LOS ANGELES • Jeremy Abbott wasn't much better. Neither was his Broadmoor Skating Club teammate, Brandon Mroz. But Evan Lysacek brought his hometown fans to their feet and made sure the U.S. will be fully represented at the next Olympics.

Lysacek won a gold medal, Mroz placed ninth and Abbott took 11th Thursday night at the world championships at Staples Center, as the Americans qualified a three-man contingent for the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Second following Wednesday's short program, Lysacek, a 2006 Olympian raised in Los Angeles, executed nine triple jumps in a lively free skate to become the first American man to win world gold since former Broadmoor member Todd Eldredge in 1996. Canadian Patrick Chan was the silver medalist, and Brian Joubert of France claimed bronze.

Judges downgraded Mroz, eighth after the short, for slipping on the landing of a quad toeloop, and the Cheyenne Mountain High School senior stepped out of a triple axel and stumbled on a triple salchow.

An Aspen native, Abbott dropped from 10th and missed his fifth top-10 international finish this season. He botched the landing on a triple axel, then nearly fell on a triple axel-triple toe and touched the ice on a double axel-double toe.

Mroz said he "felt a lot of pride for my country. I wanted to concentrate on doing the best I could to help secure those Olympic spots."

Said Abbott, "It's extremely important. It really sets us up as a great country."

Vancouver will mark the third consecutive Winter Games in which the Americans have earned the maximum three men's spots. The skaters who fill those positions will be determined at the U.S. Championships in January in Spokane, Wash.

The Americans secured two pairs spots Wednesday behind a ninth-place finish by Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett and an 11th-place showing by Broadmoor members Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker.

Broadmoor skater Rachael Flatt and Alissa Czisny need a combined placement no greater than 13 - if Flatt is sixth, Czisny can't be worse than seventh - for the U.S. to land three women's spots.

In ice dancing, the magic number also is 13 for the top two finishers among Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, and Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates. Belbin and Agosto are second heading into today's free dance, while Davis and White are fourth and Samuelson and Bates are 12th.