Belbin and Agosto's Numbers Add Up to the Top Spot

ST. PAUL, Minn., Jan. 24 -- Four-time U.S. champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto looked anything but pleased after their performance in Thursday's original dance at the U.S. figure skating championships, which put them in first place as expected but was neither perfect nor dominant.

For the second straight day, in fact, Belbin and Agosto accrued the second-best technical marks from the judges, trailing their younger and far less acclaimed Michigan-based training partners, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, in that category.

Thanks to a notable misstep late in the program by Agosto, the defending champions and reigning Olympic silver medalists received 32.56 points technically compared to 33.37 by Davis and White, the 2006 U.S. junior champions who won the bronze medal at this event last year.

But Belbin's and Agosto's program composition mark and Wednesday's performance in the compulsory dance put them ahead overall, 106.15 to 103.28, entering Saturday's deciding free skate.

"I just hate to end on that kind of note," Agosto said about putting his foot down on a twizzle.

"Meryl and Charlie beat us twice in the technical here," Belbin said. "It's not like we're so far ahead that someone can't come up and steal our spot. . . . The level of skating is so high you can't not try your best."

Hat's All, Folks

Hats were a big subject of discussion throughout the original dance. Belbin noted that she had dropped Agosto's cowboy hat only once during a rehearsal when pulling it out of his hand near the end of their Western dance, and that drop occurred with good reason: The top of her skating costume had fallen down and exposed her, uh, upper body.

"I had a choice to cover myself or drop the hat," she explained.

So she dropped the hat.

Agosto told her never to do that again.

"There's probably less of a [point] deduction," he argued, "for flashing rather than dropping the hat." . . .

In another hat incident, White ditched the black Lenin's cap he had worn for the original dance in earlier competitions to expose his wild curly hair. He thought the hat made him look younger, and he was concerned, he said, that he and Davis, both 20, looked too much like a couple of teenagers to take on their more experienced rivals.

"The cap got nixed," he said. "I can't grow out my beard yet, so I need to think of little ways to make me seem mature."

Deal or No Deal?

The U.S. Figure Skating Association's new revenue-sharing television deal with NBC after 43 years with ABC isn't bringing in big money -- NBC paid no rights fees for broadcast rights through 2010 -- but it's getting the sport into prime time this weekend. Bob Costas, Dick Button and Scott Hamilton will be among the announcers, which will include the most prime-time coverage -- five hours -- in a decade. The event also is being televised live in Russia and Japan via separate television deals, USFSA Executive Director David Raith said. . . .

Pilar Bosley of Bel Air, Md., and John Corona finished sixth in the junior ice dance finals Thursday with 144.37 points despite a ninth-place finish in the concluding free dance. The Ann Arbor, Mich., sister-brother team of Madison Hubbell and Keiffer Hubbell won the U.S. title with 167.48 points.