Nice statement

Don’t forget Jeremy Abbott.

With all the attention that goes to Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir – and deservedly so – it may seem like Abbott is an afterthought.

But the reigning national champion let it be known that he isn’t going to give up the crown easily, skating to first place in the Senior Men’s short program at the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the Spokane Arena Friday night.

Skating fifth in the 23-man field, Abbott scored 87.85.

“I’m pretty happy with that,” he said after electrifying the crowd of 6,313 just three spots after the flamboyant Weir did the same thing with his score of 83.51.

“After landing that triple lutz there was just this explosion inside,” he said. “After that the rest of the program was just a blast.”

Still, it’s going to be a battle when the long program wraps up the Men’s competition Sunday beginning at 10:30 a.m. World champion Evan Lysacek, who won the first of his two national championships at the 2007 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane, slipped past Weir with a score of 83.69.

Despite being the defending champion, Abbott, who competes for the Detroit Skating Club, admitted to a big case of nerves.

“For some reason today was different and I was way more nervous,” the 24-year-old from Colorado said. “I’m so proud … I willed myself to do everything instead of giving into the nerves, giving into the fear and letting it fall apart.”

He hit his jumps cleanly and then played to the crowd.

“I had to summon every once of power I had to keep my head together and produce the performance that I did,” said Abbott, who was a disappointing 11th in the World Championships. “I’m way more excited about this than I was last year (when) I felt so confident I was going to win. This season I really had to build and prove myself. …This year I was so nervous and I felt I actually put out a better performance.”

Lysacek said skating 17th had no bearing on a score that was well below his best.

“I didn’t know, they skated before I even got here,” said the Chicago native who trains in California. “I didn’t know what had gone on. I’m used to it. … We’re used to it, we’re athletes.”

The only miscue for Lysacek, 24, came early when he stepped out of his first jump, a triple axel.

“I think the changes I made in the footwork in spins, hopefully they were rewarded,” he said. “That’s seven points below my personal best. The only mistake I really had was one step out, which should have been maybe a minus-two, probably a minus-one. I’ll have to take a look at where those other six points came from that I lost. Other than that I felt really good.”

Weir, 25, who was contemplating retirement after finishing fifth last year, started conservatively.

“In the first portion of my program it’s the jumps, it’s important to get those done cleanly,” said the Pennsylvania native who skates out of New York. “I take it very carefully, controlled my emotions, controlled my situations. My coach told me to do that. I was very relaxed going into my jumps. Even if it was a little slow, I got them done.”

After that the crowd pleaser returned – or, as he said, “I’m rocking my pink tassels with abandon.

“When you have an audience standing and screaming the entire way through a short program for every element you do … to have that kind of emotion coming from every direction in the building, it’s the most amazing sensation you can get as a sportsman,” he said. “It made me regret ever thinking of not even trying.”

After that it’s a big drop to Adam Rippon at 72.91, just ahead of Arminn Mahbanoozadeh (72.56) and Ryan Bradley, the darling silver medalist from 2007, who scored 70.63.

Bradley opened with quad and triple toe loops but then came up short on his triple axel and triple lutz.

“It was rough,” the 27-year old from St. Joseph, Mo. “It started out great with the first element, it was those other two jumps. … I’m definitely disappointed. … It was just some demons in my heads, the lutz in particular.”

Lysacek said the gap is all about experience.

“That reflects experience maybe and we’ve been out internationally so much this year,” he said. “A couple of other guys have done real well internationally, but you have to go out and skate at those competitions and make changes and adapt to figure out what works with this scoring system.”