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UD’s Meissner selected 2006 Skater of the Year
1:26 p.m., Aug. 9, 2006--World champion Kimmie Meissner of the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club (UDFSC) has been named the 2006 Skater of the Year as part of Skating magazine's readers' choice award program. Meissner will be presented the Michelle Kwan Trophy as Skater of the Year during the first International Skating Union Grand Prix Series event, 2006 Skate America, to be held Oct. 26-29 in Hartford, Conn. The UDFSC competitor was honored after winning the 2006 International Skating Union World Figure Skating Championship in Calgary. It was the first World title for the United States in any discipline since Kwan won gold in 2003. Meissner had a near-perfect performance and was the only competitor in the ladies event to land a triple-triple combination in the free skate, and she actually landed two: a triple flip-triple toe and a triple Lutz-triple toe. Meissner's technical elements score of 69.47 in the free skate was one of the highest in history and her total score in the free skate was more than four points higher than that achieved at the 2006 Turin Olympics by the gold medalist, Shizuka Arakawa of Japan. At just 16 years old, Meissner was one of the youngest skaters at both the Olympics and the world championships. She is also one of the 10 youngest athletes in history to win a World figure skating title in the ladies division. Currently a student at Fallston (Md.) High School, Meissner trains at the UD Ice Skating Science Development Center under coach Pam Gregory. The readers' choice award program featured online balloting at the U.S. Figure Skating web site [www.usfigureskating.org]. Since the completion of the competitive skating season, Meissner has been very active. She is a representative of the Cool Kids Campaign sponsored by the Belanger-Federico-Pitterich Foundation to raise money to support pediatric oncology patients at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University of Maryland Medical Center, and designed bright red Triumph bracelets to benefit the cause. She threw out first pitches for the Philadelphia Phillies and the Baltimore Orioles, spoke at the Association for Women in Sports Media national convention and appeared at the ESPY awards, where she was nominated for best breakthrough athlete. The Michelle Kwan Trophy, which represents both the sport of figure skating and Skating magazine, is a one-of-a-kind crystal sculpture designed by Crystal Signatures of Pennsylvania. The readers' choice award is given annually by the magazine, which is the official publication of U.S. Figure Skating. Previous winners include Kwan, Sasha Cohen, Tara Lipinski and Michael Weiss. |
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