Chan eases off on technical difficulty
A recent training session that went awry has Patrick Chan scaling back his technical difficulty for Skate Canada International.
The three-time world figure skating champion remembers it was a Thursday. He was doing a run-through of his short program to Dust in the Wind by Kansas, and fell on the opening quadruple toe loop, fell on the quad Salchow, and fell again on the triple Axel.
“At that point I threw my hands up in the air and I was like ‘At this point, I don’t even want to complete the footwork sequence,’ which I love personally, it’s the favourite part of my program,” Chan said on a recent conference call. “But because of the mistakes on the jumps, I had no desire to keep going. And because of the level of frustration that had built up over time, that was kind of the last straw that broke the camel’s back.”
The 26-year-old from Toronto has rewritten both his short and long programs, at least for this week’s Skate Canada International meet in Regina. He’ll revisit the programs again leading into what will be his third and final Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Chan has cut his short program from two quad jumps to one, and his long program — to Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah — from three quads to two, plus he’ll do two triple Axels. Last season, Chan had two quad toe loops and a quad Salchow in his long program, but never successfully landed all three in one skate. He has axed the quad Salchow entirely, for now.
It’s all about the enjoyment of competing.
“When I had planned to put a (Salchow) in the short and then a (Salchow) in the long, I kept thinking ahead to the moment where I had to be standing on the ice, and how do I feel in my current situation, standing there?” Chan said. “And I didn’t feel very confident, I felt ... more of a feeling of fear, and not having the confidence to attack.
“I just found myself being very, very unhappy every time I would start the program, just looking at the list of jumps that I had to complete. It was just very, very overwhelming for me.”