Typically a "rebuilding" year for the sport, this post-Olympic year was different, as the U.S.'s number of Olympic berths would be determined by skaters' performances at the 1993 World Championships. The pressure was on to send a team that could medal at Worlds and secure a full slot of Olympic berths. At these critical national championships, Kwiatkowski stood fourth after the short program. When Tonya Harding, reaching the nadir of a two-year skating slump, fell several times in her long program (after having placed second in the short program, during which her dress had come undone), and third-place Nicole Bobek struggled by also making several mistakes, fourth-place Kwiatkowski had a shot to move up onto the podium and onto the World team. With a sub-par performance, she managed to move up to third, as Carol Heiss' other pupil Lisa Ervin pulled up from fifth to second.