Word: meissner
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...scandal in the pairs competition in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games exposed the cronyism and rigged voting on which the sport was resting. It wasn't just established competitors like Cohen who were affected. The exposé threatened to alienate skating's future champions, including rising stars like Kimmie Meissner, who last year became only the second American woman to land a triple Axel in competition. Those youngsters were busy pushing the sport to new levels of excellence, but would they continue to bother if the results were fixed? Embarrassed and under pressure from the International Olympic Committee to reform...
Perhaps the biggest change is that the new rules don't reward those circus-leap triple Axels to the exclusion of other skills. That benefits skaters like Meissner who have the big tricks but are more analytical and calculating enough to maximize their point totals with the minimum amount of exhausting big tricks. Under the new code of points (COP), as it's called, there is no hiding a weak spin, sloppy footwork or poor basics. It's a far more demanding and exacting measure of an athlete...
...draws a line between the intuitive skaters of yesterday and the more technical, all-around stars of tomorrow. And you need look no further than the trio of American women headed to Torino--Cohen, Meissner and Michelle Kwan--to know that this changing of the guard is well under...
Cohen's teammate Meissner has been blissfully oblivious to the Olympic gauntlet. At a pre-Olympic summit last fall, Meissner trailed Cohen like a puppy and watched in awe as Cohen deftly defused question after question from reporters about not skating up to her potential and always competing in Kwan's shadow. It was a crash course for the teenager in accepting the baggage that comes with being an Olympic-caliber skater. Even if Meissner is not as polished as Cohen or Kwan--"Sometimes I can't believe the dumb things I say"--her candor makes her a refreshing addition...
Just don't let the girlish innocence mislead you. Meissner, the youngest of four children, is a competitor. After she missed a jump combination in her short program at nationals last month, she vowed to complete it two days later in the free program. And she did, flawlessly. "Once she sets a goal for herself, she's determined to reach it," says her mother Judy. This season that goal was making the Olympic team. "She is a great competitor. She's mentally tough," says her coach of nine years, Pam Gregory. "She stays in the moment and is able...