MOSCOW -- Michelle Kwan was so distracted by figure skating's new scoring system that the five-time champion struggled to her worst showing in more than a decade in the world championships' qualifying round. Her tentative performance Wednesday was just seventh best. And she wasn't helped by an unassuming program not geared to maximizing the points awarded for technical challenges. "I got thrown instead of getting into the ice," she said, adding that she felt fine physically but was uncomfortable with the new system. "I felt, like, above the ice and I didn't feel that I could bend my legs." Irina Slutskaya, a Russian who often has been defeated by Kwan at the world championships, this time was at the top after an assured and emotional qualifying skate that was all the more impressive because she's still battling heart problems. In the first medals of this year's competition, Russians Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin capped a remarkable comeback by retaining their championship in the pairs event. They skated a nearly flawless and intensely romantic program to Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherezade." The victory came a few months after a near catastrophe, when Totmianina fell on her head at Skate America in Pittsburgh and was unconscious for several minutes. At the end of their program, both seemed more overwhelmed than triumphant, raising their hands to their faces and taking several seconds before acknowledging the cheers. Russians Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov were second, followed by China's Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, who unexpectedly moved up after the withdrawal of compatriots Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo because of an injury that was not immediately announced. In women's qualifying, Slutskaya led her group with 119.08 points. American Sasha Cohen topped the other group with a score of 113.64. Cohen skated to Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" pas de deux, a program that was solid but less vivid than her best performances. She simply may have been sleepy. "I even went to the 6 a.m. practice," Cohen said. "It was risky, but I decided I need to get a better feeling of the ice." Kwan, who scored 99.96, didn't have a good feeling on the ice. The new scoring system, developed in the wake of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics scandal, has been used at Grand Prix events for two seasons, but Kwan has stayed off that circuit. This is the system's debut at the worlds and Kwan's first direct exposure to it. Because it gives a separate number for each element rather than one overall technical mark, the system requires more concentration from skaters, who also have to be concerned that it deducts points on missed jumps and lower levels of difficulty. Kwan scaled down two jumps to doubles, including a planned triple-double-double that turned into just a double flip, and two-footed her final triple. "I was counting my spins more than I usually do in the long program," she said. "I think I had too many things to think about. It was not very good. It was not very good at all." Slutskaya, on the other hand, loaded her program with high-scoring elements, firing off five triple jumps compared with Kwan's three. Slutskaya was energetic on the ice, showing no indication of the heart lining inflammation that she's been fighting for two years. Off the ice she was visibly tired and breathing heavily. "In principle I'm satisfied, but I can do better," she said. The qualifying round cuts the field for the short program to 30, and 25 percent of the qualifying round score is added to the total of the free and short programs for the final score. The women's short program is today.

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