Yuzuru defends gold medal; USA’s Chen 5th
By The Associated Press
GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Move over Dick Button, you have company atop the Olympic men’s figure skating pantheon: Japan’sYuzuru Hanyu.
Hanyu became the first man to successfully defend his Olympic title since Button in 1952. He held off countryman Shoma Uno and Spain’s Javier Fernandezin the free skate.
Fernandez shares the same coach, Brian Orser, with Hanyu. Orser rushed to greet Hanyu as he left the ice after his strong but slightly flawed performance. Then Orser, a two-time Olympic silver medalist, rushed to behind the sideboards to help encourage Fernandez during his skate. Fernandez couldn’t match Hanyu, and Uno finished the day by moving up from third to second overall, loading a high-scoring quad andthree triples into the final minuteof his routine.
American Nathan Chen surged from a fiasco of a short program, when he was 17th, by winning the free skateto wind up fifth overall.
Chen finally admitted the pressure of being the face of American figure skating got to him, winding him up so tight for his short program that it ended in what he described as a “disaster.”
All that pressure was gone for his free skate.
Out of medals contention and finally skating with a clear mind, the 18-year-old prodigy landed an unparalleled six quadruple jumps in a historic performance at the PyeongchangOlympics.
His personal-best score of 215.08 points was more than enough to win the free skate, andhelped move up to fifth. .
“As much as I tried to deny it, I think I did feel the pressure a lot, thinking about medals and placement and things like that, things that were entirely out of my control,” Chen explained. “That just tightened me up, made me really cautious on the ice, and that’s not the way to skate.”
Chen had been the best American hope for a figure skating gold medal at the Winter Games, becoming the face of not only U.S. Figure Skating but ad campaigns for numerous Olympic sponsors. His coy smile, youthful exuberance and uncanny ability to land the hardest four-revolution jumps in the sport made for an ideal marketing package. That also put tremendous demands on his time.
That became evident when Chen struggled through his short program as part of the team event, which still helped the U.S. team win the bronze medal. And it was on full display in the short program, when he failed to land a single clean jump in the individual competition and fell to 17th out of the 24 skaters.
“I think after having such a disastrous short program and being so, so low in the ranking — lower than I usually ever am — it allowed me to completely forget the results and focus on enjoying myself out on the ice,” Chen said, “and getting rid of expectations helped a lot.”
Performing to “Mao’s Last Dancer,” the two-time U.S. champion ripped off a quad lutzto start his program, then landed a quad flip-double toe combination before another quad flip.
After achieving level-four ratings on his spin and step sequence, the high-flying Chen landed a massive quad toe-triple toe combination before another quad toe and a quadsalchow.
That’s six quads in four variations, something never before accomplished in any competition.
“I had changed the short program, the second flip to a toe, and that was just a mistake,” Chen said, recalling his conservative approach to the start of his Olympic program. “I told myself I wasn’t going to play it safe today and if I make acouple mistakes, so be it.”
He was relatively composed as his music stopped, refusing to let out a triumphant roar like many other skaters.
He calmly skated off the ice to the rapturous applause, only letting out a bashful grin when he sat beside his coach, Rafael Arutunian, and awaitedhis scores.