LOS ANGELES — They missed the podium by a mile, but while they didn’t come away from the World Figure Skating Championships with a medal, Jeremy Abbott and Brandon Mroz of Colorado Springs came away with valuable lessons.
Abbott, the American champion, bounced back from Wednesday’s disastrous short program to improve in Thursday’s long, and Mroz showed he can hold up in an international competition.
Abbott overstepped twice on triple axels and put a hand down on a combination but otherwise skated a clean program. His score of 132.52 gave him a total of 204.67 which, at press time, would likely place him 11th. Mroz scored a season-best 131.09 for a total of 207.19, good for no worse than ninth.
Evan Lysacek won his first world title as 2007 world champion Brian Joubert of France on his final jump, falling from first to third.
The U.S. needed to place two in the top 13 to secure three spots in next year’s Olympic Games.
“I really felt much more myself than I did (Wednesday),” Abbott said. “I felt confident and felt ready to deliver a great performance to do a big pull. There’s always that twinge of doubt with every competition that maybe it will happen, and maybe that’s where those little mistakes came from.”
He wasn’t happy with the judges’ score, but after a short program that left him in 10th, he was pleased with bouncing back.
“It certainly wasn’t my greatest, but I’m proud of my effort and that I gave it my heart from beginning to end, and I couldn’t have given any more,” he said.
Mroz, at his first worlds, two- footed an opening quad, step- ped out of a triple axel and overstepped a triple salchow. But he nailed three combinations and had no other major slips.
The need to place in the top 13 only added to the pressure on the 18-year-old Mroz.
“It’s kind of in the back of our heads,” Mroz said. “I know I felt for myself a lot of pride for my country. I wanted to skate the best I could to secure those Olympic spots for us. Normally, we go out and compete and represent the U.S., but here, I felt a need to do my best for my country.”
In ice dancing, American Olympic silver-medal winners Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto had the best original dance and trail Russia’s Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, 105.45-104.81.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
