Polina Edmunds shocked the figure skating world with her recent qualification performance that relegated 22-year-old veteran Ashley Wagner to third place on the U.S. Olympics Team, disqualifying three 19-year-old skaters vying for the same spot.
Last year’s U.S. junior champion, the 15-year-old Edmunds will be representing the U.S. in the upcoming
2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in the team's No. 2 spot behind 18-year-old Gracie Gold.
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Edmunds has been dubbed the "iron butterfly" for being "light enough to appear she’s not beholden to gravity and strong enough to reel off eight triple jumps in a four-minute blast,"
The Washington Post reported.
Edmunds has reportedly been figure skating since age two with the guidance of her Russian-born mother. When she was 4 years old, Edmunds was enrolled in figure skating classes instructed by David Glynn, a protégé of coaching legend Frank Carroll, The Washington Post reported.
"Her mom, Nina, has been the driving force behind Polina’s success," Glynn told The Post. "She’s very knowledgeable and has worked very hard with her daughter. She has taught her to spin, how to move, taken her to dance classes, ballet, tap and jazz, and has been committed completely since Day One to get her daughter to where she is now."
Edmunds has three coaches in her corner and a choreographer, as well as Carroll, who advises her.
"As far as technically, she really doesn’t need much more than what she has now; she does everything that the top girls in the world are doing," Glynn added. "She is 2014’s version of Tara Lipinski as far as being tough."
Lipinski was an Olympic champion at age 15.
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