VANCOUVER â€" On a night when the crowd favorite fought through tragedy and tears and the world's best women's figure skater showed why, Rachael Flatt could have slipped through a crack in the Pacific Coliseum ice into Olympic anonymity.

Instead, the Cheyenne Mountain High School senior chalked up one more greatest-performance-in-the-biggest-night-of-her-life. This time it wasn't nationals. It wasn't worlds.

It was the Olympic Games. And look out but she's within striking distance â€" with a little luck â€" of an Olympic medal.

Flatt soaked up the Olympic experience Tuesday to lift her to an international personal best of 64.64 points in the short program to stand in fifth place, just ahead of teammate Mirai Nagasu's 63.76.

If Flatt smiled any more when she skated onto the ice and off it, her makeup would have cracked.

"In other competitions, I felt a lot more pressure," Flatt said. "But here, I came in as an underdog and was having a great time. When I came out for the warm-up, I was kind of in a trance with the audience's reaction, especially when they announce your name and everyone goes wild. The crowd goes wild! It was really cool.

"I had so much fun."

Two story lines heavy in this competition dwarfed anything Flatt did. South Korea's Kim Yu-Na, the heavy favorite who hasn't lost in two years, continued her rivalry with good friend Mao Asada of Japan. Both skated brilliantly, with Kim scoring 78.50 while Asada landed the first triple-axel combination in ladies history for 73.78.

The other story line is heavier in a different way. Canada's Joannie Rochette skated two days after her 55-year-old mother died of a massive heart attack. Rochette, 24, put herself in third with a 71.36 before breaking down in tears to a wild ovation.

Standing in Flatt's way for a medal in Thursday's long program is 6.72 points and Miki Ando, the 2007 world champion, who scored a disappointing 64.76.

"I'm just focused on a performance rather than a specific outcome," Flatt said.

Flatt started her first day in Olympic lights as if she were back home in Colorado Springs. She studied. She worked on an Advanced Placement English term paper about "Pride and Prejudice" ("I had a block of time so I figured I'd be productive," she said) and watched "Step Up 2" ("I like the dancing, and it kind of gets me in the mood for my short.")

Skating to "Sing, Sing, Sing," Flatt skated clean, hitting an opening triple flip-triple toeloop and scoring level fours â€" the highest possible â€" on three of five transitions.

"I honestly think this was better than nationals, even though the score here wasn't quite as good," said the national champion. "It was great. I had the time of my life."

She has no shot at gold. Then again, the way Kim has been skating the past couple of years, neither does anyone else. Kim scored 12 points on an opening triple lutz-triple toeloop and received four level fours.

Skating to a James Bond medley, Kim played the role of an Asian seductress, twirling through the air and flirting with the audience.

Then the air left the room. Rochette skated onto the ice battling the memory of her mother, who flew to Vancouver on Saturday from their home in Quebec. She suffered the heart attack at the dinner table Saturday night and died early Sunday in a hospital.

Rochette's father went to the Olympic Village on Sunday to break the news to Rochette. Under the circumstances, her clean program was a bigger achievement than Kim's score or Asada's triple axel.

Rochette hasn't yet talked to the media, but William Thompson, chief executive of Skate Canada, said, "I thought she put down a performance that was magical and so heroic, and everyone is so proud of Joannie and what she's done.

"It's an incredible story."

John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com