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Figure skating: Nagasu no longer unknown
2007-01-24
Before Mirai Nagasu left for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, her coach gave the 13-year-old a little pep talk. Well, maybe not a pep talk. More like a reality check. "I said, `Mirai, don't even think about winning. We're going up against the junior Grand Prix champion and nobody knows you, so just go out and try to make a good impression. If you can finish in the top five, that's great,'" Charlene Wong recalled. So much for that. Nagasu pulled off a stunning upset Tuesday night, beating heavily favored Caroline Zhang to win the junior title. Zhang, who was unbeaten during the junior Grand Prix series, was second. "It hasn't sunk in yet," Nagasu said. "I wasn't expecting to be in first. It's really exciting. And cool." Also Tuesday, Olympic silver medalists Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto took a commanding lead in the ice dance competition. Belbin and Agosto won both the compulsories and original dance, and have almost a 10-point lead on Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov going into Friday night's free dance. Meryl Davis and Charlie White, bronze medalists at last year's junior world championships, are third with 90.90 points after a stumble in the original dance. "It's been a long day, and we've done a good job," Belbin said after the original dance. "Now we're really excited to debut our new free dance." Junior champions don't usually get much -- if any -- attention. But with Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen moving on at least temporarily, there's a changing of the guard in figure skating. There are three years until the Vancouver Olympics, and today's junior champ could be the 2010 gold medalist. There's no guarantee, of course. There are plenty of U.S. junior champions who never did anything bigger. But Sarah Hughes won the title in 1998. Four years later, she had an Olympic gold medal around her neck. Kimmie Meissner was the junior champ in 2004. Now she's the reigning world champion. "It's pretty surprising to have my name said against famous people. It's like," Nagasu said, then paused. "It's cool!" So is Nagasu's story, which sounds a lot like that of another little girl who came from Southern California. Kwan was barely a teenager too when she burst on the scene in 1994. Nagasu's parents, Ikuko and Kiyoto, own a sushi restaurant in Arcadia, Calif. She skates for 1 1/2 hours in the morning, goes to school full-time and then has ballet class. When she's finished, she goes to the family restaurant, does homework and eats dinner. She sleeps in a storage closet that's been cleaned out until the restaurant closes and her parents can take her home. Asked who her role models in skating are, Nagasu said she likes Japanese phenom Mao Asada. "But mostly," she added, "my idol is my mom. And my dad." Unlike Zhang, who was drawing comparisons to Kwan after her spectacular Grand Prix series, Nagasu came to nationals as a complete unknown. She didn't even make nationals last year, failing to get to the final qualifier after finishing fifth in her regional -- and that was in the novice division, a step below juniors. "Last season, I was really disappointed in myself because I didn't make it out of regionals," said Nagasu, who turns 14 in April. "I was one of the people who expected to go. I think it made me overconfident and I didn't practice as hard as I did this year. "I wanted to meet up to my potential this year, and I think I did." She was like a breath of fresh air Tuesday night, and the audience couldn't help but get caught up in her performance. She was expressive and energetic, never appearing to tire or labor over an element. She landed five clean triple jumps, and nobody came close to matching their quality. While other skaters struggled with their landings or noticeably lost speed, Nagasu landed lightly and kept right on going. She had gorgeous spirals and spins. She's so flexible, there's got to be some rubber in her bones. "The work we've done to pull the loose ends together, I think that's what you saw manifest itself tonight," Wong said. Nagasu has what sounds like a star's coaching entourage: two jump coaches, a stylist, a choreographer and Wong, who directs it all. But the reality is far different. She doesn't come from a privileged family, and there's no money to splurge on frivolous things. Her club, the Pasadena Figure Skating Club, held an exhibition to help pay for her trip to nationals, and she received a scholarship from the Michael Weiss Foundation. Asked what size clothes she wears, the 4-foot-7 Nagasu said she wasn't sure. "Most of my clothes are secondhand," she said. So that staff of coaches is out of necessity: She works with whoever can work with her on a given day. That she made such a leap despite her patchwork training is impressive. But maybe it shouldn't be. Her stylist is a man named Bob Paul -- the same Bob Paul who was a choreographer for Peggy Fleming. Most people don't know it, but Fleming was a nobody, too, until she finished third in juniors in 1963. The next year, Fleming won the first of five U.S. senior titles. She was the Olympic champion in 1968. "There's still, obviously, a lot of growth to happen," Wong said of Nagasu. "She's very talented and very disciplined and very passionate and very dedicated. So it's very exciting." A little mind-boggling for the teenager, too. Told she would be skating in Sunday's exhibition of champions, Nagasu's eyes grew wide. "I guess I have to change my flight then," she said.
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