Mirai Nagasu, Bradie Tennell, Karen Chen and Ashley Wagner on the medals podium Friday. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
SAN JOSE — Ashley Wagner will not be an Olympian. After finishing just off the podium Friday night at the U.S. Championships, after controversial judging put her there, Wagner’s Olympic dream is over. Surprise U.S. Champion Bradie Tennell, triple-axel wonder Marai Nagasu and 2017 U.S. Champion Karen Chen will be the three women representing the United States in PyeongChang next month. Wagner is the first alternate.
The U.S. Figure Skating Championships award a pewter medal, and it goes to the skater who finishes fourth, just off the podium, but close enough to taste it. After Friday night’s dramatic ladies’ free skate, that pewter medal went to Wagner, who had to stand to the side of the podium to accept it, a few levels lower than the victors a few feet away.
Wagner took the medal with grace, congratulated her competitors and smiled as she always has. But if the final moments of Tennell’s decisive free skate stand as a poignant image from these championships, so, too, will that of Wagner, standing so near the podium in what will likely be her last Olympic cycle but just far enough to signify the uncomfortable end of a U.S. figure-skating era.
This time, the committee of U.S. Figure Skating officials who decide the Olympic team chose not to save her. Four years ago, they chose Wagner, who finished off the podium, over Nagasu, a 2010 Olympian who finished on it. But Tennell and Nagasu left them little choice, and Wagner did not provide as strong a season this time as she did then.
The committee, apparently, could not justify pushing Wagner onto the team at the expense of Chen, who won the bronze medal here and was the defending U.S. national champion. Wagner — one of the more highly promoted, highly endorsed female athletes of this Olympic figure-skating cycle — will not be on the team.
But Wagner didn’t think she should have needed saving at all. She skated freely, undaunted by the pressure, unaffected by having only a month of training for her “La La Land” program. She landed one of her triples with two feet and lost points for that. She wasn’t perfect, but she did not fall. When her score of 130.25 appeared, the spunky veteran shook her head in pointed disagreement. She had not erred much. Her passion was palpable. She thought she deserved better.
As it happens, she beat out Chen on the free skate but finished two points behind her overall. Wagner’s program was not as technically lucrative as Tennell’s or Nagasu’s, but she has never been known as one of America’s best jumpers.
Instead, Wagner’s trademark is her skating quality, her performative skills, her transitions — in other words, the little measured in something called “component scores.” For a “La La Land” program that looked strong in all those ways, Wagner earned a component score of 68.00. Tennell, a strong technical skater who lacks Wagner’s polish and maturity in the less visible aspects of her skates, earned 69.71.
When it was all over, Wagner told reporters she was “absolutely furious,” a word she repeated over and over.
“For me to put out two programs that I did at this competition as solid as I skated and to get those scores,” Wagner said. “I am furious.”
Whether or not the points should have come, whatever the reason they didn’t, Wagner’s Olympic dream — and probably Olympic career — is over. The three-time national champion and 2014 Olympian was supposed to be one of the most endearing, most familiar American woman representing the United States in South Korea. Instead, she will not be there, giving way to a new wave of talent with no well-established star. Tennell is 19. Chen is 18. Nagasu, the 24-year-old relative veteran, probably has the most compelling tale of all of them.
Throughout this week, Nagasu was asked over and over about what happened four years ago, when the committee chose Wagner despite a disappointing nationals that season. Between then and now, the organization clarified its position, outlining clear criteria for Olympic selection that weighted the last year and a half of results in tiers. Asked whether she thought the committee should simplify its selection process and select the top three finishers at the U.S. Championships that year, Nagasu paused before smiling.
“That’s a tough question.”
This time, she rendered the selection procedures irrelevant to her case. Nagasu, the second American woman to land a triple axel in international competition, is as technically advanced as anyone that could have represented the United States in South Korea. She is as experienced as anyone. She will be the only Olympic veteran on the women’s team.
But the story will be another Olympic veteran who will not be on that team. Wagner is an Alexandria native who attended West Potomac High School, an All-American type that was one of the more promoted athletes in NBC’s Olympic lead-up. Whether fairly or not, whether she was ready or not, Wagner’s Olympic career likely came to an inglorious end Friday night, when she stood just outside the podium, smiling in the face of deep disappointment until the lights went off, and left her to the frustrating reality of her painfully close call.
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