GREENSBORO, N.C. — No tricks or potions here. Just Mirai Nagasu being her usual enchanting self.
The 2008 champion edged out fellow previous winners Alissa Czisny and Rachael Flatt in the short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Thursday night with a beguiling routine to "Witches of Eastwick."
But the margin between the three is so small — just a point — the title is still up for grabs in Saturday's free skate.
Nagasu scored 63.35 points while Czisny, the 2009 champ, had 62.50 points. Flatt, the defending champion, scored 62.32.
Nagasu was fourth at the Vancouver Olympics, and her lyrical style, expressiveness and charming personality made many think she was on the verge of becoming figure skating's next big star. But the 17-year-old doesn't have quite the confidence in herself others do, and those doubts tend to come out at the most inopportune times. She led the world championships after the short program, but came apart in the free skate and dropped to seventh. A stress fracture that kept her off the ice for two months this summer got her down and made for a rough start of the year.
As recently as Tuesday, her emotions were still so jumbled that coach Frank Carroll had to give her another lecture.
"I've been competing like a chicken all year," Nagasu said. "But I've been working my butt off. ... I hope I can show the judges I can represent the USA well."
Nagasu has the athletic tricks to stand up to any of the top women in the world. Her triple lutz-double toe loop combination was seamless, and she flew across the rink at such high speed she's lucky she didn't get pulled over. She punctuated the landing of her double axel with a little hand flourish as if to say, "Go ahead, see if you can top this."
"I have to do the jumps anyway, so why not go ahead and land them?" Nagasu said.
And her spins were so tightly centered she would have drilled through the ice if she'd gone any longer.
But what sets Nagasu apart — as it does all the best skaters — is the show she puts on. Irrepressible and charming off the ice, she finds a way to carry that personality over to her programs. Skating to "Witches of Eastwick," she stayed in character throughout the entire program, giving an evil little grin at one point as she pantomimed making a wicked brew in a bubbling cauldron.
Unlike other skaters, whose programs would look the same whether they were skating to Beethoven or the Beastie Boys, her music is almost an extension of her. Or maybe she's an extension of it. Either way, no note goes unacknowledged. When her music went lower during one of her spins, so did she.
When her score was posted and Nagasu saw she was in first place, she beamed and flashed a double thumbs-up to the camera.
"A lot of people still expected a lot of me, even though I hadn't skated in a while," Nagasu said. "All the best skaters can step up their game, and I'm learning how to do that."
So is Czisny.
Czisny has long had a problem getting her psyche to match her skill and elegance. After winning the national title in 2009, she bombed at the world championships in Los Angeles, costing the Americans the third spot at the Vancouver Olympics. Looking to redeem herself at last year's national championships, she was simply dreadful and was out of the running before the short program even finished.
"It was such a heartbreak for me to end like that," Czisny said. "Brian Boitano told me, never leave with any regrets."
Czisny left longtime coach Julie Berlin to train with former world champion Yuka Sato and her husband, Jason Dungjen, and the transformation has been remarkable. She won the Grand Prix final, the first American to do so since Sasha Cohen in 2002, and came to Greensboro with an air of confidence never seen before.
Not at nationals, at least.
Her program, to a piano concerto, showcased the feather soft quality of her skating. She landed her opening triple lutz-double toe loop combination with ease and certainty, and then breezed through the rest of her program.
"It's hard to say what I'm thinking differently, because I feel like everything's different," Czisny said. "This whole Grand Prix season has given me more confidence to go out there and know I can do the job when I have to."
Flatt made a bold move after finishing dead last at the Grand Prix final last month, getting a new short program to "East of Eden." That's the same music as one of Michelle Kwan's signature programs, and there's always the risk of suffering in comparison. (It's like doing "Bolero" or "Carmen." You don't mess with the original.)
Flatt, however, made it work.
The second half of the program is high-energy, and she skated with a speed she's never shown before. All of her jumps were solid, too. But when there are three national champions in the field, every little bit counts, and Flatt's spins aren't in the same category as Nagasu's or Czisny's.