Dancing with who brung him
As he eyes his final competitive season and life after figure skating, Patrick Chan isn’t about to change what’s worked in the past
Patrick Chan’s best won three world championships, two Grand Prix finals, Olympic silver and the hearts and minds of figure skating fans the world over.
Chan in his absolute prime, from 2010 through 2014, was absent only Games gold.
But the sport, like the skater, is in constant motion. And today, as the 26-year-old perennial Canadian champ contemplates a final season of Grand Prix competition and a third Olympics, he has chosen again to do what he does best, not what his younger opponents do most.
Which is to say Chan won’t be trying to beat the international quad squad at their own elevated game. He’ll perform the requisite quad toes, sure, and perhaps throw in a quad Salchow at the Olympics once his confidence builds, but certainly not this early in the season. At Skate Canada International in Regina this week, he plans just one quad toe in the short and two in the freeskate.
“I’ll admit it, I’m not a technical genius when it comes to jumps,” Chan said during a conference call last week. “I have done what I needed to do to get to the top during my prime days.
“For me to try to compete with the others by adding a quad flip or a quad Lutz, I don’t enjoy that. At the end of the day, I’m skating because I have continued to push myself into the 2018 Games, into my third Games, because I want to enjoy it. I need to have a realistic goal in order to enjoy it.”
He’s always struck a proficient balance between athletics and artistry on the ice. It’s now his off-ice mantra too, as he prepares for life after competitive skating. It has given him the necessary perspective to take control of how this final year is going to unfold. On his terms.
He wants his fans to enjoy him at his best one last time, so he needs to skate with confidence, and just looking at a lengthy list of difficult elements had left him overwhelmed. After a particularly brutal day of prac- tice — he fell on the toe, the Salchow and a triple Axel — he was at a crossroads.
“Because of the mistakes on the jumps, I had no desire to keep going.”
That was no recipe for an enjoyable goodbye tour, so he trimmed the list. He should still have enough in the arsenal to defend his title at Skate Canada, given the 12-man field. But space on the Olympic podium in Korea might be pricier. American Nathan Chen beat reigning Olympic and world champ Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan last weekend in Moscow at the Rostelecom Cup, the first Grand Prix of the year. Chen attempted four quads in the freeskate, Hanyu scheduled five but tried only three.
If they splatter themselves all over the ice in PyeongChang — the quad suddenly having become a weapon of self-destruction — Chan could skate squeaky clean versions of his somewhat more modest programs and perhaps climb a step over Sochi.
But the top of the podium isn’t top of mind.
“I’ve spent a lot of years thinking about Olympic gold. But I don’t give it much thought anymore because my life wouldn’t change at all and my life won’t change no matter what the results are in 2018. My priority isn’t to think about gold as much as people love to talk about it. It is exciting to think of the prospect of having a Canadian win gold but my process as an athlete is completely different.”
His intentions as a veteran athlete and more rounded individual, are clear. He wants a 10th Canadian title in Vancouver in January, and after that he will focus on the team event at PyeongChang, which is first up.
If changes must be made in his programs along the way, he will make them only if he’s comfortable.
“This being a third Olympics, I want to perform with a feeling of complete control of my situation, and really having made the decision thinking about my personal well being and my personal enjoyment of performing, if that makes any sense.”
Some might see it as a surrender to the inevitable rotation of the sport, but he knows his limitations as well as his strengths. He knows the game changed while he took a year off after Sochi, and that he cannot play it the way Chen and Hanyu do.
“I went from leaving the sport with (Hanyu) being the Olympic champion and at the time he had a quad (Salchow) and a quad toe. When I came back a year later we were looking at men doing what they’re doing now; four or five different quads. It was extremely challenging and I had a lot of ground to make up.”
He doesn’t regret the year off, which he needed for work-life balance. In fact, he sees it now as a strategic move, given the mental and physical rest it offered. The same could surely be said about his plan to let the quad squad fight amongst themselves while he does what he does best.
I’ll admit it, I’m not a technical genius when it comes to jumps ... For me to try to compete with the others by adding a quad flip or a quad Lutz, I don’t enjoy that. Figure skater Patrick Chan