January 28, 2008

Drama on Ice

Dazzling teens and a tie for first place wow fans at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships

By Nellie Gonzalez Cutler

Fancy footwork, light-as-air jumps and dazzling spins propelled 14-year-old Mirai Nagasu to a gold medal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 26. Mirai is the second-youngest woman to win the title. "I am very excited and speechless for words," she said.

ANDY KING—AP Evan Lysacek skates to victory.

The winner usually goes on to compete in the world championships, but Mirai will have to sit out the contest because she is too young. The world championships will be held March 17-23 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Skaters must be 15 by the previous July 1 to compete. Mirai, a high school freshman, won't turn 15 until April 16. She says she is not upset about missing the big contest: "I definitely don't think I'm ready for anything that high yet." Her competitors would surely disagree with her.

Silver medal winner, Rachael Flatt, will also have to stay home. She missed the cutoff by three weeks. Representing the U.S. will be Ashley Wagner, 16, who came in third, Bebe Liang, 19, the fifth-place finisher and Kimmie Meissner, 18, who fell to seventh place. Meissner skated to the U.S. title in 2007 and the world title in 2006, but this time her performance was lackluster. "I'm so upset," she admitted after the competition. "I need to think about what I did here and why, and I need to fix it."

A shocking proposal

The winners of the pairs' title Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker, are also ineligible to compete in Sweden. Keauna turned 15 in September. But the pair plans to take on the world at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. "We want to be the first American team to win the Olympics, that's our big goal," Keauna said. "That's my dream."

Second-place finishers John Baldwin and Rena Inoue came away from the competition with much more than a silver medal. As they took their bows after their program, Baldwin dropped to his knees and asked Inoue to marry him. "I told her she's the person I want to spend the rest of my life with," he said.

Inoue appeared stunned. Finally, with tears rolling down her face, she accepted his marriage proposal. "I was just so shocked," she said. "I didn't know what was going on."

As close as it gets

There were no surprises in the ice-dance competition. Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto skated to a record-tying fifth title. The pair, who has been together for almost 10 years, won silver at the last Olympics. "Every year has been better and better," Agosto said.

The same could be said of Evan Lysacek, 22, and Johnny Weir, 23. For the past few years, the two men have had an intense rivalry. Lysacek won the gold last year. Weir grabbed it in 2006. This year's contest could not have been any closer. Both skaters finished with 244.77 points on Sunday. Lysacek came away with the gold because he won the free skate.

Both skaters stumbled a bit landing their quadruple jumps and each performed seven triple jumps. "I was as close as possible to getting (the title) back again," Weir said. "I'm proud of that."

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