footwork and Lysacek had better jumps. Weir began his short program with a successful triple Axel and a triple lutz-triple toe loop combination. He had a shaky landing on his triple flip, but his circular and straight-line footwork sequences were well-done, and he performed three level four spins. Lysacek's score of 78.99 points was a slim lead of less than one point over Weir's 78.14 points. Ryan Bradley was in third place after the short program, with 73.58 points. Weir was not able to successfully defend his title, coming in third overall; Lysacek came in first place, and Bradley came in second place. In the free skate, Weir skated immediately after Lysacek, whose performance made the crowd leap to their feet. Weir came in fourth place in the free skate, with 135.06 points. His triple Axel was successful, but it was supposed to be part of a two-triple jump combination. He two-footed his quadruple toe loop, doubled a planned triple-triple combination jump, popped another triple Axel combination, and later in the program, fell on a triple loop. He also popped an Axel and turned it into a single jump, but completed three more triple jumps, high-quality circular and straight-line footwork sequences, and good spins. He later admitted that the pressure of being the defending champion bothered him, and said that it was difficult skating after Lysacek, especially after hearing that Lysacek had earned over 90 points in his element scores alone. Lysacek's total score was 169.89, which was the highest score, by almost 19.5 points, earned by a male skater at the U.S. Nationals, and over 50 points more than Bradley's final score of 219.21 points. Weir also said, "Evan didn't just beat me...[h]e kicked my ass", and called his free skate "probably the most difficult performance of my career thus far". U.S. Figure Skating named all three medalists eligible to compete at 2007 Worlds and 2007 Four Continents Championships; Weir chose not to compete at Four Continents, so fourth-place finisher Jeremy Abbott went in his place. At Worlds, Weir came in eighth place, his worst finish at Worlds in four years. He was in fourth place after the short program; he admitted that he was hampered by his nerves, had trouble adjusting to competing in Tokyo, "forgot to breathe a little bit", and said, "My costume is even tired". He earned 74.26 points. He came in 10th place in