Nagasu learns how to grow up
CLEVELAND – You hear Mirai Nagasu talk as if she were dealing with the ravages of age and then you remember she was too young to compete at the senior world championships last year.
The foot injury that has hobbled her this season?
“It was a little due to careless training and helped me realize I’m not as young as I was,” she said. “Being young, I could just hop onto the ice and start jumping. This year, I realized I need to warm up.”
Other effects of being older?
“It was a lot easier last year being 14 with no thoughts. I was always energetic. I was on fire 24/7. Now I’m growing older and adolescence has hit me.”
Ah, that explains it. It is growing up, not growing old, that partly accounts for her underwhelming performances a year after she became the second-youngest U.S. women’s champion in history.
That means growing up in multiple senses of the word.
Nagasu has grown tall enough, 5-foot-3, to see over the rink boards, which would seem to be a good thing.
But it has thrown off her points of physical reference and that, in turn, has thrown off her jumps.
And then there is the adjustment to being a 15-year-old girl caught between the youth culture of Los Angeles and the culture she finds at home as an only child of traditional Japanese parents.
On the ice, Nagasu is struggling. Her primary coach, Charlene Wong, said the injury has made Nagasu’s training inconsistent all season. She was fifth and eighth in Grand Prix events, her free skates marred by an aggregate four falls and 11 downgraded jumps.
So neither the skater nor Wong has great expectations as Nagasu begins this year’s U.S. championships with today’s short program.
“I just want to overcome the nervous, evil, side of me,” Nagasu said.
Wong thinks Nagasu simply got ahead of herself in 2008. That made it easy to forget her upset victory in the senior U.S. championship came only two years after she had failed to reach the second qualifying round at the novice level – two steps below senior.
“Last year I came to nationals hoping she could be in the top eight,” Wong said Wednesday. “This year I’d like to see her make the top four or five.
“It may be a little disappointing for some people to hear that, because she is national champion. Given the injury, given the changes going on both physically and emotionally, I would be happy to come away with her feeling good about herself.”
Nagasu said she is fighting a rebellious streak that has her thinking, “I don’t want to do homework and I don’t want to get up at 5 a.m. (to train).”
“My adolescence is just a challenge I need to get past.”
•Davis and White lead: Meryl Davis and Charlie White waltzed to the early lead in the ice dance competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The duo scored 39.93 points in the compulsory dance Wednesday, putting them more than 3 1/2 points ahead of Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates. Samuelson and Bates, the reigning world junior champions, have 36.28 points going into Thursday’s original dance. Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre are third.
With five-time U.S. champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto out as he recovers from a back injury, Davis and White are heavy favorites to win their first title.