Edmunds throws skating for loop
BOSTON − They should all be scared, very scared, of Polina Edmunds, the 15-year-old figure skater from San Jose who cha-cha-ed her way to second place Thursday in the short program at U.S. nationals.
Ridiculously young and nerveless, Edmunds suddenly has a real chance on Saturday night to upend the well-laid Olympic plans of America’s more established skaters. She is cocky enough to believe her long program is stronger than those of Gracie Gold, Mirai Nagasu and Ashley Wagner. Edmunds is also brash enough to say as much.
“I think my long should, if I skate it clean, it should get a high score because I have the highest technical elements of all the ladies here,” Edmunds boasted. “I have two triple-triples in my program and two flips and two lutzes. I just need to go out there and skate it like I’ve been training.”
Edmunds is exactly what American skating needs right now — or not. She is a cocky upstart with an infinite upside, arguably the only American woman with the leaping skills to compete with the Asians and Russians for gold. Fresh out of juniors and barely age-eligible, however, she also could be someone who isn’t ready for Sochi. Edmunds, whose mother is Russian, finished far back in fourth last month at the Junior Grand Prix Finals.
In any case, she is badly complicating the Sochi selection process — already muddled by the new team event at these Winter Games. If Edmunds remains among the top three on Saturday, and if Wagner finishes fourth, the U.S. selection committee will have to do some quick juggling Sunday before naming its Olympic team. The committee almost certainly would bump someone for Wagner, the way it bumped Michelle Kwan for Nancy Kerrigan under very different circumstances two decades ago. “I never, ever want to bank on that,” Wagner said. “I don’t want to bank on being fourth and having something like that happen. I don’t want to feel like I’m taking away an Olympic spot from someone. I want to earn it. That’s my goal here. I need to get in the top three to really feel good about myself on that Olympic team.”
Despite all the changes in judging since the predetermined, pre-2002 years, there was still feeling at the arena on Friday that Wagner is assured a top-three finish on Saturday, unless she completely melts down. From a competitive standpoint, the most promising U.S. team in Sochi would be Wagner, Gold and Edmunds.
Wagner is ranked No. 2 in the world by Icenetwork.com, despite her bent for shaky short programs. After another messy routine on Thursday, Wagner was teary-eyed but determined to come back with something much better. She stepped out of a triple-double combination early in her program, then decided not to ad lib a triple-triple combo later, which might have ended in disaster. “I got the job done,” Wagner said. “I stood up. I had some demons to overcome. I decided to play it safe. I was definitely thinking about the short program in 2010 going into that triple flip-triple toe, so I decided to play it safe rather than be sorry.”
The absence of Wagner in Sochi, highly unlikely, might cost the U.S. two medals — in women’s singles and in the new team competition. The Americans can count on high placements in the ice-dancing portion, thanks to Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
Once again on Friday, Davis and White demonstrated in the short ice dance program why they are America’s best hopes for figure skating gold in Sochi. They’ve been at this now for 16 years, and their polish glistened again in a first-place performance to music from “My Fair Lady.”
“Today we reached a comfort level with this program,” Davis said about the routine. “It’s about youthful exuberance.”
Edmunds can relate.