Here's why figure skater Ashley Wagner did not make the U.S. Winter Olympics team

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. – A week ago, I spoke with several U.S. figure skating experts and every single one said that if three-time national champion and 2016 world silver medalist Ashley Wagner didn’t fall apart or make huge mistakes, she would make the 2018 Winter Olympic team, either by being in the top three or being put on the team by U.S. Figure Skating’s international committee.

Well, Wagner did not fall apart or make any huge mistakes, yet she did not make the Olympic team.

What happened?

In more than a dozen interviews with skaters, coaches, judges and skating officials since the women’s competition ended Friday night, I heard several theories as to why the most decorated U.S. women’s figure skater over the past six years – and the most heavily promoted U.S. female skater of this Olympic season – will not be going to South Korea next month.

Here they are, not necessarily in order of importance:

The Russianization of American women’s figure skating

Young, athletic Russian jumping beans are now dominating the sport, having won the 2014 Olympic gold medal and the last three world championships, as well as many lesser competitions. More mature skaters like Wagner and Gracie Gold – who bring the total package that the sport of figure skating used to reward, but doesn’t seem to care about anymore -- have found themselves falling behind these women the past few years.

There’s a school of thought that U.S. Figure Skating said enough is enough. When Bradie Tennell, a prodigious jumping talent, won a surprising bronze medal at Skate America over Thanksgiving weekend, then came here and nailed her triple jumps in practice after practice (practice being an important piece of the overall puzzle at a skating competition), the judges were smitten.

Add in Mirai Nagasu’s admirable attempts to land the difficult triple axel, which will be a big story in Pyeongchang, and USFS was saying, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

More: U.S. women's Olympic team set: Tennell, Nagasu, Chen

More: Ashley Wagner 'absolutely furious' at judges' scoring

Prop up the scores of your new chosen one to send a message to the world

This is where the 26-year-old Wagner really got hammered. Once the judges decided Tennell, only 19, was the one, which was the moment she finished her short program Wednesday night, they inflated her program component score (PCS, the old artistic mark) and summarily dropped Wagner’s.

Judges will tell you Wagner did this and that wrong and Tennell did this and that right, but they still can do whatever they want with the highly subjective PCS.

Prior to the competition, the thought was Wagner would shine with these scores, as dozens of decorated skaters have before her.

Then, in a huge surprise, she didn’t. Her PCS scores were worse here than they had been with international judges at Grand Prix events in October and in late November.

I cannot stress enough how stunning it is for a U.S. skater, especially a three-time national champion, Olympic team bronze medalist and the only American woman to win a world championship medal over the last 11 seasons, to be marked lower by her own national judges than by a panel of judges from other countries. I’ve covered the Olympics since 1988 and U.S. nationals since 1990 and I can’t recall that ever happening, especially to a skater of the caliber of Wagner, who almost certainly will someday be elected to the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

But it happened, and here’s what was going on. The judges were sending a big message: Tennell was up; Wagner was down. They repeated the message in the long program by giving Tennell a PCS of 69.71, ahead of Wagner’s 68.00.

On face value, that’s nuts. But if you’ve already decided you’re moving on from Wagner and sending a message to the world (Olympic judges from Russia, Japan, etc.), it makes total sense. And the message to those judges is this:

“You know Wagner and gave her the world silver medal just 21 months ago. Well, we have this new kid who is a better jumper and is even better artistically (even though she’s not, at least not yet), so start thinking of her PCS scores the way you thought of Wagner’s.”

It’s all a big game, folks, but’s that’s figure skating for you.

They just might be tired of Wagner

Ashley Wagner is not just a figure skater. She’s an interesting, intelligent, well-rounded young woman who has been the most quotable skater of this, or perhaps any, generation.

Before the 2014 Sochi Olympics, when several of her fellow skaters passed up an opportunity to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay propaganda law, Wagner leaned forward and said she couldn’t stay quiet, launching into an admirable defense of equal rights. And she didn’t stop there. She continued to be the one U.S. Olympian who consistently criticized Putin and that law – even when she arrived on Russian soil. Her behavior and words were courageous and historic, then and now.

She continued to speak out during the 2016 presidential election, criticizing the behavior of then-candidate Donald Trump. She never holds back on Twitter and Instagram, and she didn’t hold back after seeing her scores Friday night, dismissively shaking her head.

Then, when she knew she had finished fourth, and I asked her what she thought, she was characteristically and refreshingly blunt, saying several times that she was “furious.”

In the still-prim and proper world of figure skating, this kind of candor sometimes doesn’t go over very well.

Then there was this season, a crazy one for Wagner. She started the year promoting her new “La La Land” long program, then shelved it for the “Moulin Rouge” program that won her the world silver, then switched back to “La La Land,” but only a month ago.

It’s traditional in figure skating to have U.S. judges stop in to monitor top U.S. skaters and offer suggestions, but all this back and forth made it difficult for the judges to give her their input (which is standard operating procedure in the sport and not considered cheating at all).

Why does this matter? Including the judges is not only smart, it’s strategically important. This is not to say Wagner didn’t listen to the judges, but there was a feeling among some in the U.S. skating community that she didn’t listen enough, or didn’t have enough time to implement their suggestions because she was rushing to debut a new program at nationals – a highly unusual and risky move, but one that resulted in an elegant and refreshing performance Friday night.

Add in the fact that Wagner has spent quite a bit of time on pre-Olympic endorsements, some at the behest of U.S. Figure Skating to promote the sport, and you have a veteran athlete who has not been as single-mindedly focused on the ice as all of her competitors.

There also was the matter of Wagner’s sudden withdrawal during the long program at Skate America over Thanksgiving weekend. She said an infection on her ankle began causing her discomfort as she started her program, forcing her to stop skating and withdraw from the event.

While it was a bizarre moment, when an athlete says they are injured, to me, they are injured. But that didn’t stop some in U.S. skating circles from maliciously gossiping about what might or might not have happened. Did that impact the thinking about Wagner here this week? It certainly shouldn’t have, but perhaps it did.

For the past four years, since she was placed on the 2014 Olympic team for her body of work, Wagner has been a lightning rod for controversy, especially on social media. She also has been one of the most fascinating and accessible athletes those of us on the Olympic beat have ever been privileged to cover. Here’s hoping we haven’t seen the last of her.

PHOTOS: 2018 U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS