Through ups and downs, Polina Edmunds sticks to plan

Through ups and downs, Polina Edmunds sticks to plan

ST. PAUL, Minn. – It may have looked as if Polina Edmunds was just going through the motions Friday while doing a practice run-through of her free skate to selections from the “Gone With The Wind” film score.

This one was more of a walk-through, like a director blocking a scene.

Every place a jump was programmed, Edmunds simply popped lightly into the air and came straight down, with no attempt at a rotation.  That was in stark contrast to the approach of the other skaters, who practiced executing the jumps the way they want to in Saturday night’s final at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

It was just another part of Edmunds’ game plan, the one she and her coaching team have stuck with during what seems like a long two years since she became an overnight sensation at this event two years ago.

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Edmunds' skating heavenly as Gold, Wagner are women who fell to earth

Edmunds' skating heavenly as Gold, Wagner are women who fell to earth

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The music is ethereal, as close as humanly possible to the ancient concept of celestial harmony.

That is what Beethoven created in the sonata called “The Moonlight.”  On Thursday night, Polina Edmunds came as close as humanly possible to skating in perfect harmony with it.

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U.S. pairs are, alas, still U.S. pairs

U.S. pairs are, alas, still U.S. pairs

ST. PAUL,  Minn. -- It was a good thing only a few hundred (fool?)hardy souls were in the XCel Energy Center for Thursday afternoon’s pairs short program at the U.S. Championships.

That meant there was limited live exposure to some of the worst pairs skating ever at nationals.

And that is saying something, given the nadir the discipline has reached since three-time world medalists Jenni Meno and Todd Sand retired after 1998.

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Gracie Gold giving fuller accounting of herself as skater, person

Gracie Gold giving fuller accounting of herself as skater, person

Gold, buoyed by having twin sister Carly make nationals for the first time, insists she is even better trained for this year’s meet than she had been for the Grand Prix Final.  Her coach, the venerable Frank Carroll, agrees.

“She is as prepared as she has ever been or any human being could be,” Carroll said while walking to Gold’s Wednesday afternoon practice at the Xcel Energy Center.  “If she doesn’t do well here, it’s psychological.”

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For U.S. champion Ashley Wagner, it's back to the future at skate nationals

For U.S. champion Ashley Wagner, it's back to the future at skate nationals

Earlier this week, Ashley Wagner dredged through a virtual scrapbook to tweet a picture of the last time she had skated in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

It was at the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, her first as a senior, when she was four months shy of her 17th birthday.  She finished third, as she had a year before in the junior event at both nationals and worlds.  This was an athlete on the way up.

That the sometimes jagged arc of her ensuing career has brought Wagner back to St. Paul this week to seek a fourth U.S. title at age 24 – a victory would make her, by a few months, the oldest women’s champion since Beatrix Loughran in 1926 – is a testament to her resoluteness.

Or, as she would put it, to her being stubborn and hard-headed.

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