Strategic jumps, renewed confidence fuelling Chan

Making Canadian figure skating history at the national championship isn’t as important to Patrick Chan as recovering his morale.

The three-time men’s world champion can match the record for Canadian men’s titles in Ottawa by equalling the nine won by Montgomery Wilson between 1929 and 1939.

Chan is coming off a disappointing free skate in December’s Grand Prix final in Marseille, France. Second after the short program, three falls in his long program dropped him to fifth. The Canadian championship which started Monday at TD Place Arena is Chan’s chance to start the second half of his competitive season on a strong note.

“A good program at nationals is pretty important,” Chan said. “It’s such a great place to regain some confidence.

“It gives me another chance to get another program out there and get my legs under me right before Four Continents and the world championships.”

The 26-year-old from Toronto took a hiatus from skating in 201415 after earning a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

When he returned to competition, Chan had no choice but to up his technical difficulty with big jumpers such as Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, Shoma Uno of Japan and American Nathan Chen in the field.

“At this point in figure skating, the jumps really dictate the performance a lot,” Chan said.

“The next goal would be once I am able to do two quad toes and a quad Salchow in the long program, I would maybe add a quad toe and a quad Salchow in the short program to replace the triple Lutz.”

Chan landed a quad Salchow late in his free program in Marseille, but believes he may have focused on it at a cost to his other elements.

He won Skate Canada in October on the strength of his artistic marks in the free skate. Despite a fall at the Cup of China in November, Chan still moved from third to first.

In dissecting what went wrong in Marseille, Chan is addressing the time between the six-minute warmup for the free skate and his performance, which can be 45 minutes if he’s last in the order.

“I’ve been working with sports psychologists trying to deal with controlling the anticipation, the anxiety, obviously the nervousness.”

— THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Canada’s Patrick Chan competes in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Marseille, France, last month. The national championship began Monday in Ottawa where Chan has a chance to match the record for Canadian men’s titles.