Winter Sports | 14-year-old Nagasu glides to U.S. skating title

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Next time, Mirai Nagasu is going to have to remember those glasses.

Nagasu delighted the crowd — and herself — with a refreshing and entertaining show at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Saturday night. The 14-year-old had no idea she had become the second-youngest woman to win the U.S. title until coach Charlene Wong told her.

"I didn't have my glasses on," Nagasu said.

U.S. figure skating has been in the doldrums since Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen decided to try new things, in desperate need of a new star. Nagasu appears to fill that bill.

"She really is just a regular 14-year-old who has a special gift," Wong said. "I think this is only the beginning of many good things for her."

Nagasu can't go to the world championships in March because she is too young. Skaters must be 15 by the previous July 1, and she won't turn 15 until April. Rachael Flatt, who finished second, missed the cutoff by a few weeks and will have to sit worlds out, too.

Ashley Wagner finished third, and she is eligible for worlds. She and Bebe Liang were selected for the world team along with Kimmie Meissner, whose decline continued with a seventh-place finish. Chrissy Hughes of Issaquah was 14th.

"I'm not necessarily disappointed about not being able to go to worlds," said Nagasu, who will go to junior worlds. "I definitely don't think I'm ready for anything that high yet."

Nagasu skated with a breeziness that enchanted the audience and the judges. Only Tara Lipinski, in 1997, was younger when she won the U.S. title, and the Olympic gold medalist has Nagasu beat by about a month.

Meissner didn't resemble the skater who won the world title two years ago.

"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."

Notes

• Winners earlier in the day included Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker in the pairs, and Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto in ice dance.

John Baldwin Jr. and Rena Inoue were second in the pairs. After their performance, Baldwin asked Inoue — his longtime girlfriend — to marry him. She accepted.

Belbin and Agosto won their fifth consecutive U.S. title.

• American skier Marco Sullivan, 27, in his ninth season on the U.S. team, won his first World Cup race, capitalizing on his gliding skills to win the Kandahar downhill in Chamonix, France.

• Denise Karbon of Italy overcame a broken bone in her left thumb to win a World Cup giant slalom in Ofterschwang, Germany, her fifth victory in six giant-slalom races this season.

Karbon, 27, broke the bone during training Wednesday.

• Lindsey Jacobellis, 22, of Stratton, Vt., won her fourth snowboarder-X gold medal at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo.

She crashed on the Aspen course at last season's Winter X Games.