A quarter-inch-wide blade is having much larger ramifications for U.S. figure skating champion Evan Lysacek and his compatriots.

Problems with the blade, which broke last week, directly led to an injury that forced Lysacek's withdrawal Thursday from the World Figure Skating Championships, which begin Tuesday in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Without Lysacek, a two-time world bronze medalist, the U.S. men are in danger of getting just two places at the 2009 world championships in Los Angeles.

Lysacek will be replaced by Jeremy Abbott, 22, fourth finisher at the 2008 nationals, who never has competed in either a senior or junior worlds.

That means the U.S. men's team in Sweden will have two senior world meet debutants, Abbott and Stephen Carriere. Its leader, three-time U.S. champion Johnny Weir, was eighth at last year's worlds.

The finishes of the top two men must add up to 13 points or fewer for the United States to have three men's entrants at the 2009 worlds. That seems unlikely.

"I've got my fingers crossed," Lysacek said via telephone, just after an MRI scan that he said showed a sprained rotator cuff and sprained ligaments in his left shoulder and arm.

He expected to have a cast on the upper arm and a brace to support it for at least a week.

The injury occurred at a Wednesday afternoon practice in Los Angeles, where Lysacek was trying to get comfortable on the third set of blades he had tried since the old one broke. The setting and fit of the blade are critical in figure skating, especially on jumps and spins.

Lysacek said he was landing a triple axel jump when his right blade snapped from its weld. He fell hard to the left, hitting the ice with his shoulder, elbow and forearm.

"I had been slipping on easier things, so I was taking it slowly, but I realized if I wanted to get to worlds I had to settle on one set of blades and try everything." Lysacek said.

It is not just the U.S. men whose future prospects are compromised.

Since the first-, second- and fourth-place women at nationals are too young for senior worlds, the U.S. team in Gothenburg has two senior world debutantes and slumping 2006 world champion Kimmie Meissner, who tumbled to seventh at nationals.

That trio also seems unlikely to earn three places for next year.

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