Nagasu dazzles, Zhang fizzles

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Someone told Mirai Nagasu that she was nearly 13 points ahead of the defending champion, Kimmie Meissner, after Nagasu finished Thursday’s short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

“Wow,” Nagasu said, “that’s exciting.”

That was how 1992 Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi felt about Nagasu after watching the Arcadia High freshman give one of the most brilliant senior-level debut per- formances at the national meet.

“Wow, wow, wow,” Yamaguchi said. “For a 14-year-old to have that kind of presence on the ice is pretty impressive.”

Nagasu, 4 feet 11 and 78 pounds, brought the Xcel Center crowd to its feet after she caressed the ice with her skates and thoroughly outclassed the competition.

“It was fun, just pure fun,” Nagasu said.

She earned 70.23 points, second-highest by a U.S. woman for a short program, and stood atop an unexpected leaderboard heading into Saturday’s free skate final.

Another senior national debutante, Ashley Wagner, 16, of Alexandria, Va., was second (65.15), with 15-year-old Rachel Flatt of Del Mar third (62.91). Meissner, 18, of Baltimore, was fourth (57.58) after falling on her opening jump.

Flatt said it felt “really weird” to have three people ahead of Meissner, the 2006 world champion. Among them, only Wagner meets the age minimum for the senior world championships.

The top three all did triple-triple jump combinations, Meissner did a triple-double.

The other 14-year-old phenom, Caroline Zhang of Brea, looked as overwhelmed by her senior debut as Nagasu was overwhelming in hers. Zhang was seventh at 53.49.

Nagasu did the performance she had visualized Wednesday night, when it made her so excited she couldn’t sleep.

“She had a lot of nerves, but she is learning to make them work for her,” said her coach, Charlene Wong.

Nagasu did the first triple-triple of her career. She captured the feeling of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” with her footwork, adding a flapper-like knee bend at one point.

“I’m not going to let [being in] first place bother me,” Nagasu said.

Zhang, reigning world junior champion, was turning cartwheels as she warmed up in a basement hallway, but that enthusiasm had faded by the time she took the ice.

Never in the past two years had Zhang been as lackluster. Near the end of the 2-minute 50-second short program, Zhang was moving so slowly it seemed a miracle she was able to get off the ice on her final jump, a double axel.

“I just wasn’t skating very well,” she said. “It just was a pretty slow performance for me.”

The judges agreed, giving Zhang her lowest technical scores of the season and downgrading two of her three triple jumps to doubles.

Meissner’s fall came on a triple flip jump, but she recovered to get through the rest of the program. The result still was her second-lowest score in four short programs this season.

“My flip was just a silly mistake,” she said. “I’m not too worried about that because I feel pretty strong with my jumps right now.”

Meissner has struggled with a sprained right ankle since early November, and the injury had affected the takeoff and landing of the flip and lutz jumps.

She fell three times doing those jumps in the free skate at her last competition, December’s Grand Prix Final.

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Philip Hersh covers Olympic sports for The Times and the Chicago Tribune.