Meissner, on the other hand, is wondering how things have gone so wrong, so quickly after another mistake-filled program. Two years after winning the world title, she could only manage a seventh-place finish here, the first U.S. woman since Lipinski in 1998 to fail to defend her title.
“I didn’t have a good competition here, which is very unfortunate,” Meissner said. “I’m so upset. I need to think about what I did here and why, and I need to fix it.”
She’s been struggling all season. After a disastrous showing at last month’s Grand Prix final, where she finished dead last in the six-woman field, she retooled her entire free skate.
It didn’t work.
She fell on her first two jumps, a triple flip and a triple lutz, and managed only two clean triple jumps. She did a double axel-double toe loop combination twice, meaning one won’t count. She was downcast as she left the ice, and the audience tried to cheer her with applause as she waited for her marks. She mouthed “Thank you,” but tears filled her eyes when she saw the scores.
“It’s more mental,” Meissner said when asked what is wrong. “I was pretty confident, but I just lost it.”
Earlier Saturday, Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubacker got the pairs title while John Baldwin Jr. got the girl, and Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto extended their dominance in ice dance in record-setting fashion.
McLaughlin and Brubaker last year’s junior world champions, served notice they’re going to be a threat on the senior stage as well, winning the pairs title in only their second season together. But they’ll have to wait to take on the rest of the world because she is too young to go to the world championships in March.
Baldwin surprised partner and longtime girlfriend Rena Inoue after their performance, dropping to his knees to propose to her at center ice. Stunned at first, she tearfully said yes as the crowd cheered.
“I told her she’s the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, how much respect I have for her and that everything I’ve accomplished in my career and on the ice is because of her,” Baldwin said.
Belbin and Agosto won their fifth straight dance title, tying four other couples for most in U.S. history. Skating a technically ambitious and beautifully executed performance to music by Chopin, they scored 216.07 points and easily beat training partners Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
“I said to Ben at the end, ‘This is the best in years,”’ Belbin said.
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