2008 Worlds

This post is very belated, but here are my impressions on the 2008 World Figure Skating Championships that took place last month:

• Kudos to Johnny Weir for finally skating well enough to win a world medal and keeping the US team from leaving Gothenburg empty-handed! The other US men (Jeremy Abbott and Stephen Carriere) also skated well, and secured three places for the USA at next year's Worlds.
  
• The US ladies, on the other hand, had their weakest showing in years. Still, Kimmie Meissner came back from her devastating performance at US Nationals with a solid SP and decent LP to finish 7th at Worlds. Bebe Liang managed to hang on to a respectable 10th place, while Ashley Wagner struggled a bit and finished 16th.
• Jeffrey Buttle skated a gorgeous LP to win his first World title. I wasn't sure if it would be enough to stay ahead of an also-impressive program by Brian Joubert, but Buttle's more intricate program won it for him.
• Bummer for Belbin & Agosto to finish 4th. Their free dance is one of the most beautiful ones I've seen in the past several years. It's too bad they struggled so much in the CD and OD.
  
• I missed all of the pairs competition (oops).
• It was a bittersweet end to ABC's run of covering Worlds. Hopefully whoever picks up the broadcast rights for the US will do as good of a job as the ABC team did.