Archive for October, 2006
Youngsters’ rivalry in spotlight: Meissner, Asada set to go
Sunday, October 22nd, 2006A post-Olympic year usually is when young, unheralded skaters grab the spotlight. Kimmie Meissner and Mao Asada didn’t bother to wait.
The teenagers got a nice jump on making headlines last season when Asada won the Grand Prix finals over Irina Slutskaya and other more renowned and experienced women. Then Meissner took the world championships.
Let their rivalry, perhaps spiced by triple axels, begin as Skate America opens the season Thursday in Hartford.
“I’ve been competing with her in the junior ranks, I really like her, she’s very competitive,” the 17-year-old Meissner said. “I would always hang out with the Japanese skaters and try to figure out what they were saying and they would try to figure out what I was saying. It was a lot of fun.
Instant Recognition
Sunday, October 22nd, 2006The temptation was to look at the posters and news clippings lining the hallways at school. They all had Kimmie Meissner’s photograph. Her name was in every headline.
Meissner tried not to look last spring, lest she become self-conscious or have the attention go to her head.
“You’re walking through the hallway and, all of a sudden, there’s a bulletin board with your pictures on it,” she said. “It’s like, `OK, don’t look. Look away. Look away.’”
It wasn’t like that at her Fallston, Md., school before Meissner won the world championship last year. Most students at Fallston High School didn’t even know she skated.
Ice World warms to Kimmie
Sunday, October 22nd, 2006Anyone who goes to the Ice World skating rink in Abingdon won’t need much time to realize that figure skater Kimmie Meissner means a lot to people there.
There’s a huge banner just inside the front doors congratulating Meissner’s accomplishments of the past year — a great Olympic performance and a mildly surprising victory at the World championships soon after — along with pictures of the Fallston High School senior. People at the rink love to talk about Meissner, how she hasn’t changed much since becoming an internationally known athlete and will still talk to anyone at almost any time.
Meissner’s success of the past year had a huge effect on the figure skaters at Ice World because she’s practiced there on a regular basis for years — and still works out there on a regular basis despite being known all around the world. The figure-skating programs have increased in size since her heroics last winter and continue to be bigger despite being over six months past some of her greatest moments.
Meissner a triple threat as new season begins
Thursday, October 19th, 2006A year ago Kimmie Meissner was barely a blip on the figure skating radar screen. Now with a new Grand Prix season set to open next week at Skate America, the 17-year-old U.S. high school student is the headliner and number one target as her reign as world champion begins in earnest.
“I’ve been training hard,” said Meissner in a teleconference on Wednesday. “I have to work on my jumps but practice has been going well and I’m looking forward to doing Skate America for the first time.”
Meissner’s meteoric rise to the top of medal podium last season was nothing short of a figure skating fairy tale.
Kimmie To Hold Reading Contest Benefiting Cancer Patients
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006Harford County olympian Kimmie Meissner has issued a reading challenge to kids and teachers all over the state.
Meissner discussed her new Cool Kids Challenge Read-A-Thon plans with service learning coordinators at the Maryland Board of Education headquarters in downtown Baltimore Tuesday.
In the challenge, participating schools would pit students against teachers to see who can read the most books in March and April of next year. The money raised will go to Meissner’s campaign that helps children with cancer.