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controversy piece about potential cheat ashley wagner

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Q and A history, past and references to PyeongChang

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Figure skater Ashley Wagner talks Olympic career, 2018

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Head injury Ashley Wagner

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Ashley Wagner felt trapped in a world she didn't understand.

Ten years ago, the future Olympic skater suffered skull-crushing headaches and failed to grasp basic conversation after banging her head on the ice multiple times. Words sounded garbled and she couldn't summon a response to let people know her situation.

"I was stuck in this silent terror," Wagner said.

America's premier skater, who is performing Thursday and Saturday at the 2017 U.S. championships in Kansas City, Missouri, has waited almost a decade to reveal the harrowing experiences she has suffered from head injuries after falls. The three-time U.S. champion has started sharing the ordeal in the past year to jump-start a conversation about the risks of concussions in figure skating.

"Now it is important to get the skating world aware of the impact that concussions can have on your life if you leave them untreated and don't actively do anything to improve yourself," Wagner said.

A sport known for beauty, grace and circus-like jumping is just beginning to confront the concussion issue that has been at the forefront of safety concerns in contact sports such as football, hockey and soccer the past decade. Although statistics on head injuries are not available like in some other sports, elite skaters such as Wagner are calling for more awareness about the risks.

The first time Wagner hit her head she didn't understand the long-term ramifications of traumatic brain injuries. The incident happened a year after forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu published medical research, in 2005, about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that is caused by repetitive blows to the head. At the time sports-related concussions were not part of the national conversation like today.

The teenage Wagner was forced to deal with diminished cognitive functions without fully knowing what was happening to her.

"Coming from an Army family, it was one of those things you kind of walk it off," she said in May while in San Jose for a Stars on Ice show.

Wagner, now 25, didn't get the symptoms checked by a physician or let her brain recover from the first blow that happened while practicing difficult triple flip jumps unsupervised. She recalled being dizzy and seeing spots. The skater hit her head on the ice again when falling a few days later, and by her own account has suffered a half dozen concussions from spills during practices.

Robert Cantu, co-founder and medical director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, said repeat incidents such as Wagner's could lead to post-concussion syndrome that might last for years.

"I would get totally overwhelmed and lost on the ice," Wagner said of performing after the first two head injuries. "I wouldn't know where to go, I wouldn't have an idea of my program because of everything going on around me would take away from my focus."

She suddenly couldn't handle math and science classes that had once come easy to her.

"To go from AP math classes to struggling to get through basic grade 12 math is something that is very humbling and disconcerting," Wagner said. "When you feel like your life is out of control, I was desperately grasping at anything I could that would help everything make sense.

"If you break your arm and your arm hurts, it makes sense. You can't see a broken brain."

Although she has since consulted neurologists, the 2016 World silver medalist has created her own preventative program based on reading medical literature. Wagner challenges her mind with the singular pursuit of practicing triple jumps by learning to play guitar, studying Spanish and always reading - the current book is W. Bruce Cameron's "Dog's Purpose: A Novel for Humans."

"If I got into that stagnant place I wasn't going to get any better," Wagner said.

The skater who trains under Rafael Arutyunyan in the Los Angeles area also does daily exercises to strengthen her neck muscles. Neurologists who study sports concussions recommend such exercises to help limit the damage should an athlete suffer a blow to the head.

Some physicians also promote the use of protective head gear while practicing. Wagner says skating's vanity keeps her and many of her peers from wearing helmets.

"The anecdotes aren't enough to scare them into doing something proactively," said Stanford graduate Rachael Flatt, a 2010 Olympian who coaches at Sharks Ice San Jose. "There hasn't been enough research" on traumatic brain injuries and skating.

Wagner's initial fear of discussing her medical situation also highlights a problem in a sport where officials decide an athlete's fate by making team selections for international competitions. Wagner kept her symptoms private because she was emerging as a serious candidate for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

"Going into that Olympic cycle the last thing you want to have public is a flaw - and a flaw that is not going to go away," she said.

Wagner eventually finished third at the 2010 trials when the United States had only two available Olympic spots. Four years later, the skater was fourth at the trials but made the Sochi Games team based on her performance over the entire season.

By most accounts, Wagner has enjoyed a thriving career despite limitations from the head injuries. Just learning a program's choreography is difficult because of memory function loss. Wagner isn't sure about the future of her cognitive health but doesn't plan to retire even if she makes her second Olympics next year in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

"There is no place I'd rather be than center stage in the middle of that ice performing," Wagner said. "It's all I know. It's all that I really want to know."

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Ice skating and concussions: Ashley Wagner lived in 'silent terror' after head injury

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Ashley Wagner felt trapped in a world she didn't understand. Ten years ago, the future Olympic skater suffered skull-crushing headaches and failed to grasp basic conversation after banging her head on the ice multiple times. Words sounded garbled and she couldn't summon a response to let people know her situation.

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article about ashley wagner's silver win 2016

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BOSTON - There had already been four clean performances, one world-record-setting, before American Ashley Wagner stepped onto the ice. Gracie Gold, the leader going into Saturday's world figure skating championship final, had wilted, and the crowd was tense. Wagner, the least technically proficient of the final group, held on to every jump. She skated with speed and ferocity, channeling the emotions of the cabaret singer Satine from "Moulin Rouge."

By the time she struck her landing pose, the result was clear. Wagner, ever the underdog, wound up in second place and became the first American woman in a decade to win a medal at the world championships. The drought was over.

"This is a big deal," she gushed. "I'm excited!"

In the end, Wagner's maturity - the steadiness of how the 24-year-old glides on the edges of her blades, her posture and her lightness in the air - was the key to success. It was evident from the first 30 seconds of her skate.

Those qualities are measured in the judges "components mark," which measure things like transitions, skating skills and choreography. They padded Wagner's technical weakness after she received deductions for landing two triple jumps without fully rotating them in the air. You can tell, in the most basic terms, by how much she twists her landing foot when she returns to the ice.

Even on her best day, Wagner would not be able to catch the program of Russia's Evgenia Medvedeva, effervescent in a four-minute long program that judges deemed the best since the sport changed its judging system. Medvedeva, 16, is the latest in a line of successful Russians, but she stands out because of her incredibly precise jumping technique. That quality could allow her to last longer than the previous young Russian wunderkinds, who struggled after their bodies changed and could no longer launch into the air so easily.

[Medvedeva, 16, wins world title with record free skate score]

Medvedeva was in third place going into the long program, after being stiff in the first phase of competition. Her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, said she told her: "Don't rush and do everything you can. Skate. Breathe. Jump." And out came a more confident, fluid skater. Medvedeva started the program looking confused, searching for something special. But it was all an act. She quickly pushed out her chest and powerfully pivoted from one side of the rink to another, an enchantment with each edge. Her jumps were high in the air and had steady landings. She was also the only skater to perform two sets of triple jump-triple jump combinations. Untouchable.

The one skater who could have beat her that night was Gold, who skated to Igor Stravinsky's "Firebird," the ballet of resurgence and triumph. But the long program ended up being more of the same in Gold's skating history: brilliant and botched. First, Gold messed up her trademark jumping pass - the difficult triple lutz followed by a triple toe loop - after landing a little too much on her heel and taking a stumble. Later, she did not have enough speed for the spring into her second triple lutz - which takes off when the skater vaults into the ice using the side of the blade outside the leg - and doubled that jump. She ended up in a respectable fourth place, behind Russia's Anna Pogorilaya.

The breakdown was reminiscent of Nancy Kerrigan's breakdown at the world championships in 1993 and yet also vintage Gold, who has struggled with nervousness all her career.

With the best chance of her career, Gold's medal dreams were dashed. And she found herself questioning whether she could be a world champion - ever.

"I feel really ashamed of how I skated and I want to apologize to my country and to the crowd here - there's no excuse for it," Gold said to reporters, later adding: "It shows that I'm not up there with the rest of the world."

[Gold might be able to break the medal drought at worlds. But ...]

Keeping up with the world will get no easier. Gold must master her nerves if she is ever to be a champion, but she must also start completing more difficult jumping passes - as does Wagner - before heading into the 2018 Olympics. Medvedeva and the other Russian skaters plan to incorporate even more difficult jumps, including quadruple jumps and the treacherous triple axel, to pull ever farther ahead of America's stylists.

Wagner's moment was well-deserved and nothing can take that away. But as the singer bellows at the end of her "Moulin Rouge" program, "The Show Must Go On." And for the American women, their game must step up.
More figure skating: Men's final: The swag of the Spainard soars over shaky field For Americans at worlds, it might be all about the dance The best African American skater in history is now bankrupt, living in trailer

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who won the world figure skating championships

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Ashley Wagner ends American figure skating medal drought with silver at worlds

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BOSTON - There had already been four clean performances, one world-record-setting, before American Ashley Wagner stepped onto the ice. Gracie Gold, the leader going into Saturday's world figure skating championship final, had wilted, and the crowd was tense. Wagner, the least technically proficient of the final group, held on to every jump.

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bio of Ashley Wagner, history

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American figure skater Ashley Wagner shed her 'Almost Girl' label with back-to-back wins at the U.S. Championships. Learn more about her career at Biography.com.

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competitive history and some life facts and dates

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Parents are Eric Wagner and Melissa James ... Has one younger brother Austin ... Moved nine times while growing up as a member of a military family ... Works with FAAR, the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility amongst young teens ... Supports the Wounded Warrior Project.

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Info about the 2018 Olympics and her past Olympics

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Ashley Wagner Is Ready to Achieve Her Olympic Dream at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang

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"To be a 26-year-old woman on the ice is an achievement in this sport because you're working against a lot of different things," she tells PEOPLE

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Medal Info

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Ashley Wagner Online :: The Official Website

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Hi! I'm Ashley Wagner. I'm a three-time U.S. National Champion (2012, 2013, 2015), Olympic Bronze Medalist in the team event, 2012 Four Continents Champion, a 2-time U.S. bronze medalist, and 2-time Junior World bronze medalist. Welcome to my official web page. I love keeping my fans informed, so check out my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pages.

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General olympics that has about figure skating