'Anything's possible'

TORINO -- The golden years come early in women's figure skating. The list of the last three Olympic champions reads like a high school junior varsity roster: Sarah Hughes, 16; Tara Lipinski, 15; and Oksana Baiul, 16.

So it is no wonder 16-year-old Kimmie Meissner, who has put off getting a learner's driving permit to focus on skating, can't wait for tonight's short program.

"Anything's possible right now," says Meissner, a 5-3 high school junior from Bel Air, Md.

Meissner has nowhere near the pre-Olympic experience of the teen champions before her. She admitted after practice Monday, "I feel like if I could be in the top 10 or six, that would be pretty big for my first time. ... And obviously a medal would be really nice."

The year before Hughes won the gold, she had been a bronze medalist in her third skate in the world championships. Lipinski and Baiul had already been world champions. Under current age rules, Meissner was too young for last year's worlds.

That doesn't mean she doesn't have a shot against the likes of the top three finishers from last year's worlds: gold medalist Irina Slutskaya, 27, of Russia; silver medalist Sasha Cohen, 21, of the USA; and bronze medalist Carolina Kostner, 19, of Italy, not to mention a Japanese trio that includes 24-year-old Shizuka Arakawa, the 2004 world titlist.

Meissner doesn't have to come of age. She just has to come to skate and hit the triple-triple jump combinations that are the gold standard right now for women. And she has to package it all in the most artful performance of her young life on skating's biggest stage.

"If she keeps her nerves under control ... she could easily be the one to upset the apple cart," says Elizabeth Manley, Olympic silver medalist for Canada in 1988 and a Westwood One radio analyst.

Adds Katarina Witt, who won her first Olympic gold as an 18-year-old for East Germany, "There is something about being young, not having the pressure of being the favorite, having that innocence going in there, probably not really knowing what's going on."

Meissner has ruled out a try at the triple axel, the 31/2-rotation, forward jump only she and Tonya Harding have landed among U.S. women. But she hit two triple-triple jumps of other sorts in her long program in a silver medal finish in last month's U.S. nationals. Those kinds of elements can rack up points in the new scoring system.

Battling a cold at nationals, Meissner ran out of gas late in her free skate and fell on a double axel. She'll need that jump here, and she'll need to up her game in another of the program component scores.

The old 6.0 scoring system had artistic scores. In the new system, non-technical scores are divided into five components: skating, transitions, performance, choreography and interpretation. Meissner's been working on that, but she's shown she has the jumps.

"Technically, she's got top value," Manley says. "What we have always been lacking coming out of the U.S. are the girls that are able to pull off a lot of triple-triple combinations ... to contend with the Russian girls and the Chinese and Japanese girls."

Former Olympic champ Dick Button flatly declares Meissner's chance for the podium and the women's competition is "wide open."

Acting her age

Of the Americans, Cohen is a clear favorite. Emily Hughes, 17, is Sarah's sister and an injury replacement for Michelle Kwan.

Though she has appeared here on the Today show with Katie Couric and has had media exposure, Meissner, the youngest of all the U.S. Olympians, doesn't bear the burden of expectations. And she's remained every bit the 16-year-old.

She had a serious case of the giggles at a news conference after her second in nationals, says she has a "crush" on actor Orlando Bloom and likens rooming with her coach in the athletes village to "having a sleepover."

Meissner says, "You're here at the Olympics, so you should just be trying to have a blast."

She was just 4 when Baiul won for Ukraine in 1994, but she remembers U.S. victories by Lipinski in 1998 and Hughes in 2002.

"Tara won when I was sort of just starting out. ... She skated great at like the biggest competition ever. And then when I watched Sarah skate, she skated awesome, too," she says.

Now Meissner gets her shot. "There's no pressure on me," she says. "I can just kind of skate."

Meissner was about 6 when her backyard froze in an ice storm. Her three hockey-playing older brothers put her in skates.

"There was not a pond back there, but the ground actually froze," says their mother, Judy. "They were kind of like skating and taking slap shots."

Then came trips to a real rink, group lessons, the figure skating program at the University of Delaware and private coaching. Meissner's mother has driven her daily more than an hour from their home to practice at Delaware. Her dad, Paul, a podiatrist, has helped her with foot and ankle problems. Both parents leave the skating to her coaches.

"I know nothing about figure skating. I never skated," says Judy, who sits in the practice bleachers back home reading novels.

Paul says: "That's what we pay the coaches for. ... It seems to have worked for us."

Meissner's coach, Pam Gregory, agrees. "I've come across a lot of different kinds of skating parents, and I think sometimes when people are too intense they want like payback ... a return at the end," Gregory says. "Kimmie's parents want just the return to be her happiness. ... She's not worried about their reaction to a practice."

Tough on the body

At 2005 nationals, Meissner hit her triple axel and took third. There were three U.S. spots for 2005 worlds, but Meissner was ineligible. International Skating Union (ISU) rules said skaters had to be 15 before July1, 2004. She wasn't.

The ISU imposed the limit in 1997, citing safety concerns. Baiul was in beforehand. Lipinski got an exception because she skated at worlds the previous year. Hughes was a junior world silver medalist in 1999, the exception that got her into the first of her three worlds in 1999 at 13.

The loopholes have been closed. Japan's Mao Asada, 15, upset Slutskaya in the Grand Prix final last fall but is too young for the Olympics.

"I couldn't change the rules last year," Meissner says. "I'm sure she wishes she could."

Beyond the experience of the last three Olympic champions, other factors have combined to put 15- to 16- year-olds atop the podium, including flexibility.

"I think some of it is coincidence, but let's face it, it's a tough sport on the body," says Robin Wagner, who coached Sarah Hughes in the 2002 Olympics.

In fact, Lipinski got out after her magical moment. Sarah Hughes decided to go to college. Slutskaya and Kwan, 25, seem exceptions for staying so long.

"I think those (girls) that are gifted and have the ability to become champions in our sport find that out at a very early age and progress rather quickly and become the champions at 16 and 17," Wagner says.

Like Witt, Wagner acknowledges a mental factor: "As you get older, you become much more aware of the reality of what you have to lose. The younger skater goes out there, the world is theirs and they're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

Meissner fits that. She's also enjoying something here many 16-year-olds would welcome: "My teachers decided ... I wasn't going to have any type of homework."

Contributing: Bryce Miller

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