MOSCOW, March 19 -- Irina Slutskaya stood on the podium, giving her gold medal a playful bite and kiss.
Gone, for the moment, was all the anguish -- the heart ailment, the knee injury, the family troubles -- that posed such a burden these last few years.
Russia's Irina Slutskaya, who has been through heart trouble and missed the 2003 worlds because her mother was ill, is ecstatic after her performance.
(Paul Chiasson -- AP)
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_____ 2004 Summer Olympics _____
• Look back at the Athens Games, highlighted by Michael Phelps's eight medals and marked by unfounded worries over terrorism.
• Photos
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Slutskaya won the title for the second time at the world championships, combining strength and style to cap an extraordinary season and more than meet the expectations of her home fans. She finished ahead of Sasha Cohen, who won the silver medal for the second straight year.
"My hands are still shaking," Slutskaya said at her victory news conference Saturday, clutching her medal in both hands. "I hope I will serve as a good role model to people who feel bad and have no faith in themselves."
The 26-year-old Russian delivered a bold and draining program that featured seven clean triples. She gave a double thumbs-up to the crowd afterward, her face beaming.
"I'm happy because it's so difficult to come back so many times, to suffer so many misfortunes," said Slutskaya, who missed the 2003 worlds because her mother was ill.
Carolina Kostner of Italy won the bronze. Michelle Kwan, the five-time world champion, was fourth, the first time since 1996 the American finished a world championship without a medal.
"I can leave Moscow satisfied, but disappointed, satisfied -- kind of a roller-coaster ride and not as consistent as I wanted it to be," Kwan said.
The only indication of Slutskaya's health problems -- an inflamed heart lining for which she is taking medication -- was an apparent ebbing of energy in the steps sequence near the end of the program. Her confident skate to jazzy piano music was in striking contrast to the worlds a year ago in Dortmund, Germany, where she was low on energy and uncertain, finishing ninth.
Cohen was within three points of Slutskaya after the short program, but she was penalized for flaws in some jumps and for an off-balance landing on a triple flip. The U.S. skater finished more than eight points behind Slutskaya.
"I was really happy today," she said. "I stayed on my feet and I tried really hard and I'm really proud of my effort."
Cohen said the International Skating Union's new scoring system, used at the worlds for the first time this year, will help her refine her skating. The system gives precise scores for each technical element, rather than one general technical rating.
"You understand what's going on," she said. "You know the points mean something. You know that you bettered your performance, get more points. You can't really compare your performances under the [old] system."
Kostner was the first Italian woman to win a worlds medal since Susanna Driano's 1978 bronze. She capitalized on the new system's stronger technical emphasis with a triple-triple-double cascade that earned substantial points to help offset small problems.
"I'm speechless, I can hardly believe it," she said. "Now this long, hard week has paid off."
Kwan's free program, in which she fell on a triple salchow, lacked verve, although it was well above her qualifier, in which she skated the same program and ended up ranked seventh.
