On Karen Chen's first Olympics and Frank Carroll's last

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On Karen Chen's first Olympics and Frank Carroll's last

Frank Carroll's 12th and final Olympics as a coach ended a day earlier than expected.

Although the premature finish owed to the misfortune of his last Olympic student, Denis Ten of Kazakhstan, it turned out to be advantageous for Carroll, 79, who left for home in Southern California on Saturday, the day after Ten failed to qualify for the free skate.

"I'm sick as a dog," Carroll wrote in a text message Sunday, calling his illness "cold-like but getting worse."

Ten, the 2014 Olympic bronze medalist and two-time world medalist, placed 27th of 30 in Friday's short program. Only the top 24 made Saturday's free skate.

His poor performance was not a surprise, given the foot problems that have plagued Ten since the 2015-16 season and were exacerbated by a severe ankle injury suffered last August. Ten, 24, said Friday it was painful even to put on skating boots.

"It has been incredible," Carroll said of his Olympic coaching career.

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This girl was on fire: Mirai Nagasu smokes triple axel (and rest of program), blazing her way into history

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This girl was on fire: Mirai Nagasu smokes triple axel (and rest of program), blazing her way into history

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - She had been so down, so utterly devastated at having been left off the 2014 Olympic team in a controversial but justified decision. The day that happened, Mirai Nagasu skated an exhibition program at the U.S. championships gala with teary eyes and a shattered soul.

At that low point in her lengthy career, and for much of the next three years, it was almost impossible to imagine Nagasu blissfully soaring the way she did Monday, reaching a height no U.S. woman had attained in the history of Olympic figure skating: landing a clean triple axel.

And not just any triple axel: a brilliantly executed 3 1/2 revolutions in the air, followed by a totally secure landing.

It began a thoroughly sparkling performance that would lead her teammate, Adam Rippon, to cry for joy while watching Nagasu from the U.S. team box at the Gangneung Ice Arena.

It was a feeling undoubtedly shared by anyone familiar with Nagasu's emotionally charged story.

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Parents' support and her own will got Nagasu up to Olympics again

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Parents' support and her own will got Nagasu up to Olympics again

It was one of those boilerplate questions that often draws a rehearsed answer from athletes:

"You have listed Michelle Kwan as your inspiration. What do you say to little girls who look to you as their inspiration?" the now two-time Olympian was asked on a media teleconference Tuesday.

This time, though, the response was anything but rote. That's because the subject on the other end of the line was Mirai Nagasu, who speaks from the heart rather than from a script and whose sometimes whimsical-sounding, often rambling responses are always grounded in cliché-free sincerity.

Nagasu, you see, has bounced back not only from the disappointment of being left off the 2014 Olympic team but, with the help of her parents' indomitable support and sacrifice, has overcome financial obstacles that come with being in an expensive sport. And her mother, Ikuko, is a cancer survivor.

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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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'Comeback kid' Nagasu has a bawl - and a ball

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'Comeback kid' Nagasu has a bawl - and a ball

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- There were about 40 seconds left in her free skate when Mirai Nagasu got close enough to where her coach, Tom Zakrajsek, was standing at the rink boards that she could hear what the coach was yelling.

"Mirai, enjoy this," Zakrajsek said.

She had a ball.

And then, when her scores were announced a few minutes later, she had a bawl.

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