Men sticking tougher and tougher landings
Up they go, launching themselves off the slick ice, spinning one, two, three, four times in the air.
Down they come, attempting to land on a sharp metal blade, and do it with grace and flourish, as though it’s nothing more effortless than stepping through the door of a party.
With each Olympic rotation, there are more and more rotations for the male skaters. Quadruple jumps — once whispered about as though they were unicorns — are now mandatory for male skaters with medal aspirations.
Which is why, on Thursday night in the men’s short program at the United States Figure Skating Championships at SAP Center, we saw skater after skater fling himself into the air with abandon.
Sometimes a skater landed his quads perfectly, like Palo Alto’s Vincent Zhou did, sticking two in his short program.
Sometimes a skater crashed onto the ice, like Zhou did when he attempted the triple axel.
“It was a stupid mistake,” said Zhou, 18, and some of us in the media and audience were nodding in agreement. Land two clean quads and then fall on the axel?
Yeah, right. Like we would know. As though these young men weren’t attempting an insanely difficult and terrifying trick. Just because their clothes are bedazzled doesn’t mean they aren’t bad-ass athletes.
And on Thursday night, the top American men brought it, as if it were a dunk contest or the 100-meter heats. Even Zhou, who has dealt with his confidence all year, put together his best program at the biggest moment. He finished in fifth place, a strong boost head-
ing into Saturday’s long program.
“Today was great,” said Zhou, adding that he was buoyed by some hometown support, even though he lives and trains in Southern California. “Some had their doubts, including me.”
Reigning national champion Nathan Chen, as expected, finished in first place Thursday. Chen, 18, is revolutionizing the sport, with four quad jumps in his repertoire.
“He’s doing things that are so outrageous. It’s very X Games,” NBC commentator Johnny Weir said of Chen’s quads.
It’s a quad revolution, but not everyone is on board. To some who firmly believe that true championship skating is a delicate balance between artistry and athleticism, the jump-to-jumpto-jump routines — and the chase for the technical points from the judges in the process — aren’t enticing or dramatic enough.
“It’s all the same program,” former champion and longtime commentator Dick Button complained. “There is no theater about it. I’m not a happy camper at all in the world of skating today.”
But it was compelling theater Thursday night. In the final group, Chen skated a clean program, throwing down the gauntlet to those who followed. He made one concession, changing out a risky quad lutz for a higher percentage quad toe. The following skaters rose to the occasion, though not all delivered quads.
Adam Rippon, 28, a former national champion who has come off years of erratic performances and who fractured his ankle a year ago, finished in second place. Jason Brown, the 2015 champion, finished in third. Neither performed quads in his shorts, but they have them planned for their long programs.
Zhou has five quads planned for his long program. A year ago, he competed in his first senior nationals and won the silver medal. A few weeks later, he won gold at the World Junior Championships. But at the International Grand Prix in France in November, he fell on four quads, two in his short program and two in his long, and posted a soul-searching letter on Facebook. He said his hard training since has helped boost his confidence.
Chen is the only skater to land five quads in a long program, and he plans to do so again Saturday. Button said recently in a teleconference call that the national champion will be the skater who performs “the best and the most quadruple jumps, period, end of subject.” That would make Chen the prohibitive favorite.
Though the American women have struggled to keep pace with the global competition and are long shots to medal at the Olympics next month in South Korea, the American men, led by Chen, are pushing, higher and higher.
A revolution of revolutions.
“I’m just going to go for everything,” Rippon said, “and I’m not going to give an F.”
That could be the American men’s team motto.