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Former national skating champion Mirai Nagasu reaches critical point

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She has talked about needing to overcome her evil side, described herself as neither smart nor pretty, let her face be a mirror for every emotion she feels.

Mirai Nagasu is not easy on herself, even if she swears most of what she says is not meant in a “self-deprecatory way” but comes from a sarcastic sense of humor that leaves her words open to misinterpretation.

For all that, her answers remain blunt. Asked to describe herself, Nagasu replied, “Talented but lazy.”

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It is the tension between those characteristics that Nagasu feels has kept her from building on the promise she showed two years ago, winning the senior women’s national figure skating title at age 14.

“Everything was so easy for me,” she said, eating lunch during the break between recent late morning and early afternoon practices at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo. “I started to forget about working hard. I expected myself to be able to do it without practicing.”

The results have been telling. Nagasu has, at best, been treading water the last two seasons, a difficult trick for someone trying to perform on frozen water. She cried before taking the ice in the long program at last year’s nationals, where she finished fifth.

She grew, from 4 feet 7 and 80 pounds while becoming U.S. junior champion in 2007 to 5-3 1/2 and 110 now, making a physical challenge of jumps she once tossed off without a care. A foot injury bothered her all last season.

“I miss being able to work hard without feeling the effects, without being sore and stuff,” she said.

Nagasu changed coaches last spring, moving to Frank Carroll, who coaches men’s world champion Evan Lysacek. She left public school in Arcadia for an Internet-based home schooling program that would fit better with a skating career, and she started practicing three times a day, six days a week.

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And still there are issues of fear and endurance and technical flaws that keep her from proving she was more than a one-time wonder.

The talent still is there. So is the dogged spirit that gives her more personality on the ice than the other women who will seek the two 2010 Olympic team spots when their competition begins Thursday at the U.S. Championships in Spokane.

“If Frank told me to do a triple lutz-triple loop, I would work on it and work on it for six months before getting it,” Lysacek said. “Mirai can do it on the first try, but then can’t do it in a competition. She needs to get tougher mentally.”

No one knows that better than Nagasu, one of the most self-aware 16-year-olds on the planet -- and the rare teenager who goes public with her angst, for better or for sarcasm.

That she led after the short program at November’s Cup of China Grand Prix event only increased her usual constant trepidation over skating a long program. Nagasu “cheated” on jumps -- doing some of the rotation before leaving the ice -- and the judges downgraded five, dropping her to sixth place in the long program.

“Under pressure, I don’t skate as full-out as I do in practice,” Nagasu said. “I have to regain my confidence and stop cheating jumps.”

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Said Carroll: “She needs to be more of a fighter.”

There is a glassed-in balcony area overlooking the rink where Nagasu trains. Her mother, Ikuko, sits behind the glass, prompting her daughter with hand signals. Thumbs up means jump higher. Hands moving together means do the short program. Clapping tells her to skate faster.

Nagasu looks up regularly, then nods to acknowledge the familiar pantomime. There is no question of ignoring her mother’s commands, not the way the family has sacrificed for her skating.

The family owns a small Japanese restaurant in Arcadia, with 28 seats and a sushi bar. When she was younger, to avoid the cost of a baby-sitter, Mirai would sleep on a cot in a storage room at the restaurant until it closed at 9:30 p.m., because both her mother and father, Kiyoto, were working there.

They hired an extra waiter this year, when her mother began to spend full-time shuttling her daughter back and forth -- a 2 1/2 -hour round trip most days -- to the rink.

Maybe that is why Nagasu is so self-critical. “I’m hard on myself,” she said, “because I have to be. I have to work.”

Nagasu took another bite of the salmon and greens brought from home in a Tupperware version of a bento box.

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“I’m glad I was able to become national champion,” she said. “But sometimes I think the title was a burden.”

phersh@tribune.com

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