FIGURE SKATING / WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS : Kwan 11th After Technical Program

Michelle Kwan fell out of contention Friday in the women’s competition and for the second consecutive year, the United States will leave figure skating’s World Championships without a medal.

The youngest skater ever to represent the United States in the World Championships, Kwan, 13, of Torrance, finished a disappointing 11th in the technical program at Chiba, Japan.

“I felt good, but I could have done better,” she said. “It just didn’t happen.”

The first three positions are held by Japan’s Yuka Sato, France’s Surya Bonaly and Canada’s Josee Chouinard, with today’s freestyle program accounting for two-thirds of the final score.

The three medalists from last month’s Winter Olympics--Ukraine’s Oksana Baiul, the United States’ Nancy Kerrigan and China’s Chen Lu, are not competing in Chiba.

The ice dance competition also was diminished when the silver and bronze medalists from the Winter Olympics--Russia’s Maia Usova and Alexander Zhulin and Great Britain’s Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean--withdrew.

Despite a fall by Russia’s Evgeni Platov in Friday’s free dance, he and partner Oksana Gritschuk were not pressed. They won all four phases of the competition in adding the gold medal from the World Championships to the one they won in the Winter Olympics at Hamar, Norway.

France’s Sophie Moniotte and Pascal Lavanchy finished second, and Finland’s Susanna Rahkamo and Patri Kokko were third. The United States’ Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow were 12th.

With competition in three of the four disciplines completed, the United States has had only two top-10 finishes, a sixth by Jenni Meno and Todd Sand of Costa Mesa in pairs and a seventh by Scott Davis of Great Falls, Ida., in men’s singles.

Kwan, competing in Chiba as a replacement for Kerrigan, could move into the top 10, but she will have to skate better in her freestyle program than she did in the technical program Friday, when she fell on a triple lutz and failed to complete a required combination.

She appeared awe-struck.

“It was really exciting to be out there skating with the people I saw in the Olympics,” said Kwan, who went to Norway as an alternate but did not compete. “It’s just a great experience being here. But it’s hard. The competition is hard.”

The last time the United States figure skating team failed to win medals in consecutive World Championships was in 1963 and ‘64, when it was still rebuilding after a 1961 plane crash killed the entire team.