Johnny Weir is the last hope.

Only Weir can prevent the United States from going without a medal at the World Figure Skating Championships for the first time since 1994.

Weir's chances are good if he skates as well as he did Friday -- and the bus is not late for Saturday's final, as it was when Weir found himself in the same position, second place, before the free skate at the 2006 Olympics.

"Don't jinx me," Weir said, with a wry laugh, via telephone from Sweden.

Ice dancers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto finished fourth Friday by 0.26 of a point. The point they lost for the rarest of falls, in the compulsory dance, cost them a fourth consecutive world medal.

Weir was brilliant in Friday's short program. It was his best skating since 2006, when he made an Olympic bus molehill into a psychological mountain and had a poor free skate to place fifth.

"I'm not about to count my chickens," Weir said of possibly winning his first world medal.

Weir, the three-time U.S. champion, needed to be at his best to stay among the medal contenders Friday, so scintillating was much of the skating.

All his jumps were clean, flowing, effortless. His spins all were rated at the highest level of difficulty (level 4), his footwork sequences at level 3. Add that quality of skating to his artistic talents, and the result was a compelling 2 minutes 45 seconds.

"I think I've skated consistently strong performances this season, but this was a great performance for me," Weir said.

Only 2006 Olympic bronze medal Jeffrey Buttle of Canada was better, deservedly taking first by 1.31 points.

When he is on, Buttle is as good as it gets in the artistry department. So is two-time world champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, but the judges conveniently overlook his consistent inability to land a litmus test jump, the triple axel.

He put a hand down on the landing of both that jump and a quadruple jump Friday. Although he wound up fifth, Lambiel is much closer (1.67 points) to Weir than he should be.

"It's still a political sport," Weir said.

As it stands after the short program, the U.S. team is right on the bubble for the 13 points (Stephen Carriere was 11th in the short) to earn three places at the 2009 worlds.

It won't be easy for Weir (or Buttle) in the free skate, where quadruple jumps come more into play. Weir never has landed one cleanly in competition.

With U.S. champion -- and two-time world medalist -- Evan Lysacek sidelined by injury, Weir finds himself the standard-bearer for a U.S. team that has had a horrible worlds.

He prepared wisely for that role, spending a week before worlds in his adopted "home" town, Moscow, to get over the time difference and get used to foreign ice.

"I took myself out of my element, and it helped," Weir said.

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