Nathan Chen left little question, making good on his long-held promise to lastly grasp determine skating’s final prize.
The world’s most dominant skater over the previous 47 months roared to the Olympic males’s title on Thursday, successful by greater than 22 factors over a talent-stacked subject of established champions and polished newcomers with a mesmerizing lengthy program that included 5 quadruple jumps and a pair of triples.
Chen, skating final after Tuesday’s record-breaking quick programme, earned a standing ovation after finishing a near-flawless routine to an Elton John medley to complete with an total rating of 332.60, three factors off his world report and greater than sufficient to carry off Japanese rivals Yuma Kagiyama, who received silver with a rating of 310.05, and Shoma Uno, whose 293.00 was good for a bronze to go together with his silver from 4 years in the past.
Shifting throughout the ice with athleticism and tempo in a Vera Wang-designed galaxy-print costume befitting of his ascent into the cosmos of the game’s all-time greats, the 22-year-old from southern California by the use of Salt Lake Metropolis captured the lone title lacking from his trophy cupboard and put to relaxation the demons of his catastrophic Olympic debut again in 2018.
Chen drilled his opening quad flip-triple toeloop mixture and quad flip earlier than stumbling on his quad salchow however hanging on. “I had just a little wrestle on the [salchow],” he stated. “All through the previous two weeks but additionally two minutes earlier than I skated, the triple sal felt actually off, so I used to be just a little anxious about that. However I used to be glad to make that occur, and the remaining felt nice.”
After touchdown a textbook quadruple lutz, Chen’s solely substantial miscue got here on the fifth quad of this system when he popped the closing triple of a deliberate quad toeloop-single euler-triple flip mixture. However the American instantly roared again with a triple axel adopted with a triple lutz-triple toeloop combo to pile on the factors and go away the trio of Japanese opponents in sizzling pursuit as specks within the rear-view mirror.
“In fact, there are actually many issues I may have finished higher, however total I used to be very glad I used to be capable of do this system that I put down,” Chen stated. “It means the world. I’m simply so glad.”
4 years in the past, Chen arrived in Pyeongchang on a tailwind of hype because the joint-favorite with Japanese famous person Yuzuru Hanyu, however instantly fell out of medal competition after a dismal quick programme the place he tumbled to the ice on his opening quadruple lutz, failed to finish his required mixture and was unable to land a single leap cleanly. He settled for fifth total whereas Hanyu turned the primary males’s skater to defend an Olympic gold in 66 years.
Since then, Chen has dominated the circuit like few skaters in latest reminiscence – topping the rostrum in three straight world championships, three head-to-head conferences with Hanyu and all however one of many 17 competitions he’s entered total – whereas increasing his repertoire to push the game’s outer technical limits.
All of it got here to a head on Thursday, within the Chinese language capital the place his mom was born, because the usually reserved American motored by way of his program with unrestrained pleasure and brio, even flashing a realizing smile midway by way of with the long-sought gold already in his grasp.
Chen has gently pushed again on the redemption storyline all through the run-up to Beijing, preferring to border his journey when it comes to private achievement. However the consequence stands whatever the particular narrative thread: Chen turns into the seventh American man to win Olympic gold in males’s determine skating and the primary since Evan Lysacek in 2010.
One of many status fixtures of any Winter Olympics was billed for months because the climax of determine skating’s most compelling rivalry in a era regardless of solely 9 earlier head-to-head conferences in six years. In a single nook: Chen, unbeaten within the greatest competitions for the reason that 2018 Olympics. Within the different: Hanyu, the two-time defending Olympic gold medallist who evokes a near-religious fervour each in his native Japan and past.
However the 26-year-old Hanyu, who got here into these Beijing Video games beneath a cloud of uncertainty after lacking the complete Grand Prix season as a consequence of an harm suffered in a November coaching fall, entered Thursday’s free skate in eighth place after his lowest quick programme rating in three years and wanted one thing extraordinary to even get inside touching distance of the rostrum.
He didn’t wait lengthy to unveil it on Thursday, making an attempt the quadruple axel on his opening move, the four-and-a-half-revolution leap that has by no means been landed in competitors. However he under-rotated it and fell to the ice, then fell once more moments in a while his quad salchow. From there he confirmed spectacular combat by way of a skate full of problem to complete with an total rating of 283.21 that remained in gold medal place till the ultimate three skaters knocked him right down to fourth.
“It was a tough time for me on the ice,” stated Hanyu, who fell quick in his bid to turn out to be the primary man to win three straight Olympic determine skating titles since 1928. “If I’m not doing the quad axel, I may have finished a greater combo. However that [quadruple axel] was my delight. It’s going to make me extra full. That’s why I did it.”
He added: “I feel I'm pushing the boundary as we speak. Regardless of how onerous regardless of how unimaginable, I wish to push just a little bit extra for individuals who have expectations in me.”
Chen’s closest rival was the 18-year-old Kagiyama, who trailed by 5.85 factors after the quick and skated gorgeously to Hans Zimmer’s rating from Gladiator however couldn’t mount scoreboard strain after popping his triple toe loop and triple salchow together jumps. By successful silver, the teenager will return to Yokohama because the youngest males’s determine skater to complete within the high two in 62 years.
Uno additionally scattered a number of too many errors throughout his efficiency to a remix of Bolero, failing to make up floor on Chen and Kagiyama due to detrimental grades of execution on his quad salchow and quad flip.
A socially distanced crowd of a number of thousand spectators took in Thursday’s competitors within the 54-year-old indoor enviornment that hosted the well-known ping-pong diplomacy matches credited with serving to thaw US-China relations within the early Seventies.
Chen, a junior at Yale finding out information science who took a go away of absence to deal with the Olympics, was non-committal about what’s subsequent, saying solely that he deliberate to return to New Haven within the fall.
“At this level I do not know,” he stated when pressed on his future plans. “I do know that I’m going to return to highschool in August. As for skating, I’m going to take a while to assume.”
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