American Nathan Chen gathered past Japanese megastar Yuzuru Hanyu for the world title of figure skating with a masterful five-fold skid in Stockholm on Saturday.
Chen, unbeaten since he took fifth place at the 2018 Olympics, consolidated his favorite status for the 2022 Winter Games by overcoming a shortfall of 8.13 points in Thursday’s short program.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that this was my best free program ever, but it is definitely one that I will remember forever,” he said. “I was in a position where, in theory, I can go back, but realistically, I know these guys are going to lie down [strong programs]. “
They didn’t come close to matching Chen. He totaled 320.88 points and prevailed by 29.11 over another 17-year-old skater from Japan Yuma Kagiyama, becoming the second man to triple as world champion in the last 20 years (after the Canadian Patrick Chan)
A defective Hanyu took the bronze, another 2.59 back, after leading the short program. It is his worst result in any competition since November 2014.
The worlds end on Saturday with the free dance.
SKATING WORLDS FIGURE: Results | TV, broadcast programming
Chen, after falling into a Lutz quad bike to open his short program, started his free skate by taking the same jump. He then unraveled four more quads – flip, Salchow, toe loop and toe loop, all with strong degrees of execution. He put the score to beat, which Hanyu was unable to sniff out with four quads on his free skateboard 16 minutes later.
“This is the best I’ve ever seen Nathan Chen”, analyst at NBC Sports Johnny Weir told about a man who fought similarly at the 2018 Olympics with a six-skate free skate to rise from 17th to fifth position (under different rules that made six quads more viable)
Hanyu, after an impeccable short program, missed his first three jump passes – put his hand on a Loop quad, trip over a Salchow quad and land low on a triple Axel – and was fourth on the free skate.
“It was very tiring and it was like I was losing my balance one by one, but I tried not to fall,” said Hanyu, according to the International Skating Union. “Overall, I wasn’t feeling too bad. And in practice, it wasn’t too bad either. But suddenly, when I joined my program, my balance started to crumble. “
He has lost three direct clashes with Chen since the 2018 Olympics. None were close – margins of 43.87, 31.7 and 22.45. No man has won three consecutive Olympic titles in 90 years.
Hanyu spoke last year about the lack of motivation to skate. After the bronze, he said he wanted to continue training an Axel quad, that no man landed in competition. This could help you close the distance to Chen.
Kagiyama, the 2020 Olympic youth champion, became the youngest male individual medalist since Hanyu in 2012, doing so in his senior world debut. Kagiyama, the second after the short program, hit three quads on his free skate.
Kagiyama, trained by his father, an Olympic athlete in 1992 and 1994, continued to rise. He was the junior silver medalist for the 2020 World Cup and took third place in the December Japanese Championship, behind Hanyu and the Olympic silver medalist Shoma Uno (which was the fourth in worlds).
Chen is only 21, but now faces opponents who see him as a paper medal.
“I am not yet at his level, but I hope one day I will be able to compete alongside him as an equal,” said Kagiyama last March, according to Europeonice.com.
Jason Brown, the other American to qualify for the 24-man freestyle, was the seventh as the finisher without a fully rotated quadruple jump. Brown landed an under-turned quadricycle to open his free skate and stood upright during the short program.
“I gave everything I had,” said a smiling Brown, who has skated at the senior international level since 2013, told the coach Tracy Wilson when he left the ice.
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