--- title: Figure Skating World Championship: Why Americans Aren't Winning Medals description: The women failed to make the podium at the World Championships Saturday, extending their nine-year drought canonical: https://time.com/3762466/americans-not-winning-figure-skating-medals/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-28T19:48:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T05:31:20.058Z article:section: Sports og:title: Why Americans Aren't Winning Figure Skating Medals Anymore og:description: Skaters from the U.S. didn't take home any medals from the World Championships og:url: https://time.com/3762466/americans-not-winning-figure-skating-medals/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta488ae461ba53d30/698785ad06f2c16461334a4f/467869524.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: FSKATE-CHN og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Americans Aren't Winning Figure Skating Medals Anymore twitter:description: Skaters from the U.S. didn't take home any medals from the World Championships twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta488ae461ba53d30/698785ad06f2c16461334a4f/467869524.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Americans Aren't Winning Figure Skating Medals Anymore > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Mar 28, 2015 7:48 PM UTC  Ashley Wagner of the US competes in the ladies' free skating of the 2015 ISU World Figure Skating Championships at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai on March 28, 2015. Ashley Wagner of the US competes in the ladies' free skating of the 2015 ISU World Figure Skating Championships at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai on March 28, 2015.GOH CHAI HIN—AFP/Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Mar 28, 2015 7:48 PM UTC American female singles skaters failed to make the podium for the ninth year in a row at the World Championships on Saturday, while the U.S. men also failed to medal for a sixth year running. It’s the longest medal drought in American figure skating history. To their credit, Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold just barely missed the podium finishing fourth and fifth, respectively, and they both improved on their previous performances. Nineteen-year-old Gold was second in the free skate Saturday and moved from eighth place to fourth overall. Wagner, 23, also jumped from 11th to fifth this weekend. Still, the Americans had a perfect opportunity to break their losing streak this year with reigning Olympic champion Adelina Sotnikova and three-time World Champion Mao Asada both sitting out. Perhaps it’s a dated Cold War mentality, but women’s figure skating fans have always expected America to be on top—or at least make it to the podium. Even after Team U.S.A. lost 16 members in a [1961 plane crash](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-12/sports/ct-spt-0213-web-skating-1961-annivers20110212%5F1%5Ffigure-skating-plane-crash-linda-leaver), the program didn’t have such a long dry spell. (Peggy Fleming won bronze for the U.S. in 1965.) In 1991 when Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan took home all three medals from the worlds, American figure skating seemed unstoppable. And American women medaled every year from 1995 to 2006. But now the Russians are dominating the scene. In part, Russia’s success can be attributed to the Russian government decision to [increase funding for ice skating by a factor of 10](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5199987) in 2006—the last time the American women medaled. Meanwhile American skaters, like many other American athletes, largely have to fund their expensive training on their own. It’s also possible that the less cutthroat American training system is finally taking its toll. Whereas Russian skating programs encourage competition at a young age, mercilessly cut those who cannot execute and relocate promising athletes to top skating schools, American programs tend to be more lenient. Young U.S. skaters are rated in a non-competitive setting and are permitted re-skates if they fail at certain skills. Some coaches have suggested that these child-friendly practices don’t ingrain the mental toughness needed under extreme pressure, as _Rolling Stone_ [pointed out](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/why-is-american-figure-skating-losing-the-cold-war-20150325?page=2) earlier this week. That mental toughness and perfectionism is essential in the current judging system. Until 2005, skaters were given two scores—one for technical merit and one for presentation—on a 0 to 6.0 scale. Crowd-pleasing spins were prioritized over perfect execution. But after a [cheating scandal](http://olympics.time.com/2012/07/02/time-covers-the-olympics/slide/2002-salt-lake-city-figure-skaters-jamie-sale-david-pelletier/) in 2002, the International Skating Union instituted a [new, complicated judging system](http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2014/02/judging-figure-skating) that scrutinizes every move and gives it a numerical ranking for both difficulty and execution. Skaters are encouraged to be technically perfect and less creative, and, to make a generalization, Russian skaters have tended to be better at the details than American ones. That doesn’t mean that America’s luck couldn’t turn around. It just takes a few standouts: back in the days when Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski were duking it out, they pushed one another to the top of the rankings both at home and abroad. If skaters like Gold and Wagner can do that for each other in competition, they’ll have a better chance of getting America onto the podium. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3762466/americans-not-winning-figure-skating-medals/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3762466/americans-not-winning-figure-skating-medals/"},"headline":"Why Americans Aren't Winning Figure Skating Medals Anymore","datePublished":"2015-03-28T19:48:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:31:20.058Z","description":"The women extended their nine-year drought","url":"https://time.com/3762466/americans-not-winning-figure-skating-medals/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta488ae461ba53d30/698785ad06f2c16461334a4f/467869524.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"Sports","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta488ae461ba53d30/698785ad06f2c16461334a4f/467869524.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"FSKATE-CHN","caption":"FSKATE-CHN","creditText":"GOH CHAI HIN—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3762466/americans-not-winning-figure-skating-medals/","name":"Why Americans Aren't Winning Figure Skating Medals Anymore"}}]}] ```