Mirai Nagasu is a child of Japanese immigrants. She started figure skating when she was five. In 2007 she was runner-up in the junior world championship in Oberstdorf behind her compatriot Caroline Zhang and ahead of Ashley Wagner , who also came from the USA . In the 2007/2008 season she dominated the Junior Grand Prix and was American champion straight away at her first US championship in the senior class . At the Junior World Championships in Sofia , however, it was only enough for the bronze medal. Behind the winner, Rachael Flatt and Zhang, Nagasu was, as in the previous year, part of an all-US podium. In 2010 she took part in her first international senior championship, the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver , and finished in fourth place. A few weeks later, she came in seventh place in her first World Cup participation. Here she had been in the lead after the short program, but could not keep it due to an unconvincing freestyle performance. Nagasu has already won several medals in Grand Prix competitions and won bronze medals at the Four Continents Championships in Taipei in 2011 and in Gangneung in 2017 .
In the 2015/16 season she was runner-up in the four continents championships. For the first time since 2010 she was allowed to take part in a world championship and finished 10th in Boston.
In 2018 Nagasu became US runner-up, qualifying for participation in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang . Here she ran the freestyle as part of the team competition and took second place with a new personal best behind the later Olympic champion in the individual, Alina Sagitowa . Nagasu thus contributed significantly to the success of the US team, which took bronze behind Canada and the Olympic athletes from Russia . In the individual competition, she reached tenth place and was the only runner in the competition to show a triple Axel in the short program , but she did not succeed properly.
United States
