Mirai Nagasu: America’s Olympic Valentine Forever, 2018

You did it, Mirai, you really did it!

On the last day of team figure skating, you landed a triple axel in your free skate and helped your country win an Olympic Bronze Medal. For ladies who skate, that’s something akin to a swimmer successfully swimming the English Channel. Or an aviator flying solo across the Atlantic at top speed. Good for you!

As an avid spectator of figure skating for more years than I care to admit, I’ve often blasted the winter sport. You know what I mean. The judges are often too blind, too politically motivated, too downright biased to give skaters the scores they truly deserve.

Latest example of misjudging? Italy’s Carolina Kostner can enter competitions without doing any triple jumps in her program but still get high marks because of her “artistry.” And yet, America’s Adam Rippon can skate a clean program with triple jumps — but no quads — and get lower marks than other skaters who try quad jumps and fall down…Huh?

So many viewers were scratching their heads over this one that ABC news (not NBC) had to clarify what was going on — then explain it with the company line from the skating echelons, no doubt. Specifically, how was it that Adam Rippon could skate so well in the Olympic team competition and not fall on his butt while the other skaters from Russia and Canada could screw up and still get higher marks and grades of execution than he did? The answer: Well, it’s the scoring system. Apparently, if you try more difficult jumps and fail, you’ll get higher marks than if you’d tried easier jumps and completed them well…

Yeah, apparently.

Using that kind of logic, I’d say all the skaters should be trying quintuple jumps and falling — THUD! KERSPLAT! — so they could get higher marks and win more medals. Maybe Tom Brady should have won the Super Bowl after all because it was so much harder for him to throw the football and score than those other guys. (Sigh.) Let’s face it, no matter what kind of changes the organization brings to figure skating, it’ll always be a subjective sport. And there will always be ways to “cheat” the system and allow your faves to get on the podium when they might not deserve to win any medals. What a sport! What a crazy judging system! That’s what drives me nuts about figure skating.

Four years ago, I channeled all my anger and angst about it in an op-ed “WHY I HATE FIGURE SKATING, PART I” and posted it in “The Richfield Patch.” That was on January 29th, 2014 — more than four years ago. Yes, I was one of the millions of dismayed Americans who cried foul when Mirai Nagasu didn’t go to the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Although she came in third during the US Nationals that year, she wasn’t chosen to be on America’s Olympic team. So not fair. Oh, the injustice! Oh, the indignity!

But this year Mirai took second place at America’s National Competition, made history at the Olympics this year in South Korea, then showed everyone what champions are made of.

When she landed that triple axel, she became the first American woman and only the third woman to successfully complete this difficult jump in Olympic Competition. (Who were the other women? She’s in good company with skaters Midori Ito and Mao Asada. By some strange coincidence, all three are of Japanese ancestry. Go figure.)

But it wasn’t this spectacular jump that made Mirai so special. It was her winning attitude after the team snub in 2014 that showed her true colors. Think about it. The kind of ostracism she faced could have wounded her so permanently she might have left the sport. Or else developed a glacier-like chip on her shoulder. She could have been a real snot about the whole thing, too. She could have turned into a real snippy, snarly kind of diva who was hell bent on revenge. She didn’t, though. Instead, she became the epitome of quiet graciousness as she trained harder and harder.

Instead of harboring her disappointment and letting it fester, she developed and grew as an athlete. She met the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with calm, modest dignity. Whether or not she comes back from Pyeongchang with a medal is beside the point. She’s already a winner.