Chen, Wagner ones to watch

U. S. contenders return some buzz to figure skating

HELSINKI Figure skating used to herald its world championships with blaring trumpets. Today, it’s more like a whisper.

No sport has collapsed in front of our eyes as quickly as this one. In 1996, when the women’s and men’s world titles were won by Americans — Michelle Kwan and Todd Eldredge — the men’s long program, shown live on ABC, received a 10.1 rating. It went headto- head with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament that day on CBS. March Madness earned an 8.8.

Today, the ratings are minuscule and the skaters are household names only in their own households. It’s understandable in many ways: After the Tonya Harding- Nancy Kerrigan saga, and a 48.5 TV rating at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, there was only one way for skating to go, and it wasn’t up. The sport has come to rest on a comfortable plateau where it retains its position as one of the nation’s most popular Olympic sports.

If I asked you to name a skater right now, my guess is you’d blurt out Kwan’s name, then shrug when I told you she retired from competition 11 years ago.

Might I offer two names so you’re ready for the question the next time? Nathan Chen and Ashley Wagner.

Skating might have lost much of its appeal, but it hasn’t lost its compelling characters. Chen, 17, and Wagner, 25, are two of the most intriguing skaters of this, or any, generation: one for what he can do on the ice, the other for what she means off it.

If you’re going to watch one person in figure skating, it should be Chen. Bright and bold, he is a medal favorite at the world championships and will be a medal favorite in little more than 10 months at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. He could win the gold here and there.

Quadruple jumps are the coin of the realm in men’s figure skating, and no one has landed more in a single competition than Chen has, with seven apiece at the U. S. national championships in January and the Four Continents event in February. His current streak is 18 quads in a row.

“Skating has evolved quite a lot in the past few years,” Chen said Tuesday after practice. “It’s a cool direction for me, and that’s just part of the sport now.”

While Chen is fresh and new, Wagner is experienced and wise. Wagner turns 26 in May. When Tara Lipinski was approaching her 26th birthday, she had been retired from competition for 10 years. What’s more, Wagner has become a better skater as she has gotten older, which is almost unheard of in women’s skating.

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DENNY MEDLEY, USA TODAY SPORTS At 26, an age when many figure skaters are past their prime, Ashley Wagner has improved and remains competitive.