ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AFP) - Reigning US champions Evan Lysacek and Kimmie Meissner will defend their crowns this week at the US Figure Skating Championships with Johnny Weir and a host of teen girls set to challenge them.
Top level competition begins Wednesday with compulsory dance and pairs short routines while the women's short program and original dance are Thursday with the men's short on Friday.
Pairs, dance and women's finals are Saturday with the men's final Sunday.
Lysacek and three-time US champion Johnny Weir are the men's favorites with each planning the quad, a four-revolution jump, in their free skate finals. Lysacek, 22, dethroned Weir, 23, last year to capture his first US crown.
Lysacek, twice a bronze medalist at worlds, was fourth at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, one place ahead of Weir, and both will be looking to the medal podium at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Meissner and 14-year-old Caroline Zhang are favored in a women's event lacking 2007 runner-up Emily Hughes due to a hip injury. She was fourth at Skate America and Skate Canada and seventh at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Meissner, 18, won the 2006 world title but figures to be tested by a host of young rivals, including Zhang; Mirai Nagasu, 14; Ashley Wagner, 16, and Rachael Flatt, 15.
Zhang won last year's world junior crown with Nagasu and Wagner also sharing the podium in a US sweep that served notice of a new generation to follow in the skatemarks of legend Michelle Kwan with the 2010 Games approaching.
"It brings out the competitive spirit in each of us," Nagasu said. "I definitely want to come on strong and show everyone I can compete at this level. That's what we all want."
Zhang, whose parents are from China, was third at Skate America in her senior debut, second at China and fourth in the Grand Prix final. She has gotten over her awestruck transition to the senior circuit.
"The first day it seemed like everyone was really tall. I wondered if they were going to jump over my head," Zhang said. "I was really excited to be out there with the senior skaters."
Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto bid for their fifth US ice dance crown in a row while reigning pairs champions Brooke Castile and Ben Okolski will be tested by the reigning world junior champions, Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker.
The US finals are Castile and Okolski's first competition since they placed 12th at last March's World Championships. A leg injury for Castile kept them out of this season's Grand Prix events.
