Nagasu, whose first name means “future” in Japanese, began skating at the age of five while idolising two-time Olympic medallist and skater Michelle Kwan.
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The 24-year-old Californian landed the notoriously hard maneuver in the women’s free skate portion of the team figure skating event Sunday.
The team event consists of men’s and ladies singles, pairs and ice dancing.
Her reaction afterward was even better.
However, neither athlete managed to do it during the global Olympics.
The U.S. entered Sunday’s competition in third with 36 points, one more than fourth-place Italy.
For Nagasu, hitting the axel and helping the USA take home the bronze medal is the first step in her Olympic comeback after not competing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. “Ice is slippery, you know, and anything can happen”.
Nagasu, whose four-and-a-half-minute program was set to the music from Miss Saigon, expressed her joy in a series of tweets, particularly after the musical’s lead actress and Tony Award victor Lea Salonga praised the figure skater in a post. His only mistake was an underrotation call on his triple Lutz.
“I have been waiting 28 years for this”. Did I mention she’s only 24?
So why didn’t Rippon score higher than his two competitors, despite the fact that they fell on the ice?
She also accepted congratulations from 1992 Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi.
He finished with 172.9 points, less than a point behind Russian skater Mikhail Kolyada and less than seven points behind Patrick Chan, part of the winning Canadian squad. Two nights later, her adrenaline rushing, Nagasu actually “overshot” the jump, landing a bit awkwardly on two feet, but used it to power through to a second-place finish behind new national champion Bradie Tennell.
Nagasu never had the chance to compete in a team event – it didn’t exist in 2010. They earned a 118.10 in the free skate.
In lieu of visiting the White House, Rippon said he would like to do “something positive and not just stay at home”, like plan his own pro-LGBTQ event. Just because of everything we’ve been through, the training. “Honestly, we were depressed that we weren’t at the [Olympics]”. The average U.S. Olympics figure skater is 22 years old.
“We are very happy because we heard it went well”, Ikuko told USA Today on Sunday.
“I’m really proud of the effort that we put forth this week”, Alex said. “I owe it to my teammates as well”, Nagasu said after her skate. I don’t know if you could tell.
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Finishing in third place was Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, of Russian Federation.
