HARTSELLS TAKE SHORT PROGRAM; DEFENDER INA IS SECOND AT U.S. CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Byline: Associated Press 

As the heavy beat of their music finished, Steve Hartsell pumped his fist and then grabbed his sister in a bear hug.

Winning sure feels good.

The brother-and-sister duo skated a clean and powerful program Wednesday night, showing the confidence it takes to stand atop the medals podium at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Defending national champion Kyoko Ina showed her new partnership with John Zimmerman still needs a little work.

``It's great to be in first,'' Steve Hartsell said, ``especially to be ahead of the defending national champion.''

The Hartsells, skating to ``Piano Et Voix Rythmique,'' were first with six of the nine judges in the short program, worth one-third of the total score. The free skate is Friday.

Ina and Zimmerman, who just began skating together last fall after Ina split with former partner Jason Dungjen, were second. Laura Handy and J. Paul Binnebose were third.

The Hartsells won the 1997 World Junior Championships, and have been making their way up the senior ranks ever since. They finished third at last year's national championships and were determined to move up this week.

Their style is still a little raw, but what they lack in polish they make up for in power. Their throw triple salchow was huge; their overhead lift was nice and with one change in position, more difficult than many of the other pairs.

``We've been skating really well all week,'' Steve said, ``and we were just very excited . . .''

``To stick it,'' his sister chimed in, apparently referring to the execution of the overhead lift. ``We're in the best shape we've ever been in.''

Ina and Zimmerman are in shape, but they're not in sync.

Despite winning the last two American crowns and finishing fourth at the Nagano Olympics, Ina and Dungjen were barely coexisting after seven years together. They split after Dungjen got hurt and they had to withdraw from the world championships last March.

Ina hooked up shortly after with Zimmerman, who finished third at the 1997 U.S. championships with Stephanie Stiegler, but sat out last year. They began working with renowned coach Tamara Moskvina, who coached 1998 Olympic gold medalists Artur Dmitriev and Oksana Kazakova.

``(Kyoko) and Tamara have been keeping me up to speed on what the pressures will be, and they were on target,'' Zimmerman said. ``We handled the big tricks, but sometimes the other things can get away from you.''

Skating to ``Don Quixote,'' Ina and Zimmerman showed flashes of just how good they can be. Their double twist was huge, and they finished with a flourishing ``Natalia'' spin, a unique move in which her head is at his feet, one arm wrapped around his leg, the other holding hers.

But they were out of unison on their side-by-side combination spin, the hardest thing for new partners to master. And Ina, usually almost flawless, barely held on to the landing of the throw triple salchow, throwing in a turn at the end to save it.

``Our last competition was the Cup of Russia in November,'' Ina said. ``We tried to keep it at that level, but it's still difficult when you have that much time off.

``I had the same anxiety as always at nationals, but there was a different sense of now competing again, and it's hard to jump back into something,'' she said. ``In the future, we'll be accustomed to each other and the anxiety level will be different.''

In Wednesday's ice dancing, Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev strengthened their lead in the original dance. The apparent heirs to five-time winners Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow also took the compulsories the previous night.

As usual in dance, there was little change in the standings, with Tuesday's runners-up, Eve Chalom and Mathew Gates, still in second place. Third place still belonged to Deborah Koegel and Oleg Fediukov heading into Friday's free dance, worth 50 percent of the overall score.