Was Mirai Nagasu a "jerk" for saying her final Winter Olympics performance was a Dancing with the Stars audition?

Slate

Nagasu apologized over the weekend for her "bizarre" press conference that followed her finale at the PyeongChang Games. “I feel really, really awful about the things I said,” she told People magazine. She also explained that her Dancing comments were really about a sports psychologist telling her to focus on something else. “I used that as a distraction and I probably should have kept it to myself. … It didn’t come out the way I wanted it to,” she said. But as Justin Peters pointed out, Nagasu's comments may have come across as jerky, but they likely weren't: "Was Nagasu’s press conference jerky, or was it just guileless and naïve? I’m inclined to believe the latter," he says. "I’m sure that many Olympic athletes hope to use their newfound fame to get on TV. Olympic fame is fleeting. In a matter of weeks, most of us will have forgotten that our favorite Olympians even exist. The athletes know this, especially the ones who, like Nagasu, are nearing the ends of their careers. Nagasu is 24 years old. There won’t be another Winter Games for her. Using her platform to advocate for herself and try to get another job is smart, not jerky. "