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/7858/torino20066uq.jpg
TURIN, Italy - She is the forgotten American figure skater here at the Winter Games. Kimmie Meissner isn’t as accomplished as Sasha Cohen, doesn’t sit in first place going into the long program at the Olympics. And she isn’t the understudy for Michelle Kwan, the center of a storm, like seventh-place Emily Hughes.
Instead, Meissner, 16, merely skated lights out in her short program on Tuesday and is a marginal medal contender at Torino 2006, after becoming one of only two top-level skaters to nail a triple-triple combination.
She is in fifth place with 59.40 points, her personal best in the short. She is a hefty but not unreachable 6.62 points out of third. Meissner will become the Queen of Sheba in her long program, a routine that is technically difficult enough to catch and pass any of the women in front of her – provided they tumble, stumble or step out of one too many jumps.
“I think anything is possible,” Meissner said. “I think I have a good shot. I think everybody in the last group does.”
Carol Heiss Jenkins, the former U.S. gold medalist, agreed with Meissner, said that Evan Lysacek proved in the men’s competition that anything can happen under the new scoring system, by coming back from 10th to fourth place.
Even if Meissner finishes fourth or fifth, as expected, she will have established herself as a figure skating force for the future. Slutskaya, 27, and Arakawa, 24, are both expected to retire soon. Cohen may do the same, particularly if she wins the gold medal and cashes in like every other Olympic champion of the past 20 years. Already, Cohen admits, the joints ache and she calls herself, “Grandma.”
Meissner and Mao Asada, a younger 16 and the Japanese star who is ineligible here because of age restrictions, would seem to qualify as the leading lights going into the next quadrennium. Asada might even be the gold medal favorite here, if the door hadn’t been slammed in her face.
Elene Gedevanishvili, 16, and Hughes, 17, who sit sixth and seventh in the competition, are other names to watch. Gedevanishvili was the other triple-triple kid on Tuesday. Emily Hughes may head off to college before the next Olympics, like her sister, Sarah. Already, she’s studying for those SATs, the first sign that an Ivy League diploma and not podium flowers are in her future.
Meissner, though, is a keeper. You can tell that. She is bubbly, giggly, a bit reminiscent of Monica Seles in her younger, carefree days. Meissner, the silver medalist at nationals, is light on her skates, a bit lacking in international skating experience.
She started skating at age 6, following her brothers to the hockey rink. There is air to her jumps, and she has the pedigree in Delaware. Her choreographer is Lori Nichol, who laid out some of Kwan’s best stuff.
Meissner is still learning her craft, and it showed a bit on Tuesday when she became too excited about her own program. She was so busy checking off her jumps in her own mind, she fudged up her footwork a bit and it cost her.
“The judges know what they’re doing,” she said, another lesson learned.
While Cohen took the day off to rest yesterday, napping well into the afternoon, Meissner seemed limber and ready at practice. Meissner was on the ice with top rivals because she will be in the same last group of six contenders on Thursday. Meissner called that accomplishment, “a really neat feeling.”
It will be far different than on Tuesday, when she was the second skater overall on the ice after a fluky, random draw.
Meissner felt that she’d skated her short program so early that evening, “it felt like days ago.”
“I might have surprised some people, but I didn’t surprise myself,” she said. “I’m confident in my jumps. I’m anxious to get out there.
“It exceeded my expectations,” Meissner said, of her first skate here. “It felt awesome. I wanted to skate a clean short and I feel like I got an ‘A’ for that. ”
Queen of Sheba on Thursday, queen of figure skating at Vancouver? Don’t be too surprised. The kid has pace, has wings, has legs. What she does in Torino is prologue to medal stands far, far away.
MSNBC Interactive