For Nathan Chen, some confidence-building leaps, times five

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For Nathan Chen, some confidence-building leaps, times five

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- It sounds a bit crazy to say this about a guy who had won all four of his events this season prior to the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but Nathan Chen has been struggling.

Struggling, that is, by the ice-breaking standards he set while becoming figure skating's newest star last season.

So his strong performance in Saturday night's free skate inside San Jose's SAP Center meant more than just making him a runaway national champion for the second straight year and earning the 2018 Olympic team spot that has been a foregone conclusion.

Chen matched his historic five-clean-quad free skate of a year ago at nationals, and it was his first such performance this season. In each of his previous two competitions, the Grand Prix Final and Skate America, only two of his five planned quads were clean.

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Ashley Wagner's failure to make Olympic team rests on her

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Ashley Wagner's failure to make Olympic team rests on her

Ashley Wagner has gone through this Olympic season as the face (and other body parts) of U.S. women's skating: the one in all the NBC telecast promotions; the one in the ESPN the Magazine's Body Issue, People magazine and commercials for major sponsors; the one entertaining her 174,000 Instagram followers day after day.

But she almost certainly will be invisible during next month's Olympic Winter Games, having failed to make the U.S. team after finishing fourth overall at the U.S. championships Friday night, railing at judging she felt was unfair and saying unequivocally that she deserved one of the three ladies spots.

"I am absolutely furious," she said.

Those who would rip Wagner for speaking her mind are definitely unfair -- and have paid no attention to her refreshing candor over an 11-season senior career as one of the country's leading skaters and most worldly athletes. What she tweeted Saturday was the best answer to that criticism.

"As an athlete, I'm allowed to be mad," she wrote. "As a senior competitor with over 10 years of experience, I'm allowed to question things."

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Adam Rippon backs up his confident swagger with his skating in nationals short program

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Adam Rippon backs up his confident swagger with his skating in nationals short program

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Adam Rippon has no doubt he is going to make the U.S. Olympic team, and he isn't afraid to share that impression with anyone who brings up the subject.

"The only argument is if other mothers' competitors are on the selection committee," Rippon said on a media teleconference last week. "I've proven time and time again that I'm one of the most consistent skaters in the world. I'm a leader. I'm ready for this. There is absolutely no reason I shouldn't be on the Olympic team."

Rippon decided before the teleconference that he was going to be blunt. When it was over, he admitted to having some second thoughts about the way it came across.

"I thought maybe I sounded a little too confident," he said.

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Everything is new and same as ever for record-breaking Bradie Tennell

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Everything is new and same as ever for record-breaking Bradie Tennell

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Bradie Tennell's life has changed dramatically over the last six weeks.

But she doesn't seem to have changed at all.

The Tennell who won Wednesday night's short program at the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose by delivering a record score was unruffled by suddenly being in the spotlight, nerveless when it shone on her and buoyed again by a consistency of execution that even she struggles to understand or explain.

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As Winter Games loom, skier and skater were world's best in an odd 2017

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As Winter Games loom, skier and skater were world's best in an odd 2017

The Olympic cycle, like the calendar, has odd years and even years.

The even years, like 2018, include an Olympics, in this case the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The odd years, like the one that just ended, are not devoid of big events in international sports.  And 2017 was full of them, but the overriding feeling was of a year that was just plain odd – and, at times, depressingly sad.

For the second annus horribilis in a row, athletes have saved Olympic sport from itself and its feckless leaders.  Celebrating their excellence is the best way to express hope for a better 2018.

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