Meissner finally owns the U.S. title

SPOKANE, Wash. - It will be Kimmie Meissner's turn to deliver the morning announcements when she returns to Fallston High School on Thursday. She already knows what her first item will be.

"By the way, Kimmie Meissner is back today after winning nationals," is how Meissner said she intends to begin. "So make sure if you see her, you tell her 'congratulations.' "

The 17-year-old, who trains at the University of Delaware, earned her peers' praise when, despite finishing third in the free skate, she captured her first national title yesterday afternoon at the 2007 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Meissner, who had an advantage of better than three points after Thursday's short program, held off runner-up Emily Hughes by less than a point - 181.68 to 180.86 - in what turned out to be a less-than-spectacular finale to the competition among this new generation of American skaters.

Alissa Czisny, who wowed the 10,393 Spokane Arena fans with the top-scoring free skate, was third.

Those three will make up the U.S. contingent at March's 2007 World Championships in Tokyo. And even though Meissner is the defending world champ, she knows she'll be an underdog to the often-spectacular Japanese women.

"It's in Japan, so I don't think I'm going to be the favorite there," said Meissner, a resident of Bel Air, Md. "So I'm going to train really hard, and maybe I can surprise them again."

Each of the top four finishers had at least one flaw in her four-minute program. Hughes' tumble on a triple salchow late in her skate likely prevented her from winning.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," she laughed when reminded.

In fact, Hughes also would have won under skating's former scoring system, which gave far more weight to the long program.

"After the short program, which I thought went really well for me," said Hughes, the sister of 2002 Olympic champion Sarah Hughes, "it was my goal to do a clean program. When I fell, that couldn't happen. So I had to get up and keep going. I'm really happy I ended up on the podium."

Meissner skated before Hughes and fourth-place finisher Bebe Liang, who were second and third, respectively, after the short program.

Wearing a red-and-gold costume, she took a sip of water, handed her coach, Pam Gregory, the bottle, sighed deeply and made her way to center ice.

She got a little forward on her first jump, a triple lutz. She stumbled but was able to brace herself with a hand on the ice.

"I do my program a lot during the day," she said. "I do them perfect, and I also do them with mistakes in them. I've kind of learned over the years to just keep going - especially with this [new] system. You can miss one thing and still be able to accumulate more points."

She recovered nicely as the powerful flamenco beat in her music - "Galicie Flamenco" - got the fans clapping rhythmically.

"The crowd was really great," she said. "They really got me motivated."

Meissner's father, Paul, a podiatrist, watched while standing in an arena runway and said his daughter will film a national commercial for Subway when she returns home. She will appear on the Today show Wednesday, then head back to high school, where she's a senior.

Meissner got an immediate taste of her new status. After the awards ceremony, 13-year-old Caroline Zhang, considered the top junior skater in the United States even though she finished second at that level here, sought out the new champion for an autograph.

"It reminded me of 1998, when the championships were in Philadelphia, and I got Michelle Kwan's autograph," Meissner said. "I was so nervous then, I didn't say a word."

All this success doesn't appear to have altered Meissner's personality. As she stood silently at center ice waiting for her music to begin, a young girl's voice cried out, "Go, Kimmie. You're hot!"

Most skaters either would not have heard it or would have been mortified. Meissner acknowledged the shouted comment with a smile.

"That was cool," she said.

She wasn't quite so happy, however, about the U.S. Figure Association's habit of referring to her as Kimberly this week.

"I kept going over to Pam [Gregory] and going, 'They're calling me Kimberly. What did I do?' Because I'm always in trouble when I'm called Kimberly. I haven't done anything wrong yet."

Czisny, a 19-year-old Audrey Hepburn look-alike who disappointed a year ago, turned in the day's best performance, an elegant free skate marred only by a two-footed landing on one jump.

"Last year, I had issues" with skates, she said. "This time, I felt great coming here."

Inside

Evan Lysacek wins the men's title. Johnny Weir ends up third, behind Ryan Bradley. D13.