The New York Times-20080128-Tie Breaker Allows Lysacek to Defend Title

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Tie Breaker Allows Lysacek to Defend Title

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Nobody could have anticipated an ending like this. A tie breaker? In figure skating?

Waiting for his scores in the kiss-and-cry area on Sunday, Johnny Weir squinted at the television monitor with confusion. Weir and his top rival, Evan Lysacek, finished with identical totals of 244.77 at the United States Figure Skating Championships. But Lysacek edged Weir for the men's title because he had slightly better marks in his free skate, which is the tie breaker under International Skating Union regulations.

Weir appeared perplexed. He turned to his coach, Galina Zmievskaya, who shrugged.

Lysacek, who won his second consecutive United States title, said he had no idea what happened until an official from the United States Figure Skating Association explained it to him.

If you were scripting this whole deal, you probably couldn't have done any better job than this, Lysacek said.

True enough. Lysacek, a tall, tanned Californian, skated a technically challenging program to Puccini's Tosca, with just enough shaky landings to give Weir a chance at the title.

Weir, the three-time national champion known for his showmanship, led by 1.35 points after the short program. He took the ice Sunday in a black-and-white unitard he called a sparkly onesie.

Skating to Love is War by Yoav Goren, Weir aborted two jumps late in his program. On the second, he two-footed the landing on a triple flip and never attempted the planned double-toe loop. But Weir said a poor score on an upright spin, in which he did not clearly change skating edges, was probably the biggest difference. Lysacek had 162.72 points to Weir's 161.37 in the free skate. Stephen Carriere, the 2007 world junior champion, finished nearly 7 points ahead of Jeremy Abbott and Ryan Bradley for third place.

First place, second place, last place, I'm just happy with the way I skated, said Weir, who changed coaches and training sites this season to try to revive his career.

But the day was not without some controversy. Weir and Lysacek have never pretended to be friends, and Weir jabbed Lysacek in an interview for NBC that was broadcast Sunday night.

I respect Evan as an athlete, but as a person I don't really like him, Weir said in the interview. There's nothing special about him to me. We would never be friends, and I wouldn't even know who he was if we weren't competing against each other.

When asked about Weir's comments after his victory, Lysacek said: Oh that's nice. Thank you for sharing that with me. He refused to attack Weir, adding, I'm not going to say anything bad about him, because I admire him.

All week, Lysacek said he felt nervous. He said his hands were shaking Friday night at the start of his short program.

On Sunday, after scoring big on a quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination, Lysacek needed all his balance to hold landings on three triple jumps, the last being a triple axel-double toe loop combination.

I thought Johnny was terribly straight and accurate and beautiful to watch, said Frank Carroll, Lysacek's coach. I thought Evan was very exciting and very dramatic, I think it boils down to what you like, pie or cake.

Lysacek said he was just glad it was over.

Last year, I was excited, he said. I climbed on top of the mountain I wanted for so long. This year, I felt more relief. I'm sad to say that I'm a little bit happy that it's over, and I rarely feel like that.

Picking the men's team for the world championships in March in Goteborg, Sweden, proved much simpler for United States Figure Skating's international committee than choosing the women's team. The men's medalists all qualified.

For the women, three of the top four finishers were not old enough to qualify. The women's winner, Mirai Nagasu, along with the silver medalist, Rachael Flatt, and the fourth-place finisher, Caroline Zhang, had not turned 15 by July 1, 2007, the cutoff date for eligibility.

Typically, the national champion qualifies and the committee picks the next two skaters, usually the other medalists. Lacking that option, the committee settled on the bronze medalist, Ashley Wagner; Beatrisa Liang, who finished fifth; and Kimmie Meissner, last year's national champion and the 2006 world champion, who was seventh.

Katrina Hacker, 17, finished a spot ahead of Meissner but was not selected because she has little international experience.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Evan Lysacek won the free skate, edging Johnny Weir for the men's U.S. championship. (PHOTOGRAPH BY NATI HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS)