Filip Bondy

TURIN, Italy - She is the forgotten American figure skater here at the Winter Games. Kimmie Meissner isn’t as accomplished as Sasha Cohen, doesn’t sit in first place going into the long program at the Olympics. And she isn’t the understudy for Michelle Kwan, the center of a storm, like seventh-place Emily Hughes.

Instead, Meissner, 16, merely skated lights out in her short program on Tuesday and completed Thursday's free skate with a sixth-place finish in hand.

Even with that effort, Meissner, one of only two top-level skaters to nail a triple-triple combination, has established herself as a figure skating force for the future.

Bronze medalist Irina Slutskaya, 27, and gold medal winner Shizuka Arakawa, 24, are both expected to retire soon. Cohen, who claimed the silver, may do the same. Already, Cohen admits, the joints ache and she calls herself, “Grandma.”

Meissner and Mao Asada, a younger 16 and the Japanese star who is ineligible here because of age restrictions, would seem to qualify as the leading light going into the next quadrennium. Asada might even be the gold medal favorite here, if the door hadn’t been slammed in her face.

Elene Gedevanishvili, 16, and Hughes, 17, are other names to watch. Gedevanishvili was the other triple-triple kid on Tuesday. Hughes may head off to college before the next Olympics, like her sister, Sarah. Already, she’s studying for those SATs, the first sign that an Ivy League diploma and not podium flowers are in her future.

Slide show   Pictures of the Day Check out Sunday's best Olympic images.

Meissner, though, is a keeper. You can tell that. She is bubbly, giggly, a bit reminiscent of Monica Seles in her younger, carefree days. Meissner, the silver medalist at nationals, is light on her skates, a bit lacking in international skating experience.

She started skating at age 6, following her brothers to the hockey rink. There is air to her jumps, and she has the pedigree in Delaware. Her choreographer is Lori Nichol, who laid out some of Kwan’s best stuff.

Meissner is still learning her craft. She was so busy checking off her jumps in her own mind Tuesday, she fudged up her footwork a bit and it cost her.

Slide show   Emotional Moments Feb. 26: See photos of athletes' highs and lows from Sunday.

“The judges know what they’re doing,” she said, another lesson learned.

While Cohen took the day off to rest Wednesday, napping well into the afternoon, Meissner seemed limber and ready at practice. Meissner was on the ice with top rivals because she was in the same last group of six contenders on Thursday. Meissner called that accomplishment, “a really neat feeling.”