SAN JOSE — Karen Chen couldn’t sleep. Her stomach was twisted into a painful mess, cramping all night just when she needed her rest for perhaps the biggest moment of her young life.
Chen, 18, was too weak to practice the day before the free skate Friday night where she rebounded with a clutch performance to put herself on the verge of making the 2018 Winter Olympics team.
“I couldn’t get out of bed,” said the Fremont skater who has suffered through more than her share of injuries over the years.
Well, she left her hotel room long enough to visit her Chinese acupuncturist in Cupertino. But mostly, Chen tried to remain calm in the burning cauldron of pressure known as the U.S. Figure Skating Championships during an Olympic season.
Fremont’s Kristi Yamaguchi sent the teen an encouraging text: “You’re ready. Your body is trained. That quiet assassin is in you.”
Chen found that assassin just when it most mattered Friday night at SAP Center in San Jose.
By finishing third after U.S. champion Bradie Tennell and runner-up Mirai Nagasu, Chen almost assuredly will make the Olympic team that was scheduled to be announced at 5 a.m. Saturday on NBC’s Today show.
Instead of sending the three top finishers like they once did, American skating officials use a tiered system that evaluates each athlete’s body of work over the past year. Officials say relying on the results of a single competition doesn’t give America its best chance at winning Olympic medals.
The top four finishers had to wait deep into the night to let a selection committee of coaches, athletes and skating officials ruminate over who to pick.
But after what unfolded in San Jose, it appears the top three are indeed the best this country has to offer.
One who might disagree is three-time champion Ashley Wagner, who ended fourth after debuting her “La La Land” program with a flourish. Wagner, who was fifth in the short program, was third best Friday night. But that still was more than two points behind Chen in the overall total.
“I’m absolutely furious,” Wagner declared when addressing the judges’ subjective scoring for her artistic merit.
Chen, the reigning U.S. champion who has won a medal in three of the past four championships, received a component score of 69.58 points Friday night compared to Wagner’s 68.0. Wagner said she deserved higher artistic marks.
Wagner provided the off-ice dramatics. The skaters ahead of her gave the packed arena a show.
Nagasu, overlooked four years ago in favor of Wagner, had a performance that left her in tears knowing at 24 she was on her game. The 2010 Olympian from Arcadia did a fist pump after landing the final jump.
Chen had to follow Nagasu’s emotional, teary performance by refusing to let any doubts creep into her flighty head.
The teen who trains in Riverside under-rotated her first combination jump, and later messed up a triple salchow. Then Chen improvised, adding a double combination jump, and that perhaps was her golden moment.
“She was thinking on her feet,” her coach Tammy Gambill said. “She wasn’t going to let this go without a fight.”
Chen is the reason the United States has three Olympic berths heading into next month’s Pyeongchang Games. The teenager finished fourth at the 2017 World Championships while Wagner was seventh. The Americans’ combined finish was better than 13, the line that determines Olympic spots.
Chen wasn’t worried about the Olympics Thursday. She sought her sports psychologist as well as her acupuncturist. After all those mornings waking at dawn to train at Sharks Ice in Fremont, the teenager wasn’t going to let her Olympic chance slip away.
“I don’t want to let that weakness take over — let that cold or virus win,” Chen said.
Yamaguchi, who has become Chen’s mentor, wasn’t surprised by the effort. But the 1992 Olympic champion from Fremont also wasn’t sure it would happen. Chen has been known to become unglued at the worst possible times. She admittedly “thinks too much.’’
Perhaps the sickness took her mind off the ice to allow Chen to skate the way she can.
“That’s what Olympians and athletes are made of,” Yamaguchi said. “I was trying to get that message into her.”
— — —
Two-time defending champions Maia and Alex Shibutani won the short dance Friday with a total score of 82.33 points, just ahead of Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue (79.10) and Madison Chock and Evan Bates (77.61).
Campbell’s Elliana Pogrebinsky and partner Alex Benoit were seventh out of 13 teams.
