Ashley Wagner: 3-Time US National Champion

A year ago, Ashley Wagner needed to rely on a committee vote to be placed on the 2014 U.S. Olympic team after what she still calls a "horrifying" performance at the U.S. national championships. Move ahead 54 weeks. Saturday night, skating as if she was trying to exorcise any lingering memories of one of the worst nights of her athletic life, Wagner performed the most remarkable long program of her career, and one of the best in recent U.S. history, to storm to her third national title in the past four years and establish herself as a medal contender – if not a medal favorite – at the upcoming world championships.

At the most turbulent time in the history of women's skating, Wagner, 23, has shown stunning staying power, upping her technical difficulty and in many ways reinventing herself at a time when others her age would have already given up and retired. It was just one night, just one perfect skate, just one title – but it also was so much more. Consider this: In the last 25 years, only Michelle Kwan has won more U.S. women's titles than Wagner.



"This, of my three titles, this one tastes the sweetest," Wagner said. "This is the one that means the most to me, because this is the one that shows every single person that doubts me, every single person that says I'm too old, every single person that says I'm not capable of being a leading lady -- this shows them that they need to shut their mouths and watch me skate."



If Saturday's masterful, seven-triple-jump performance was not necessarily typical Wagner, her post-game comments certainly were. Wagner is far and away the most quotable figure skater of her generation, and, most likely, of any other. She was the only athlete at the 2014 Olympic Games from any country and any sport to consistently speak out against Russian President Vladimir Putin's human rights record. Her fearlessness off the ice, her willingness to say what she thinks at all times, has long been noted by those who report on the sport.

Ashley Wagner skated at the Olympics, the World Championships, under the pressure of defending U.S. Championships, but nothing could have prepared her for The Rink at Rockefeller Center on Friday morning. The temperature? Single digits. It felt below zero. Wagner spun around the ice in teeth-chattering conditions, her breath visible and her bare skin reddened. She wore a black dress with gloves, but no cover over her arms.



She finished the skate, opting not to perform jumps, and scurried off the ice, covering her cheeks with her gloves and enveloping into a zip-up jacket. Somebody standing just behind the boards asked if she’d ever skated in this type of weather. Wagner raised her eyebrows and replied with emphasis.

“This is the coldest,” the Southern California resident said. Later, Wagner regained the feeling to offer more words, warmed up in the TODAY green room. “It was more a test of my mental strength than anything else,” she said. “There’s nothing comparable. Nothing even close to that. That was absolutely frigidly cold. The main concern with something like that is that you don’t get hurt. Your body can’t be warmed up to really be able to move the way it should for skating. You just kind of have to play it safe.”



Friday ushered in reportedly the coldest weekend in New York in two decades. The type of weather to enjoy an indoor fireplace with a loved one on Valentine’s Day, not to rapidly cut through the air on blades, with little clothing. “You always know that it’s going to be cold because it’s an outdoor event,” Wagner said of scheduling the skate. “It’s during the dead of winter, but I think this is like unreasonably cold for this time of year. I didn’t expect that, but I feel like I can take on anything now.”



Which brings up Wagner’s next big skate, under completely different challenges. She enters the World Championships in Shanghai in March coming off two of the greatest performances of her career. The 23-year-old leaped from sixth place to a bronze medal at the Grand Prix Final in December and captured her third U.S. title in Greensboro, N.C., in January. She joined Irina Slutskaya, Michelle Kwan, Mao Asada and Yuna Kim as the only women to win medals at three straight Grand Prix Finals. Everyone in that quartet won at least silver in the Olympics. She became the first woman since Kwan to win three U.S. titles. Kwan won nine.



“It’s still so weird for to even hear my name in the same sentence as [Kwan], let alone begin compared to her,” Wagner said. “Of course, it would be a dream come true to be even an ounce of what Michelle Kwan was, but I think I have so much work ahead of me to really be able to think about that. She accomplished so much and is a legend in the sport.” Wagner said she is “absolutely” more confident going into these World Championships than any major international competition in her career. She skipped this past weekend’s Four Continents Championships to train and focus on Worlds.

Wagner felt she left points on the table with her spins at the U.S. Championships, where she shattered Nationals records for free skate and total scores. “A lot of people called it the skate of a lifetime, and it was an incredible skate, no doubt, but I have more skates like that left in me,” Wagner said. “I think that I can improve on that.” Wagner is seeking her first medal at a World Championships in her fifth appearance. She was fourth, fifth and seventh the last three years. No U.S. woman has won a medal at Worlds since 2006, the longest drought since World War I. “The way Raf [coach Rafael Arutyunyan] has prepared me this entire season, I’ve been building and building, getting better and better,” Wagner said. “I need that time to make sure my technical arsenal is stronger than ever and secure. That way, under pressure, up against the Russian fleet, I’ll be able to hold my own.”