Kimmie finished 4th with 109.5 points, just ahead of US National Champion Mirai Nagasu’s 108.42. Team USA’s Evan Lysacek won the men’s free skate. Overall, Team North America took 3rd with 481.81 points.

See the full results here, courtesy of the Ice Network.

Click here to see a picture of Kimmie performing her free skating at the competition. Watch her free skate below:

The Japan Open website is online here, but it probably won’t do you any good unless you know Japanese.

Other Americans making the trip include Mirai Nagasu, Evan Lysacek, and Todd Eldredge.

Credit: SuperiorPics

The ladies’ short program and ice-dancing finals at the World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The coverage lasts 3 1/2 hours, so you’re sure to get a nice dose of figure skating tonight!

She did fall during her free skate, but performed well enough to move up 2 places from where she was after the short program. Japan’s Mao Asada took the gold from Italy’s Caroline Kostner, who settled for the silver. South Korea’s Yu-na Kim rounded out the podium with the bronze.

Bebe Liang finished 10th and Ashley Wagner 16th.

Team USA will not get the 3 spots for the 2009 World Champs in LA, that they are accustomed to. The top 2 girls’ finishes needed to add up to no more than 13 in order to maintain 3 spots. As you can see, the total was 17, so only two Americans will be on the 2009 roster.

Kimmie leads all Team USA skaters as Bebe Liang (52.81) and Ashley Wagner (51.49) are in 10th and 11th place right now.

Though she is 7 points out of the lead, Kimmie was very pleased with her performance. Here is a quote:

“I don’t care at all. I am just so happy. … This is something I can be proud of.”

I agree. Skating a clean program is definitely something Kimmie should be proud of!

Italy’s Carolina Kostner (64.28) holds first place followed by Mao Asada (64.10) and Yukari Nakano (61.10) of Japan.

After taking multiple spills in her two biggest events this season, Kimmie Meissner has a new coach. Now she’s looking for a change in results at this week’s World Figure Skating Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.
“I feel very confident that I’m a lot better, and I feel a lot better,” says the 18-year-old from Bel Air, Md. “So we’ll just have to wait and see, and hopefully everybody else can see what I feel.”

Meissner won the world championship in 2006. But in January at U.S. nationals, she fell three times in her free skate and placed seventh. Last December, she fell three times in her free skate at the Grand Prix final in Italy and finished sixth (and last).

Following nationals, she left her longtime coach, Pam Gregory, and her training rink at the University of Delaware to work under Richard Callaghan in Fort Lauderdale

“I knew obviously that I wasn’t skating at the level that I know I can. I just felt like I really needed to change,” she says. “It was a hard decision, but I feel like I made the right one.”

Callaghan, who has coached six-time U.S. champion and 1996 world champion Todd Eldredge and 1998 Olympic champion Tara Lipinski, says Meissner is a self-starter.

“I didn’t know Kimmie, so I was really happy to see that she’s very disciplined and trains herself,” says Callaghan.

“As far as skating …we tweaked some jumps. We definitely have worked on the second triple (in a triple-triple combination) to get it higher, which can produce a cleaner jump.

“And we’ve worked a little bit on the timing of one of the other jumps, the flip. …She accepts whatever information that I give her. She works on it, and it changes. So I’m feeling really positive about the event coming up.”

The women’s short program is Wednesday in Sweden. Bebe Liang and Ashley Wagner also will represent the USA.

January’s U.S. champion Mirai Nagasu, 14, is too young to compete at senior worlds. The same is true for the second and fourth place finishers at nationals.

How well Meissner and the other two U.S. women skate this week will determine whether the USA gets three spots in the 2009 women’s world championships in Los Angeles.

Does that put extra pressure on Meissner?

“I think I’ve taken the pressure off myself,” she says. “I feel like we have a very strong team going in there, and we all know that we have to be towards the top in order to secure the three positions. I think that we will.”

The U.S. team is off to a rough start, and the world figure skating championships haven’t even begun.

Kimmie Meissner arrived just in time for her practice Monday, thanks to delayed flight. At least she got there.

Oh my! I’m glad she got in safely, though. I’m not too worried about the delays affecting her. Kimmie has a couple of days of practice and then the Short program on Wednesday.

But it had to be unnerving for the 2006 world champion after the World Figure Skating Send-Off Exhibition at the University of Delaware’s Rust Ice Arena on Saturday, with the World Figure Skating Championships fewer than three weeks away.

Meissner fell once on a triple jump, then pulled out of another during her exhibition skate, which was done to the music of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Meissner fell on another triple at the end of the exhibition, when each skater came out for a final round of applause

This was Meissner’s first skating appearance in Delaware since announcing last month she was leaving UD and her coach, Pam Gregory, to train with Richard Callaghan in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

She said at the time the move was just through the World Championships, although she didn’t rule out the possibility that she would leave UD for good.

Meissner didn’t want to comment after the exhibition. But it was clear that an arena filled with fans was there in part to welcome back Meissner. She is expected to return to Florida in the coming days to continue her training for the World Championships, held March 17-23 at Gothenburg, Sweden.

So, everyone was left to continue wondering if Meissner will return to UD.

“I don’t know,” said Ron Ludington, the director of the figure skating program at UD. “I guess a lot depends on what happens from this point on. We talked about it when she left, and she said it was a temporary thing through the Worlds. So, we’ll see.”

Ludington said Meissner did skate “beautifully” during a film session Saturday morning, to be shown at this summer’s Olympics.

“The thing I want to see is for her to put it all together,” Ludington said.

Meissner finished sixth out of six skaters in the Grand Prix Finals in December, falling three times during her long program. In the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January, Meissner again fell three times during her long program and finished seventh.

Ludington, a bronze medalist pairs skater in the 1960 Olympics, said he understands what Meissner is going through.

“When you’re at the top, there’s only one place to go, and that’s down,” he said. “Everyone is gunning for you, and everyone is trying to take away your title. You have to work extra hard to stay there.”

That’s why Meissner is training in Florida. The question remains whether she’s going to stay there.

From Delaware Online