Ashley Wagner 'absolutely furious' at judges' scoring

Christine Brennan | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Meet the U.S. women's OIympic figure skating team These are the women that will represent the U.S. in Pyeongchang, South Korea in February.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Ashley Wagner, the three-time national champion and 2016 world silver medalist who was expected to be the face of American women’s figure skating at the 2018 Olympic Games, won't be going to Pyeongchang next month.

Once again surprisingly under-marked on the highly subjective program component (artistic) scores, Wagner finished fourth by fewer than three points Friday night at the U.S. national championships and was the odd woman out when a U.S. Figure Skating committee selected the three women who will compete in South Korea later Friday night.

“I’m furious,” the always outspoken Wagner said. “I am absolutely furious. I know when I go and I lay it down and I absolutely left one jump on the table (turning a triple salchow into a single) but for me to put out two programs that I did at this competition, as solid as I skated and to get those scores, I am furious, and I think deservedly so.

“I am a performer. And that second mark is just not there (the judges’ component scores). I’m absolutely OK with them being strict on my (jump) rotations, but it needs to be across the board.”

More: Shibutani siblings take big lead in ice dance

More: Jimmy Ma draws Twitter mentions for bold routine

As an example, she was flagged for an under-rotated jump in the short program while Jason Brown was not called for what clearly appeared to be an under-rotated jump in the men’s short program the next day.

Asked if her typically blunt comments after her performance might hurt her cause with the committee, she replied:

“I honestly think that at the end of the day, this is how I feel, and I feel I need to stick up for myself and I deliver when I needed to. But I want to be on that Olympic team and I’m really mad that I’m in this position again.”

At the 2014 Olympic trials, she also finished fourth but was put on the team because of her body of work.

Friday night, she finished 2.4 points behind 2017 national champion Karen Chen, who finished fourth at the 2017 worlds while Wagner finished seventh.

In addition to leaving several points on the table by not landing her triple salchow, Wagner, a mature, well-received international performer for several years, was once again under-marked in her component scores.

She received a score of 68 points for her beautiful performance to music from “La La Land” – a score that ended up below the component score of new national champion Bradie Tennell, a stunningly consistent technical marvel but raw performer who somehow was given 69.71 points for her artistry.

It’s truly a head scratcher to think that U.S. judges would place Wagner below Tennell in the artistic scores. But they telegraphed what they were going to do in the short program by giving Wagner worse scores than international judges gave her at two Grand Prix events this season – again, something that just never happens in figure skating.

Until it just did.