Mirai Nagasu Seems to Criticize U.S. Olympic Teammates in Interview

It must be hard to skate with your foot in your mouth.

Fresh off a disappointing showing in the individual free skate in which she finished 12th — leaving her in 10th place overall and well away from the medal podium— Mirai Nagasu performed even worse in her post-event media interview. She explained that she didn’t try to land the triple axel she nailed in the team event earlier in the Winter Games, because she was concentrating on more important things. “I smiled in the middle of my program, which is really rare for me. So I enjoyed myself, and I thought of this as my audition for Dancing With the Stars,” she told reporters. “I would like to be on Dancing With the Stars because I want to be a star.”

But the normally graceful skater, who had been left off the 2014 US team when Ashley Wagner took her spot in a controversial decision, kept up on even shakier footing. Nagasu added that she felt no pressure because she had already won a bronze medal in the team event — the emphasis on the she won part. “I saved the team event, with Adam [Rippon] and the Shibutanis,” she told reporters. “We were about to lose our medals. So today I put my [bronze] medal in my pocket. Here she is! And I said, ‘Mirai, you’ve done your job already. This is all just icing.’”

That came across as a direct dig against the other skaters involved in the team event: Bradie Tennell, Nathan Chen, Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim.