{"id":5657,"date":"2011-10-27T23:43:04","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T03:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/?p=5657"},"modified":"2017-09-03T21:53:21","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T01:53:21","slug":"with-new-direction-wagner-ready-to-prove-her-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/2011\/10\/27\/with-new-direction-wagner-ready-to-prove-her-worth\/","title":{"rendered":"With new direction, Wagner ready to prove her worth"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>By Brandon Penny
\n Special to Figure Skaters Online<\/em> <\/em><\/h5>\n

__________<\/p>\n

Ashley Wagner is tired of being the “almost” girl. \u00a0In the past few seasons, she has almost medaled at certain competitions, almost landed certain jumps and almost qualified for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games by placing third at the 2010 U.S. Championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond and third and fourth are great but I realized when I sat down and looked at my results that I hadn\u2019t had a gold medal since the junior circuit,\u201d Wagner said. \u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s something I\u2019m really hungry for and I realized that if I\u2019m going to really consider making the Sochi [2014 Olympic] team I was gonna have to make a change to get myself there.\u201d<\/p>\n

That change happened in June when Wagner ended her three-year relationship with coach Priscilla Hill and moved from Delaware to California to be coached by John Nicks.<\/p>\n

\u201cPriscilla and I reached the end of the road and she gave me as much as she possibly could,\u201d Wagner said. \u00a0\u201cI was just getting too comfortable where I was. \u00a0I knew once I get too comfortable I\u2019m not going to improve anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicks \u2013 or Mr. Nicks as he is known in the skating world (Wagner said she has never heard anyone call him by his first name John) \u2013 was Wagner\u2019s top choice and the only coach she tried out with when making her decision. \u00a0He was already coaching reigning U.S. junior champion Courtney Hicks but after seeing Wagner skate and talking to a few people to find out if she would put in the effort, he agreed to take her on.<\/p>\n

Nicks, a legend in the sport, has coached 40 U.S. champions at the novice, junior and senior levels, including world pairs champions Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner and Olympic silver medalist Sasha Cohen. He recently retired from coaching pairs and handed over the role of primary coach for U.S. pairs pewter medalists Mary Beth Marley and Rockne Brubaker to Jenni Meno and Todd Sand.<\/p>\n

It seems Nicks\u2019 approach to coaching is exactly what Wagner was looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has such a presence on the ice and he\u2019s really in control of everything that\u2019s going on out there on the ice,\u201d Wagner said. \u00a0\u201cHe demands that you work hard, you don\u2019t pop jumps and do every jump to the best of your ability and make the corrections he asks you to make and that\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicks was unfamiliar with Wagner\u2019s skating before this year but said she has been training very well so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has good balance between athleticism and artistry and when you get that you\u2019re usually looking at a successful season,\u201d Nicks said.<\/p>\n

A lack of consistency has been Wagner\u2019s biggest weakness over the past few seasons, causing her to fall below the podium several times. \u00a0Nicks has spent the past few months working to improve her confidence as well as the success rate of her jumps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping people see me as a totally different skater,\u201d Wagner said. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m a lot more confident on the ice, my jump quality has definitely gotten up and I think that because I feel so much more confident I enjoy competing so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

In August, Wagner competed at Glacier Falls Summer Classic so that she and Nicks could get a feel for how the other works in a competition setting. \u00a0Wagner won the competition with a score of 146.18.<\/p>\n

This weekend Wagner will skate in her first Grand Prix event of the season, Skate Canada International in Mississauga, Ontario, where she will be faced with a very competitive field of ladies including Americans Rachael Flatt and Mirai Nagasu, Japan\u2019s Akiko Suzuki and Russia\u2019s Alena Leonova and Elizaveta Tuktamysheva.<\/p>\n

Despite the tough competition, Wagner plans to medal at Skate Canada as well at NHK Trophy, Nov. 11-13, with hopes of making the Grand Prix Final. \u00a0Her goals for the season also include earning the title of national champion in January in order to secure a spot on the world team, and then finishing in the top five at the 2012 ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Nice, France.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re pretty big goals but I think if I work hard enough and get my nerves under control I\u2019ll be able to achieve them.\u201d<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Leah Adams<\/h5>\n

Figure Skaters Online strives to be an accurate source of information related to the sport of figure skating. To report an error, please e-mail the <\/em>news editor<\/em>. Include the article date and title in your e-mail.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Ashley Wagner opens her season at Skate Canada, she wants to be on the medal stand, not almost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5657"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5832,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657\/revisions\/5832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}