Tired of doubters telling her she is past her prime, newly crowned US champ Ashley Wagner delivered a stern message to her critics on Saturday — telling them to “shut their mouths.”
“It shows every single person that doubts me, that thinks I am too old, that they need to shut their mouths and watch me skate,” Wagner said after claiming her third career title at the US Figure Skating Championships.
The 23-year-old Wagner, who took a five-point lead into Saturday’s long program, earned a record 148.98 points in the free skate to easily beat defending champion Gracie Gold. She became the oldest woman to win a US title since Michelle Kwan did it at age 24 in 2005.
Photo: AFP
Wagner earned a 221.02 total while Gold, who won the crown as an 18-year-old last year, finished second with a score of 205.54. Rising star Karen Chen — who is of Taiwanese ancestry — took third place with a score of 199.79.
It was Wagner’s first US title since the second of her back-to-back wins in 2013 and 2012.
“Of my three titles, this one tastes the sweetest. It means the most to me,” Wagner said.
Despite finishing fourth at last year’s nationals, organizers allowed Wagner to bump third-place finisher Mirai Nagasu off the US team for the Sochi Winter Olympics last year. Wagner failed to take advantage of her free pass, finishing seventh in Russia.
“After last year’s nationals, then I had a so-so Olympics and Worlds. I felt like people were starting to write me off,” Wagner said.
The Sochi Games were the first since 1936 where the Americans did not win a medal in singles or pairs events. The US has not won a medal in women’s singles since 2006.
That could change with the emergence of 15-year-old Chen, who rocketed up the leaderboard from sixth after the short program to take the bronze.
Judges aside, Chen jumped her way into the hearts of the crowd with a clean long program.
“I am proud of what I have done,” Chen said. “I just feel it is a good improvement over what I have done before and I hope I will continue to improve.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier