This is a draft of an article that appeared in the hard copy Australian magazine OzSkater
in the April 2009 edition. The final article may have been edited prior to publication.
L. A. Worlds Starts the Olympic Quest
by J. Barry Mittan
The battle for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games began in earnest in March when 83 of the 104 available places for entries by country Vancouver were decided at the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles, California, USA. The remaining 21 places will be determined at the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany in September.
Russia and the United States led in Olympic qualifiers with ten each, while Canada had eight and Japan seven. Australia failed to qualify any skaters for the Olympic Games.
Competitors numbered 216 entries from 52 countries with Brazil and Ireland competing at Worlds for the first time.
Pairs
Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy easily defended their gold medal in pairs, crushing their nearest competitors by almost 17 points with a 203.48 total after winning both the short and long programs with personal best scores in the short and overall. China's Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang came from third after the short to finish second in the long and win the silver for the second straight year. Their margin of victory was only by .13 over Russia's Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov, who had been second in the short, but the Russians won their first medal at Worlds. China's Qing Pang and Jian Tong, who had won this season's ISU Grand Prix Final and the Four Continents Championships finished fourth, five points behind the Russians. Russia's Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov finished fifth.
Last year's bronze medalists, Canada's Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison, finished well off the pace with 172.82 points, seventh overall.
Dance
All of the dance teams on the podium made comebacks back from injuries that cost them substantial months of training time and missed events. None of the medalists had won an ISU championship event this season. Russia'a Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin won both the paso doble compulsory dance and the free dance to win their first world medal by 1.22 points over the USA's Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, who now train with the Russian couple under Natalia Linichuk and Gennadi Karpanasov in the U. S. Belbin and Agosto won the original dance. It was the Americans fourth medal at Worlds.
The bronze medal went to Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, last year's silver medalists, by .04 over their training mates, the USA's Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who had the highest technical scores in the free dance. The Americans had beaten the Canadians by the same margin for the gold medal at Four Continents the previous month. Both teams were less than five points behind Belbin and Agosto. France's Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat finished fifth, just ahead of Russia's Jana Khokhlova and Sergei Novitski, who had won the European Championships.
Australia's Danielle O'Brien and Gregory Merriman finished 25th, failing to make the free dance by one place.
Men
Hometown favorite Evan Lysacek of the United States, who trains in the Los Angeles area, won a highly competitive men's competition in which 13 skaters scored over 200 points. Lysacek, who trailed France's Brian Joubert and Canada's Patrick Chan after the short program, won the free skate with personal bests of 159.53 points in the long and 242.23 overall. He landed all eight of his triple jumps and scored positive GoEs on every element, all but one of which were level four. He was the first U. S. man to win gold since 1996.
Chan, who was third in the short, finished just behind Lysacek in the long to take the silver medal, while Joubert, who won the short, took the bronze. In an odd coincidence, Chan earned the highest level on every non-jump element, while Joubert did not reach that level on any of his.
Tomas Verner of the Czech Republic finished fourth in both the long and short and fourth overall while Italy's Samuel Contesti placed fifth, the highest each has ever placed at Worlds. Kazakhstan's Denis Ten electrified the crowd with a clean free skate, placing sixth and jumping up from 17th in the short to finish eighth overall. Ten landed eight triples and scored the third-highest technical mark amongst the men.
Australia's Mark Webster failed to make the free skate, finishing 46th overall.
Ladies
As expected, Korea's Yu-Na Kim became the first Korean to win a world championship. She won the ladies by scoring a world record 207.71 points overall. Kim became the first lady to surpass 200 points under the Code of Points and scored the largest margin of victory under that system. She won the short with another world record of 76.12 points, five points higher than the previous record. The victory margin would have been greater had Kim not received zero points for her final spin in the long, because she did two combination spins instead of a combination spin and a spin with no change of position.
Canada's Joannie Rochette made some history of her own, becoming the first Canadian lady in over 20 years to medal at Worlds when she placed second, over 16 points behind Kim. Rochette was second in the short and third in the long. Japan's Miki Ando, the 2007 world champion, returned to the podium by winning the bronze medal, less than a point behind Rochette. She was fourth in the short but second in the long.
Defending world champion Mao Asada finished just off the podium in fourth after finishing third in the short and fourth in the long. The USA's Rachel Flatt, the 2008 junior world champion, jumped from seventh in the short to finish fifth and teammate Alissa Czisny rebounded from 14th in the short to eighth in the long, 11th overall.
European champion Laura Lepisto of Finland finished sixth and current world junior champion Alena Leonova of Russia was seventh. The most disappointing performance was by reigning world silver medalist Carolina Kostner of Italy, who plummeted from fifth in the short to 15th in the long, never landing a clean triple, and placing 12th overall.
Australia's Cheltzie Lee, skating at her first Worlds, finished 33rd but did not make the free skate.
