At 14, Nagasu reaches higher elevation

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The applause from a standing ovation barely had stopped echoing in Mirai Nagasu's ears when it was replaced by the sound of her cellphone ringing.

The caller was a friend at Arcadia High School, where Nagasu is a freshman. Once Nagasu thanked the caller for congratulating her on winning Thursday's short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the two began talking about a boy at whom Nagasu was angry.

"She's 14," said Charlene Wong, Nagasu's primary coach, sighing like someone familiar with the emotional roller coaster young teens ride.

Nagasu's age is central to her story in many ways.

It makes her a prodigy in a sport with technical demands that favor girls like her whose bodies have yet to mature. That makes it difficult to predict how the talent the 4-foot-11, 78-pound Nagasu showed in her dazzling senior-level debut will translate to future success -- including today's free skate, 30 seconds longer than a junior program.

"Mirai is incredibly gifted," Wong said.

She could become national champion but is 2 1/2 months below the International Skating Union's age minimum -- 15 by July 1 of the previous year -- for the senior world championships in March. The top three age-eligible skaters in the final standings make the U.S. world team.

Nagasu said not being eligible doesn't bother her. "I just want to rack up the experience for when I get to go to worlds," she said.

It also does not change Wong's timetable for Nagasu, an upset winner of the U.S. junior title a year ago.

The coach chose to put her on the junior rather than senior Grand Prix circuit this season because Nagasu had almost no previous international experience, but Wong won't limit her expectations for the skater.

"I feel I have at my disposal everything necessary to help groom Mirai into an Olympic champion," Wong said. "It is up to her to take what we've put on the plate and use it to her advantage."

Olympic champion by 2010 or 2014?

"The way she skates, let's aim for 2010," Wong said.

The coach said that, even as she noted how Nagasu is in the stage of teenage willfulness and willingness that can be alternately charming and maddening to adults.

"Mirai is full of mischief, stubborn and determined to get what she wants," Wong said.

Nagasu defied her mother's insistence on healthy eating by stuffing her face with chocolate chip cookies when no one was looking this week, then insisted to Wong she hadn't eaten any despite the crumbs on her face.