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This is particularly true in the ladies' division, which promises to be the highlight of the entire championships. Last season, as sometimes happens in a post-Olympic year, was a transitional period, with several of the older competitors having retired and the younger skaters not quite ready to take their places. As a result, the overall level of skating in the senior ladies' event was generally weak. This year, on the other hand, there's no doubt about it: The new generation of skaters have arrived en masse. The field is exceptionally deep and the competition is going to be intense.

Michelle Kwan, a veteran who will compete in her eighth nationals at the senior level, is once again heavily favored to repeat as champion. Aside from whatever competition she faces from the young up-and-comers, Kwan has other demons she must defeat. All season long there has been talk that her skating must suffer now that she has taken on the additional responsibilities and distractions of college. And, just last month at the Grand Prix Final, she was soundly defeated in the final round by Irina Slutskaya, who skated a much more aggressive and technically demanding program.

If Kwan wants to use the U.S. Championships as a means to re-establish herself as the favorite for the World Championships, she must not just win, but do it in a way that silences the doubters. Her challenge is to demonstrate that she is not content to rest on her laurels while other skaters push the envelope.

In addition to three berths on the World team, this year there also are three spots on the World Junior Championships team at stake, as, for the first time, that event is now being held in the spring instead of in November or December. In theory, the USFSA's International Committee can name whomever they please to the team, but one suspects it will probably name the top three finishers from the U.S. Championships who meet the under-18 age requirement for the event and who are not being sent to the senior World Championships instead.

Adding to the confusion, skaters must be over 15 to enter the senior Worlds, and several of the younger skaters who will be competing in the senior division at the U.S. Championships do not meet the ISU's age requirement for international senior competition. Effectively, this means that there will be three competitions going on at once: one for the National medals, one for the World team, and one for the World Junior team.

Sarah Hughes has improved a great deal in the past year and, along with Kwan, also has to be considered a favorite for a spot on the senior World team. The competition for the third berth, however, appears to be wide open. Deanna Stellato seems to be on the fast track to success after moving up from novice to senior in the past year and winning the Junior Grand Prix Final in December. Stacey Pensgen, now in her third season as a senior, has shown steady improvement each year. Angela Nikodinov, Brittney McConn and Amber Corwin are all experienced competitors who have been hovering on the fringes of skating stardom for some years, and all of them have probably reached the "now or never" stage.

Stellato and Pensgen also are in the running for spots on the World Junior team should they fail to make the senior team. Among the younger skaters, Jennifer Kirk has established herself as the front-runner for the World Junior team after placing second to Stellato at the Junior Grand Prix final. Sara Wheat, Naomi Nari Nam, Sasha Cohen and Elizabeth Kwon all had respectable performances on the Junior Grand Prix circuit last fall, but none qualified for the final or otherwise set herself apart. On the other hand, a good performance at Nationals could still put any of them on the World Junior team.

The men's competition at the U.S. Championships also has plenty of interest, for in this event, the returning champion, Michael Weiss, is actually not the favorite heading into the competition. Weiss was hampered by a stress fracture in his ankle throughout the fall season and failed to even qualify for the Grand Prix Final.

In the meantime, Timothy Goebel has grabbed the spotlight, not only medaling in both of his fall Grand Prix competitions and placing third at the Grand Prix Final, but also becoming the talk of the skating world after doing three quadruple jumps in the same program at Skate America. It's somewhat ironic that, while Weiss touted himself as a quad jumper for years before he actually landed one in competition, he's now considered yesterday's news in the wake of Goebel's prodigious jumping feats. In reality, Goebel's technique leaves a lot to be desired, and while he's made considerable progress in improving his presentation skills since last year, he still lacks finesse compared to Weiss.

The U.S. has earned only two entries in the men's division at the World Championships this year, but there's a third "dark horse" competitor who's also a serious contender for a spot on the team: Matt Savoie, who just missed the bronze medal at last year's Nationals. Like Goebel, Savoie has made a big improvement in his presentation in the past year, and while he doesn't yet have a quad, he has a reputation for doing his triple jumps from extraordinarily difficult entrances -- a triple axel from a one-foot back counter turn, for example -- and for being an unflappable competitor when the pressure is on.

Will Trifun Zivanovic show improvement or will the competition pass him by?(Allsport)

Meanwhile, last year's silver medalist, Trifun Zivanovic, seems to be going nowhere. The problem is not that Zivanovic has been skating particularly poorly -- he has always been somewhat erratic -- but that his competitors have improved and he hasn't. Aside from improvements in the quality of their skating, both Goebel and Savoie have far better programs this year, while Zivanovic has been re-using last season's West Side Story program.

As usual, there will be a deep field of other men contending for the other places in the top six, which bring television exposure and international competition opportunities throughout the season. Veteran competitors Shepherd Clark (28) and Damon Allen (26) always are crowd favorites, while at the opposite end of the age spectrum 16-year-old Ryan Bradley could make a splash in his first year in seniors. Ryan Jahnke, Justin Dillon, Jeff Merica and Derrick Delmore also have the potential to move up in the rankings.

By contrast, the fields in the pairs and dance events are going to be rather thin.

This has been a bad year all around for U.S. pair teams. In September, the season for 1999 bronze medalists Laura Handy and Paul Binnebose came to an abrupt end when Binnebose almost died after suffering a skull fracture in a practice accident. Then, in December, reigning champions Danielle and Steve Hartsell also had to drop out for the season because Danielle suffered a knee injury in practice. On top of that, two of the younger up-and-coming U.S. teams -- Tiffany and Johnnie Stiegler and Amanda Magarian and Jered Guzman -- also have had injuries that have cast considerable doubt over their fitness as Nationals approaches.

After conquering the junior ranks last year, Justin Pekarek and Jamie Silverstein are ready to give the senior level a swing.(AP)

So, whom does that leave? In all likelihood, the two spots on the World team will go to last year's silver medalists, Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman, and the relatively unknown pair of Tiffany Scott and Philip Dulebohn, who have made major improvements in their consistency and performance level since their fifth-place finish last year. Larisa Spielberg and Craig Joeright, coming off a respectable season on the junior international circuit in the fall, also have a chance to make a big step up in the rankings, particularly if the Stieglers or Magarian and Guzman fail to deliver.

In ice dance, last year's silver medalists, Eve Chalom and Matthew Gates, have retired, and the most likely challenge to defending champions Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev will be from their rinkmates from the Detroit Skating Club, Jamie Silverstein and Justin Pekarek. These youngsters, making their first appearance at senior nationals, are the reigning U.S. and World Junior champions, and many observers have pegged them as the future stars of U.S. ice dance. While the rest of the field is not as pathetic as last year, when only eight couples competed, the U.S. still does not have more than two internationally competitive senior dance teams.