Ashley Wagner Picture: Figure Skater’s Shocked Reaction To Low Score Goes Viral
Ashley Wagner created a picture for the ages when the American figure skater was captured with an amazed and appalled response to the score for her debut performance.
Olympic figure skating is unique in that the athletes find out their performance scores just as the rest of the world does, with the complete judges scores broadcast on the air while skaters watch. On the second day of the Sochi Olympics, those conditions came together perfectly to create a dramatic and viral moment.
As Ashley Wagner waited for the score of her Olympic debut, her excitement quite quickly turned to shock when she saw a score of 63.1.
Afterward, Wagner said that she disagreed with the low score.
“I know roughly when I skate a good program where the score should end up…. So yeah to score that low was very disappointing for me,” she said. “But honestly this performance was more for myself and mentally getting beyond this past couple of weeks. And I wanted to do everything I could to help out the team, and I really feel that I delivered on that part.”
There was already a lot of pressure on the 22-year-old Wagner coming into the Sochi Olympics, especially after she turned in an iffy performance at nationals in Boston that included two falls in the long program. Her selection to Team USA came with some controversy, though Wagner said she was better than the spotty performance indicated.
“Unfortunately, Saturday night just wasn’t my night,” Wagner told PEOPLE at the time. “But luckily for me I had plenty of other nights in the past couple of years that convinced everybody that I was ready to be on that team.”
Finding out she made the team was a happy kind of shock for Ashley Wagner.
“I’m not a crier,” Ashley Wagner said about the moment she found out she made the team. “But when I heard the news I dropped to my knees and started crying.
Now, Ashley Wagner is known for the picture of her shocked reaction, making her the Winter Olympics equivalent of McKayla Maroney.
