...Ashley turned down the chance to compete at Jr Worlds last season. She also passed up a chance to skate at 4CC where her chance to medal would have been good.
What does US Skating make of Ashley declining not one but two Intl events last season?...
And might this impact her chances in the future when US Skating finds itself with a close decision about who to send to an event?
This is a great question, maybe worthy of a separate discussion.
My impression is that USFS is more interested in supporting its skaters than in dictating to them. It also seems to me that USFS is aware that its main responsibility has nothing to do with major championships at all, but rather with organizing and regulating figure skating as a participatory and recreational sport for its 170,000 members, from learn-to-skate programs on up. If you hang out at any one of the 700 skating clubs in the U.S. you will hear a lot more discussion about next week's basic skills test or the coming club show, than about who is going to make the team for Worlds.
Also, in the case of Ashley, I think the Federation routinely offers top skaters an opportunity to skate in events if they have earned the invitation, but that they expect that many times the skater will decline. In any case, this opens up opportunities for someone else to get her foot in the door.
Still, there is the question of whether a skater can end up in USFS's dog house, and whether or not they are "punished" for not towing the party line. A lot of people think the federation has it in for Johnny Weir because he talks too much and doesn't follow the USFS script. Weir thinks this himself. Personally, I do not see any visible evidence of this supposed animosity. (Although, there
was the time that Johnny cleaned Lysacek's clock at Nationals, but the judges declared it a tie, with the tie-breaker going to Evan.
)
On the other hand, can you get favors be being a good little USFS soldier? Michelle Kwan did everything the Federation asked of her. Including the time (2002) she came out of semi-retirement at the request of the Federation to save Skate America when all the scheduled big names withdrew.
Three years later, she called in her favors. Would the Federation have been so eager to give her a free pass to the 2006 Olympics if she had been a "bad girl?"
Or maybe they just said, "This old grey mare has been carrying us on her back for ten years, let's give her one last trip to the feed bag before we put her out to pasture -- did anyone remember to call NBC and tell them to get the cameras ready?"
