Kim's performance is a thing of beauty

Not simply to remind them they are incredibly far from matching what the 18-year-old South Korean achieved and that they're unlikely to win a medal next February at the Vancouver Olympics.

That's undeniably true, though, after Rachael Flatt's earnest fifth-place finish and U.S. champion Alissa Czisny's 11th-place showing — three places higher than she stood after her overscored short program.

No, every American woman and every American skater can learn something from Kim's seamless meshing of difficult jumps and intricate spins in a program that boosted her overall total to a record 207.71 points, the first woman to surpass 200 since this scoring system was adopted for the 2005 World Championships.

They should especially note the unruffled calm she displayed in recovering from a sloppy double salchow and finishing her program with supreme confidence.

They should study the way she expressed so much with her arms and carriage and face, creating a mood that entranced a nearly packed house.

The woman who never smiled on the ice until she left her home in 2006 to train in Toronto with Brian Orser couldn't stop grinning Saturday. “I want to become a remembered skater,” Kim said.

No one who saw her routine Saturday will forget it.

The mistake on the salchow, which was supposed to be a triple and was landed badly, was minor and forgettable.

What will linger is the sound of the crowd becoming hushed as she took off for her first element, a triple flip-triple toe loop combination jump, and its collective “oooh” of awe and delight as her blade crunched safely on the ice twice.

“I was very well prepared,” Kim said. “While practicing I have been confident and thought I was going to do well.”

Not even she imagined she'd do this well. And consider this: She set that record even though she got no points for her final spin, which was declared invalid because it was not one of the required variations.

As she stood at center ice Saturday night she looked so small to be the object of so much affection, to have inspired a standing ovation, a flurry of flag waving and a torrent of stuffed animals thrown onto the ice in her honor.

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