Mirai Nagasu Becomes The First American Woman To Land A Triple Axel In The Winter Olympics

Mirai Nagasu made history in PyeongChang by becoming the first American woman and only the third women to ever land the vaunted triple axel in the Olympics. To put in perspective, the axel jump was invented in the late 1800s, and the triple axel has only been landed by eight women ever in international competition. Now Nagasu joins Midori Ito and Mao Asada from Japan as one of the greatest to ever do it.

Naturally, the extremely entertaining commentating booth featuring Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir were blown away by what they saw. Here’s Lipinski’s reaction that would make Harry Caray proud.

The perfect landing of one of figure skatings harder jumps had U.S. and Nagasu’s teammates losing it. Nagasu couldn’t contain herself, either.

Four years ago, Nagasu and current Olympic figure skating darling Adam Rippon were left off the team. As they tell it, they were watching the Olympics, eating In-N-Out burger, wishing they could be in Sochi. Now Rippon is doing his best skating and Nagasu is in the history books. Incredible.

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