Chan looks to improve quad jumps at worlds
When Patrick Chan stepped away from competing after the Sochi Olympics, the three-time world figure skating champion could never have known how drastically the sport would change.
Skating’s young stars were suddenly reeling off huge quadruple jumps with the unfettered ease of kids playing hopscotch. Chan has been forced to try to follow suit.
The 26-year-old from Toronto will make what could be his final world championship appearance in Finland this week. And days away from taking the ice at Helsinki’s Hartwell Arena, Chan was asked: has his comeback been worth it?
“That’s where the sports psych (Scott Goldman) has been very helpful,” Chan said. “We have those conversations where it’s: OK, yes, it does get to a point where it’s so frustrating. I feel like I’m running as fast as I can but they’re just creeping away from me.
“It doesn’t help seeing other people having success, being in the spot that I used to be in. But what’s important is identifying just what is pure emotion, reaction, from your own mind, and what is actually something that you need to improve on. So immediately after Four Continents, very frustrated. But then I took that frustration and thought about a plan of attack to prepare for worlds.”
That plan was to rejig the order of his jumps – he’ll open with back-to-back quads – in hopes he’ll have better success landing them.
Chan took a season off after his heartbreaking silver medal in Sochi. When he returned, skating’s landscape was practically unrecognizable.
At Four Continents last month, American teen Nathan Chen reeled off a jaw-dropping five quads in the long program for the first time in history.
“I was not expecting (how much the sport would advance),” Chan said. “I thought Yuzu (Hanyu, the Olympic champion) in 2014 in Sochi really had pushed the limit and was hitting that limit. Clearly that’s been proven wrong.”
Chan now has three quads in his long program, but has yet to land all three in an international competition. Still, his far-from-flawless long program at Four Continents was only 25 points off the torrid pace Chen set.