After a disappointing fourth-place finish at the world championships in Moscow just less than two weeks ago, Michelle Kwan will have a chance tonight to return to the comforts of the old 6.0 scoring system.
In a made-for-television, one-night event, Kwan and six other female skaters, including world silver medal winner Sasha Cohen, will each skate a long program, competing for a top prize of $50,000 at the Marshalls U.S. Figure Skating Challenge in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Michell Kwan struggled to a disappointing fourth-place finish at the world championships in Moscow.
(Yury Kadobnov - AFP)
|
|
_____ 2004 Summer Olympics _____
• Look back at the Athens Games, highlighted by Michael Phelps's eight medals and marked by unfounded worries over terrorism.
• Photos
| | |
|
At the world championships, Kwan for the first time faced the new International Skating Union scoring system, which evaluates skaters element-by-element, and posted her worst performance in 10 years. Since 1996, she has finished in the top three every year, winning five world titles under the 6.0 system, which is being phased out of elite skating because of its subjective elements.
Cohen, meantime, won her second straight world silver medal, finishing second to Russian Irina Slutskaya. Emily Hughes, the world junior bronze medalist and younger sister of 2002 Olympic champion Sarah Hughes, also will complete tonight, along with up-and-coming star Kimmie Meissner of Baltimore, Jennifer Kirk and Beatrisa Liang.
The men's competition will include 2002 Olympic bronze medal winner Tim Goebel; this year's world bronze medalist, Evan Lysacek; and two-time U.S. champion Johnny Weir, who finished fourth at worlds despite battling a foot injury.
Lysacek, the third-place finisher at this year's U.S. championships, won his first major world medal in a competition marred by the withdrawal of Russian Evgeny Plushenko because of injury problems.
The event is scheduled to broadcast April 16 on ABC.
-- Amy Shipley
