Ashley Wagner sucks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

USFS should have named both Ashley and Mirai to the team with Gracie. All three have international senior records. Polina Edmunds, who finished second at Nationals, does not. If Ashley was named to the team because her record was better than Mirai's, then Mirai should have been chosen over Polina for that same reason. But again, USFS hates Mirai, so the poor girl got dinged. (And please, 10th at Four Continents? No one cares about Four Continents one week before the Olympics, least of all, the skaters who aren't going to the Olympics.)

Giving 98% for an Olympic athlete is lazy, especially in a field as competitive as US ladies singles. That's why Carroll had no time for this nonsense.

As to who should have been selected to the team, USFSA isn't a charity or a lifetime award outfit. They select people who have a good chance of placing high enough to earn spots for the next year's athletes. They said to Mirai, I don't think you will place. That's what it means when you aren't selected.

Gee, thanks for the information. Slight problem with your argument: Polina is a juniors skater. Nationals was her first senior competition. Ever. Did she do well on the Junior Grand Prix circuit this year? Yes, two golds and a fourth in the Grand Prix Final; she was also the Junior national championship last year. But that does not a senior skater ready for the Olympics make. Again, Mirai has a senior record, arguably second to Ashley this year. (Mirai had one Grand Prix bronze, so did Gracie.) That's current, not a "lifetime award." Polina was not selected over Mirai because of "current"; she was selected because of "future potential."

And stop with the lazy nonsense. Mirai won a national title at 14. I'm going to give the girl 2% to have some semblance of a normal life. You know, for things like school. Christine Gao spends her 2% on her studies at Harvard. In 2010, Rachael Flatt spent her 2% winning a national title, going to the Olympics, and getting into Stanford. Michelle Kwan spent hers going to college, setting the stage for her master's degree and State Department gig. So, stop.

Frank Carroll has had his problems with skaters before. Tiffany Chin. (Actually, Tiffany's mom.) Nicole Bobek. Chris Bowman. Even Michelle Kwan in the season leading up to the 2002 Olympics. (Who was in the kiss and cry with Michelle in Salt Lake? Her dad.) It happens. To interpret a break with a coach as "Oh, the girl must be lazy," is, well, lazy thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And please, 10th at Four Continents? No one cares about Four Continents one week before the Olympics, least of all, the skaters who aren't going to the Olympics.)

If you don't care, why go and skate miserably? Become ill or something. Going and skating like you don't care? That's not what champions do.

You go if you want multiple Grand Prix assignments next year. And Mirai does. I haven't seen her short, but I did watch her long program at 4CC. Yes, it was a little flat. Nothing awful, no major mistakes. It's happens. World class athletes sometimes let disappointment creep into their game. Peyton Manning certainly did in the Super Bowl this year, and I would never argue that diminishes his greatness as a quarterback. They have talent, work ethic, training, financial resources, and even luck in amounts I'll never have. They have it all. No doubt. But they're also human. To paraphase Evgeni Plushenko, they're not robots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, Ashley did not cut off her parents. That's a rumor with no basis in reality. She thanks her mother profusely in interviews. Go watch her interview with Jenny Kirk and Dave Lease on "The Skating Lesson." She drops her mother's name and credits her as being "tough as nails" inside of two minutes.

Ashley changed coaches after the 2011 season. She was still a little despondent about missing the Olympic team the season prior and thought she needed a change from her coach, Priscilla Hill. (Ashley had a nasty problem of blowing the short.) So, she packed her bags and headed west to California (with her younger brother in tow) to train with John Nicks. That's not unusual. Skaters either stay with the only coaches they've ever known (Brian Boitano, Michael Weiss) or they move across the country to train with coaches who've worked with Olympians. (Gracie Gold moved from Illinois to California to work with Frank Carroll just a few months ago.) It happens. It's no big deal.

Ashley is very well liked among her follow skaters (especially the boys) and fans who really follow the sport. She's pretty open about her feelings on Russia's treatment of gays, so that should earn her points around here. She's a girl who can't hide what she's feeling at any given moment. She openly admits she's "a mess." She's honest. She's refreshing. No, she has no chance of being on the podium, but who cares? I like Ashley. She's fun.

As for Mirai, stop with the "headcase" and "lazy" nonsense. First, no Olympic-class skater is lazy. None. I've skated sessions with people who are in Sochi at this very moment: Jason Brown, pairs Felicia Zhang and Nate Bartholomay. (But not the Estonian pairs team. Something about paperwork. And Caydee Denney and John Coughlin just missed making the U.S. team.) None of them is lazy, so stop it. You sound silly.

As for Mirai being a headcase, well, she is complicated. So what? Figure skating is full of headcases: Jeremy Abbott, Alissa Czisny, Sasha Cohen to a certain degree. (My coach says I'm a headcase. She's right. I am.) Mirai's problem was that she refused to give 120%. She thought 98% was enough. (Girl has perspective, I'll give her that.) That's why Frank Carroll walked away. USFS has made it clear that they don't like Mirai, but she just won't go away. Good for her!

USFS should have named both Ashley and Mirai to the team with Gracie. All three have international senior records. Polina Edmunds, who finished second at Nationals, does not. If Ashley was named to the team because her record was better than Mirai's, then Mirai should have been chosen over Polina for that same reason. But again, USFS hates Mirai, so the poor girl got dinged. (And please, 10th at Four Continents? No one cares about Four Continents one week before the Olympics, least of all, the skaters who aren't going to the Olympics.)

Sorry for derailing the thread, but why is Jeremy Abbott a headcase? He seemed to have recovered from that terrible fall amazingly well.
Please clarify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As for Mirai being a headcase, well, she is complicated. So what? Figure skating is full of headcases: Jeremy Abbott, Alissa Czisny, Sasha Cohen to a certain degree.

Sorry for derailing the thread, but why is Jeremy Abbott a headcase? He seemed to have recovered from that terrible fall amazingly well.
Please clarify.

Oh, Jeremy. Getting up after that fall was very unJeremy-like. (Jeremy has since admitted he was looking for the judges, so his first instinct -- understandly -- was not to finish.) But hitting the ice in the first place, that's vintage Jeremy. Jeremy is a four-time national champion, which is an unbelievable achievement. However, he's a four-time national champion who has never won an individual Olympic or World Championship medal. (He does have a Grand Prix Final gold, so there's that.) It's all due to nerves. It's common knowledge that pressure gets to him when he's on the biggest stage. Even those NBC fluff pieces mention it. One of his coaches, Jason Dungjen, has said it: "The most important six inches are the ones between the ears. If Jeremy doesn't believe it, we've got nothing." Even Jeremy admits it; he has said that he "crumbled in Vancouver" (his words) and that he tried too hard. The moment just gets the best of him.

And it happened in Sochi. Twice. Oh, Jeremy.

Jeremy is an awesome skater. His long program at 2010 Nationals was incredible. He beat Lysacek. He beat Weir. It was an Olympic gold medal performance. But, for some reason, he's never been able to get out of his head and duplicate it. He's had an outstanding career, but he could have been on the short list of legends.

[Anonymous]

00:16 here. Thanks so much for the explanation!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Post article said she had herself emancipated from her parents. Was it wrong?

Don't take "emancipated" so literally. Ashley was eighteen years old and she took control of her finances so she could move in with her coach in Delaware. Eventually, she got her own apartment (that's where her brother, Austin, moved with her, not California as I wrote before; my mistake; there's a lot to remember) and a driver's license. No biggie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She gives off Tonya Harding-ish vibes to me.

I couldn't get past all her googly wanna be sexy eyes during one of her performances. That plus the red lipstick was too much of a distraction for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Post article said she had herself emancipated from her parents. Was it wrong?

Don't take "emancipated" so literally. Ashley was eighteen years old and she took control of her finances so she could move in with her coach in Delaware. Eventually, she got her own apartment (that's where her brother, Austin, moved with her, not California as I wrote before; my mistake; there's a lot to remember) and a driver's license. No biggie.

Most people don't need a legal procedure at 18 to move and get an apartment and a license.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As for Mirai being a headcase, well, she is complicated. So what? Figure skating is full of headcases: Jeremy Abbott, Alissa Czisny, Sasha Cohen to a certain degree.

Sorry for derailing the thread, but why is Jeremy Abbott a headcase? He seemed to have recovered from that terrible fall amazingly well.
Please clarify.

Oh, Jeremy. Getting up after that fall was very unJeremy-like. (Jeremy has since admitted he was looking for the judges, so his first instinct -- understandly -- was not to finish.) But hitting the ice in the first place, that's vintage Jeremy. Jeremy is a four-time national champion, which is an unbelievable achievement. However, he's a four-time national champion who has never won an individual Olympic or World Championship medal. (He does have a Grand Prix Final gold, so there's that.) It's all due to nerves. It's common knowledge that pressure gets to him when he's on the biggest stage. Even those NBC fluff pieces mention it. One of his coaches, Jason Dungjen, has said it: "The most important six inches are the ones between the ears. If Jeremy doesn't believe it, we've got nothing." Even Jeremy admits it; he has said that he "crumbled in Vancouver" (his words) and that he tried too hard. The moment just gets the best of him.

And it happened in Sochi. Twice. Oh, Jeremy.

Jeremy is an awesome skater. His long program at 2010 Nationals was incredible. He beat Lysacek. He beat Weir. It was an Olympic gold medal performance. But, for some reason, he's never been able to get out of his head and duplicate it. He's had an outstanding career, but he could have been on the short list of legends.

And the worst part is that, after typically messing up the short in the team competition, Abbott totally disrespected the event and his teammates by calling it a tune up for the individual event. But then his teammates save his ass and he gets an Olympic bronze medal for the team event. Jeremy Abbott is an Olympic bronze medalist! Somewhere, Scott Davis, Michael Weiss, Todd Eldredge, and, yes, Johnny Weir are shaking their heads and saying WTF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

And the worst part is that, after typically messing up the short in the team competition, Abbott totally disrespected the event and his teammates by calling it a tune up for the individual event. But then his teammates save his ass and he gets an Olympic bronze medal for the team event. Jeremy Abbott is an Olympic bronze medalist! Somewhere, Scott Davis, Michael Weiss, Todd Eldredge, and, yes, Johnny Weir are shaking their heads and saying WTF?

to be fair, the other skaters didn't HAVE that chance since the team event is brand new. It does give them a chance to get their legs under them and their nerves out, even if that isn't the primary goal.

I don't completely disagree with your statement, just pointing this out.

[Anonymous]

Expert poster, can you give me some insight on something I noticed in the pairs competition? I used to watch figure skating obsessively until about 10 years ago. (when having children displaced all but my most critical personal indulgences!) I couldn't help but notice all the ugly lifts that the pairs were doing. A lot of positions in the air had the female skater grabbing her skate. Other lift positions were variations of traditional ones but were slanted in the air. In both cases, the lifts just didn't have those beautiful lines and extensions that make them so breathtaking. It was very disappointing. Is this a new trend? And if so, WHY??

[Anonymous]

I'm not an expert, but I think a lot of the lifts and spins are based on the new scoring system. They do the elements that are going to gain them the most points.

I agree, I don't like the grab-the-skate lifts.

[Anonymous]

I also think the spins in singles skating have become ugly. The crooked foot spin bugs the crap out of me.

[Anonymous]

What is wrong with some of you? Presumably most people on here have children and I can't imagine that you would think that it is okay if people who don't know your kids at all were to say some of these things about your children. Keep it classy, people. She might be the nicest person you will ever meet or she might be a jerk. We don't know. And she is a much better figure skater than almost everyone in the world. She has been working hard and trying to do her best, which has been pretty damn great compared to what most people could ever do.

[Anonymous]

she is a cunt