Meissner successfully completed seven triples in her free skating program, including two triple-triple combinations (a triple flip-triple toe and a triple Lutz-triple toe), the only ones in the competition. She hit all her elements and stayed focused throughout the program, including her double Axel-double toe loop-double loop towards the end, even though she said later that she could not hear her music over the audience, who were on their feet before she ended. She earned a personal-best score of 129.70 points in her free skate, for a total of 218.33 points, almost nine points more than Suguri, who won the silver medal, ten points more than Cohen, and over four points more than the 2006 Olympic gold medalist, Shizuka Arakawa from Japan, earned during the Olympics. In what the Associated Press called "one of the biggest upsets in World Figure Skating Championships history" and what the "Baltimore Sun" called "the pinnacle of Meissner's career," she earned the gold medal at Worlds in Calgary, the seventh-youngest world champion up to that point, even though her focus for most of the season had been on the Olympics and she had not yet won medals at any U.S. Championship. It was the first time since Kristi Yamaguchi that a female skater won a Worlds championship before winning a National title, and the first time an American won a World title since Michelle Kwan won a gold medal in 2003. She told reporters that her trip to Worlds in Russia the previous year as guest commentator helped her in Calgary. In March 2006, the U.S. Olympic Committee named Meissner as Athlete of the Month.