A hundred days until the Vancouver Games is just another day to Evan Lysacek

While Olympic organizers marked the 100-days-out point before the Vancouver Games, world figure skating champion Evan Lysacek on Wednesday did what he’ll do with 99 days left, 98 days, and just about every other day before the Olympics.

He trained long and hard, skating powerfully through a morning practice session at the Toyota Sports Center.

Although a surprise blizzard delayed his return from last week’s Cup of China competition in Beijing, he was on the ice Wednesday as usual, sharing the surface with Italy’s Carolina Kostner, 2008 U.S. champion Mirai Nagasu, Bebe Liang and others. Afterward, he pondered whether 100 days is a long time or a short time to wait for what looms as the biggest moment of his career.

“Both. I have mixed feelings,” said Lysacek, who pulled up from third after the short program to finish second at the Cup of China behind Japan’s Nobunari Oda.

“I feel like I’m really in a good place physically and mentally for this season, but at the same time, 100 days is a long time to stay calm. As it gets closer, anxiety will start to kick in a little more than it already has, but I feel like the last several years for me have been so rewarding.

"I’m really satisfied with the way things are going. I don’t feel the constant need to be proving myself, and proving myself and proving myself, and I think with that, I’ve found an inner peace where I truly love skating every single day and being with my friends and traveling.”

That, he said, has helped him rediscover the essential joy of skating.

“I’ve sort of come full circle. I feel like I’m right back where I started where I’m just doing it because I love it,” he said. “And I really hope I can keep that, because I want to have that feeling at the Olympics and be able to enjoy the experience and not be so hung up on how every tiny little detail is going in my skating.

"I know it’s about the sport as a whole, but like any athlete will tell you, we’re ambassadors for our sport, our country, each of our families and cities and clubs and coaches.”

That sounds like a lot of responsibility, but not to him.

“No. It’s an honor,” he said.

Lysacek also said he was happy with his performance at the Cup of China.

“I just had a couple of questionable calls on edges,” he said. “I sort of had my list of what I wanted to work on, but reviewing them, I don’t so much. It seemed like just calls. I’ll just try to make it more obvious, I guess. What they say with this system is, ‘Don’t leave any gray area.’ Even though I think it was correct, what I did, I did leave a gray area so that’s what I have to correct.

“I’ve seen great skating so far this season. It’s going to be a really exciting season leading up to the Games.”

And, as of Wednesday, there were only 100 days left until the Feb. 12 Opening Ceremony.

-- Helene Elliott

Figure skater Mirai Nagasu has more than usual teenage angst

Reporting from Chicago -- No figure skating judge has ever judged Mirai Nagasu as harshly as she seems to judge herself.

Nagasu, 16, and in her junior year at Arcadia High School, is introspective and self-deprecating to an unusual degree. When she made errors last season, she'd describe that as giving in to her dark side; on today, speaking at the U.S. Olympic Committee's media summit, she called the sport in which she excels "a burden I like," and said she sometimes resorts to golf when she needs "an excuse to hit something" and relieve her stress.

Exactly how much stress should so young a girl have been feeling, especially after winning the 2008 U.S. title and enchanting judges and fans with her grace and spirit?

Scoring system, Dick and Michelle, Kim Yu-Na and other thoughts

Came home from the final evening of the World Figure Skating Championships late Saturday night and watched my tape of the NBC broadcast. Wished there had been more Dick Button and Michelle Kwan.

Noticed that there didn't seem to be a mention of figure skating on ESPN all week. Maybe I missed it. If so, sorry. But, geez, the world championships are held in the United States, an American man, Evan Lysacek, is the surprise men's gold medalist, and about 18,000 people are brought to their feet in a standing awe-vation over a Korean skater named Kim Yu-Na -- who, if you're an avid watcher of ESPN you've now probably not heard of. It was sports news; it's worth covering the worldwide leader.

And about the skating. It was lovely, it was inspiring, it made this skating fan look forward to the Olympic season. For awhile, especially during the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan and Tara Lipinski-Michelle Kwan-Sarah Hughes years, I covered a lot of figure skating. I first wrote about Naomi Nari Nam and Sasha Cohen here too. I've been more removed from the sport since the new scoring system was installed, but I've heard much about how horrible it is and how it's taking away the artistry and making the sport a robotic, jump-by-numbers snoozefest.

But that's not what I saw this week at Staples. It wouldn't matter if you used numbers, letters or perfect 6's, 10's, 100's or 1,000's, Kim was graceful and athletic, interpreted her music, felt her moves, covered the ice, jumped like Kobe and landed them like a Tiger Woods chip shot: silently and without movement. I don't see how the new scoring system has hindered Kim's development in any way.

Lysacek didn't need a quadruple jump to win a world title. He needed to land his triples, feel his spirals, play on the ice as if he were a gallant 1940s gentleman dancing to Gershwin, which he did, and the scoring system didn't stop Lysacek from playing to his strengths.

And it isn't the scoring system that is keeping the U.S. women behind Kim or Canada's Joannie Rochette or Japan's Mao Asada and Miki Ando. Can Del Mar's Rachael Flatt become a more musical, lyrical skater as she matures? Is Irvine's Caroline Zhang committed to the sport enough to rediscover the spark that made her a junior national champion? Will Arcadia skater Mirai Nagasu's foot heel? Will she be able to corral her talent and growth spurt and become the skater many think could challenge Kim and Asada? What if Cohen, who is living in Corona del Mar, decides to come back? Or Kwan (she teased NBC co-hosts Bob Costas and Button in Saturday's broadcast about whether she might make a comeback)?

What I liked was that even after Kwan saw Kim's ethereal, athletic and dominating winning performance, she was not intimidated. And maybe she shouldn't be. The top female skaters are still only doing five or six triples in their long programs. That's what Kwan was doing up until her injuries forced her from the Turin Games.

Should be a fun skating year leading to Vancouver. And a lot of the skating stories will be coming from Southern California. ESPN is opening its own studio out here next month. Maybe they'll even report on some of them!

-- Diane Pucin

Mirai Nagasu makes the team for figure skating worlds

Mirai Nagasu will be going to the senior World Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles after all.

No, she won't be skating for Team USA.

She will be part of the broadcast team for Japan's Fuji TV.

The 2008 national champion didn't make the U.S. team after finishing fifth in the 2009 nationals.  And she has been advised to rest what has become a chronic ankle problem that began a year ago, so Nagasu withdrew from the World Junior Championships, which opened Monday in Sofia, Bulgaria.

So Nagasu, a Japanese American from Arcadia, will spend her time at Staples Center doing interviews.  She is to work from a position in the stands.

Not a bad gig for someone who doesn't turn 16 until April.

And if Nagasu is as effusive in Japanese as she is in English, the TV audience should get quite an earful.

It likely will be a huge audience, given the popularity of skating in Japan since Shizuka Arakawa won the 2006 Olympic gold medal and countrywomen Miki Ando and Mao Asada (both on the 2009 Japanese team) followed by becoming the 2007 and 2008 world champions.  In 2007, when the world competition was in Tokyo, Fuji got a 38% share for the women's final.

"I haven't been on the ice since U.S. Championships" in late January, Nagasu said in the Feb. 12 announcement of her withdrawal from junior worlds.  "I'm not going to step back on the ice until we are confident that my pain is gone.''

--Philip Hersh

Photo: An expressive Mirai Nagasu after her short program at the 2009 nationals. Credit: Elsa / Getty Images