Wagner gets spot on U.S. skating team
Put on squad despite disastrous performance at championships
BOSTON – The names on the U.S. Olympic figure skating team were still supposed to be a secret, so Ashley Wagner slipped under the stands to cry.
Hours after a performance she described as a “tearful little wimp out on the ice,” the two-time national champion was picked to go to the Sochi Games.
She finished a distant fourth at the U.S. Championships on Saturday night, and only three American women make the Olympics. But this event isn’t the only criteria U.S. Figure Skating takes into account.
“If you look at Ashley Wagner’s record and performance, she’s got the top credentials of any of our female athletes,” said the organization’s president, Patricia St. Peter.
And so the third-place finisher, Mirai Nagasu, was passed over Sunday. Fifteen-year-old Polina Edmunds, who was second, was selected even though she has never competed in an international senior event.
Nagasu has some pretty impressive credentials herself – she was fourth at the 2010 Games as a 16-year-old. But U.S. Figure Skating’s selection guidelines consider only the past year, and Nagasu had mostly struggled until a resurgent performance at nationals.
The organization does take into account the technical difficulty of skaters’ programs, and that might have been what clinched the preternaturally poised Edmunds’ spot on the team.
The one no-brainer was Gracie Gold, who won her first U.S. title Saturday in a runaway.
Wagner finished fifth at the world championships and won the bronze medal at the Grand Prix Final, the next most important events in the selection criteria after this year’s nationals.
“I’m happy that my federation was able to see beyond one bad skate,” she said through tears once the announcement became official.
The Olympics will also be a homecoming for U.S. pairs champion Simon Shnapir, who was born in Russia. He and partner Marissa Castelli made the team.
They will be joined by runners-up Felicia Zhang and Nathan Bartholomay.
The U.S. has three spots in ice dancing, and top-three finishers Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Madison Chock and Evan Bates, and Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani were picked. The top-two men’s finishers were also selected for the Americans’ spots: Jeremy Abbott and Jason Brown.