USA’s Nagasu skates from accountability
Of course, she could have become a star if she didn’t mentally check out of this competition.
The once-dominant U.S. team’s decline in women’s figure skating has become a major talking point at these Games, with explanations varying from the reluctance of Americans to take the kinds of risks rewarded by a new scoring system to how the absence of a transcendent figure such as Michelle Kwan has affected the sport’s popularity in the country.
What the skaters said in the post-competition interviews pointed to another problem: the lack of mental and emotional fortitude.
National champion Bradie Tennell was the top U.S. finisher here at ninth. Nagasu was 10th and Karen Chen 11th.
Until Friday, an American woman had finished sixth or higher at every Olympics since World War II.
The Russians — pardon, the Olympic Athletes From Russia — reaffirmed their dominance in this discipline, with 15-yearold Zagitova and 18-yearold Evgenia Medvedeva outclassing the field by a significant margin.
The top American, Tennell, finished more than 35 points behind Medvedeva, the silver medalist.
“The rest of the world just has to catch up,” said Tennell, who never gave herself a chance to compete, as she was 11th after the short program. To her credit, the 20-year-old responded with America’s best performance Friday.
She stumbled on a double axel-triple toeloop combination, and her left hand touched the ice on a triple lutz. She salvaged the program by following up with a successful triple loop-double-toeloop-double loop combination.
“It wasn’t that perfect Olympic program, but I’m really happy for getting out there and pulling myself together,” she said.
Tennell pledged to be part of a U.S. resurgence.
“I can’t speak for everybody, but for me, I’m sticking around and I’m going to work as hard as I possibly can to bring us up in the rankings,” she said.
The 18-year-old Chen dropped a place, from 10th to 11th. She fell on a triple loop and landed clumsily on a triple salchow.
She had no explanation for the U.S.’s problems at the Olympics. The last American woman to win an individual medal was Sasha Cohen, in 2006.
“What I can say is that there is a lot of pressure,” Chen said, “and Bradie and I, this is our first time at the Olympics. To be honest, when I first came here I didn’t know what to expect. I knew it was going to be big, it was going to be grand, but that was about it. I didn’t know what the media was going to be like, I didn’t know what the ice was going to be like, I didn’t have an idea of what the village was going to be like, so it was all so brand new and all so different.”
She mentioned another factor: She couldn’t see her mother.
“The biggest change for me was not being able to see my mom 24/7,” she said. “For me, that was something that I really missed.
“We tried to call and FaceTime each other as much as possible. I actually did run upstairs to give her a hug and just talk for a brief second before I came down to warm up. For sure, I definitely missed her.”
Nagasu said she was satisfied with the bronze medal she won in the team event. In that competition, she became the first American woman — and only the third woman from any country — to land a triple axel at the Olympics. Nagasu failed to land the jump in the short program and failed to land it again Friday, popping it.
“I’ve been crying every day since the team event because I was so happy, but then we had to keep training and training and training,” Nagasu said.
You know who else skated in the team event? The three skaters who won medals, including Kaetlyn Osmond, the bronze medalist from Canada.
“Maybe it won’t be enough for another person or maybe someone else could have done a better job,” she said, “but I didn’t back down.”
Actually, that’s exactly what it looked like she did. And if the next generation of American skaters fails to develop more resilience, it won’t be winning any medals, either.