Ashley Wagner makes powerful statement in 3rd U.S. title

GREENSBORO, N.C. – A year ago, Ashley Wagner needed to rely on a committee vote to be placed on the 2014 U.S. Olympic team after what she still calls a "horrifying" performance at the U.S. national championships.

Move ahead 54 weeks. Saturday night, skating as if she was trying to exorcise any lingering memories of one of the worst nights of her athletic life, Wagner performed the most remarkable long program of her career, and one of the best in recent U.S. history, to storm to her third national title in the past four years and establish herself as a medal contender – if not a medal favorite – at the upcoming world championships.

At the most turbulent time in the history of women's skating, Wagner, 23, has shown stunning staying power, upping her technical difficulty and in many ways reinventing herself at a time when others her age would have already given up and retired.

It was just one night, just one perfect skate, just one title – but it also was so much more. Consider this: In the last 25 years, only Michelle Kwan has won more U.S. women's titles than Wagner.

"This, of my three titles, this one tastes the sweetest," Wagner said. "This is the one that means the most to me, because this is the one that shows every single person that doubts me, every single person that says I'm too old, every single person that says I'm not capable of being a leading lady -- this shows them that they need to shut their mouths and watch me skate."

If Saturday's masterful, seven-triple-jump performance was not necessarily typical Wagner, her post-game comments certainly were. Wagner is far and away the most quotable figure skater of her generation, and, most likely, of any other. She was the only athlete at the 2014 Olympic Games from any country and any sport to consistently speak out against Russian President Vladimir Putin's human rights record.

Her fearlessness off the ice, her willingness to say what she thinks at all times, has long been noted by those who report on the sport.

It now appears she has found a fearlessness on the ice to match it.

Joe Inman, a demanding U.S. international and Olympic skating judge who has known Wagner for 15 years, since she was a young skater in the Washington, D.C., area, was watching the performance on television.

The moment Wagner was finished, Inman fired off a quick text: "What GUTS and DESIRE."

As Wagner reeled off one smooth triple jump after another to her mature interpretation of Moulin Rouge, the crowd roared, leaping to its collective feet as she finished in triumph. Her overall score of 221.02 was the highest in U.S. nationals history.

Gracie Gold, the defending national champion who finished second here and also could make a run for a world medal, had the unlucky distinction of being next to skate.

"It was really hard to skate a long program after the roar of the crowd and the standing ovation," she said later. "It brought me back to Sochi, skating after Adelina Sotnikova, who won."

Even if Gold had not fallen once, there was no beating Wagner on this night.

"I'm so endlessly in love with this sport," Wagner said, "and I'm so glad I was able to show it with the way I skated tonight."