Kimmie's jump -intermediate to novice, what happened?

I was reading the site on Sasha's level of skating and it prompted me to look up old results and I was amazed to see how far Meissner has come. The year before she won Novice Nat's she didn't make it out of regionals in her second year at intermediate. I'm sure there are plenty more skaters like this, but that takes some determination. It's inspiring.
Her results are something like:
2000   South Atlantic Regional, Juvenile - 4th
2000   U.S. Junior Championships, Juvenile - 16th
2001   South Atlantic Regional, Intermediate - 3rd
2001   U.S. Junior Championships, Intermediate - 16th
2002   South Atlantic Regional, Intermediate - 7th
2003   South Atlantic Regional, Novice - 2nd
2003   Eastern Sectional, Novice - 1st
State Farm U.S. Championships, Novice - 1st
I thought this was interesting and wanted to see if there was some drastic change in her skating life that took place from 2002 to 2003. To go from not qualifiying for sectionals in intermediate to winning novice nationals the next year is quite a feat - not to mention her career success that followed.

I attended that 2002 South Atlantic Regional in October 2001 in which Meissner finished 7th in her second season as a Intermediate (top 4 Juveniles/Intermediates in each of the 9 regions qualify directly to "Junior" Nationals, not Sectionals). South Atlantics is a very tough region and Intermediate Ladies is usually one of the largest and deepest/most competitive regional fields in the US. Meissner just had an "off" competition that week, and not qualifying for Nationals definitely motivated her for the next season, as she went on to win the Novice national title. I happened to be present at one of her UDel practices in May 2002, and she was working hard and looking really sharp at that time. I made a mental note to myself then that she would be one to watch in the 2002-03 season.

She also got her triple lutz the summer she moved up, which definitely has something to do with her success.

Funny you should mention the vast improvement.....

Last summer, my mom and I went to see the Liberty Comp. in PA and Emily Hughes was there. We were underimpressed. Maybe it was the rink...dark and yuck. But we were so surprised to see the differance in her skating then vs. Nationals.

I do beleive that the stadium skating that you see at worlds/nat/olympics either really gets a skater moving and alows them to show off what they have, or cripples them.