Kwan Could Be Taking a Tumble From the Elite

Michelle Kwan began her bid for a sixth world championship with a tumble and a regret.

“I wish I could do it over again,” she said Wednesday. “Just say it wasn’t a good performance for me.”

Kwan fell once and made two major mistakes to finish third in her qualifying group. Sasha Cohen, the perennial runner-up to Kwan in the United States, won the other group with a revamped version of her “Swan Lake” program.

“It’s a shame,” Kwan said. “If it was [in practice] and it didn’t count, that would be fine. Unfortunately, it does count.”

Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin won the pairs title, the 32nd for Russia or the Soviet Union since 1965.

China’s Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, two-time world champions, finished second despite winning the free program with 12 perfect scores. They were fourth in the short program Monday, which weighed down their final ranking.

Entering the women’s short program Friday, Kwan -- an eight-time U.S. champion -- trails Japanese skaters Shizuka Arakawa and world junior champion Miki Ando.

“I have to work a lot in the next day or two just to get myself going and make the work that I’ve done in practice feel like what I do in competition,” she said. “I have to wake up!”

Kwan first suspected trouble when she singled her attempt at an opening triple loop.

“I was kind of stiff,” she said. “I got into it in the middle, but by that time it was too late.”

Kwan was awarded from 4.9 to 5.6 for technical merit and from 5.6 to 5.9 for artistic presentation. She cited the difficulty of skating well in the qualifying round.

“It’s hard doing a long, short, long [program], mentally, because you are used to doing short and long,” Kwan said, which she did at the U.S. championships, where she received seven perfect 6.0s for her “Tosca” free program.

Although her program was the same from Atlanta two months ago, the skating wasn’t. She tumbled on her final jump, a triple lutz.

“I just have to analyze what happened today,” she said.