Living in themoment
Palo Alto teen Zhou captures fifth in short program; Chen dominates again
SANJOSE Vincent pared to Zhou begin » Someone to his smile winner-take-all screamed as he pre- for short the U.S. program Figure Thursday Skating Champi- night at
onships He gave at it SAP his best Center. for a grin. Then over. the Palo Alto teen blinked over and
“This is it, this is my moment,” he told himself.
Zhou, 17 felt a little “jelly-legged” with the pent-up nerves. Then he let loose in the city where was born.
Performing an ambitious programto “ChasingCars” by SnowPatrol, Zhoulandeda big-value quadruple lutz-triple toe loop combination jump.
Then camean under-rotated quadruple flip.
Still all systems go …. all the way to the Pyeongchang Games next month in South Korea? Well, not quite yet.
A dreaded triple axel cast a shadow on the night after Zhou wound up too much and landed on the icefor lostpoints. Whathecalled a stupid mistake prevented Zhou from a top-three finish on a night favorite Nathan Chen proved he is America’s leading man. Then came veteran Adam Rippon, who executed four skilled triple jumps and sophisticated spins to finish second with a score of 96.52 points — well behind Chen’s 104.45 score. Jason Brown also skated cleanly without attempting a quadruple jump to get 93.23 points for third place heading into the free skate Saturday in San Jose.
Zhou is fifth— just behind Grant Hochstein. But thefinal outcome will depend on the 4 ½-minute long program. If the teen lands all five planned quadruple jumps hewill pass those who can’t match such technical supremacy.
Zhou sounded calm despite the costly mistake that resulted in a one-point deduction in the overall score.
“I was way into the program,” he said of breezing along until the fall.
After the mistake, he told himself, “Oh, that happened,” and immediately switched his focus on a footwork cluster.
Zhou, though, left the ice feeling good after a rough season that had frustrated him to no end. The skater’s lack of confidence precipitated a realignment of his coaches’ duties in the past month.
Zhou still is the only American who can match Chen’s technical prowess but admitted ly needs more maturity on the rest of his routines.
But Chen left no room for doubts Thursday with an otherworldly performance despite being unable to train fulltime the past two weeks because of sickness.
The Salt Lake City skater decided Thursday before the program to do a quadruple toe instead of the more difficult lutz jump.
“That was the right call,” Chen said.
The defending U.S. champion acknowledged his mind wasn’t in the right place Wednesday. He entered the SAP Center ice filled with nerves. As soon as the music began the nerves slipped away. And Chen floated away.
But no one Thursday night was lighter than Rippon, who has clawed his way back into contention for one of three Olympic berths.
“I wasn’t expecting anything less from him,” Chen said of his Los Angeles-area training partner.
Rippon, 28, struggled in his six-minute warm up. Then he has rarely skated better, underscoring that it doesn’t always take big quadruple jumps to succeed.
Rippon and Brown are in the mix because they skate so effortlessly. It probably wouldn’t be enough to earn an Olympic medal. But it just might be enough to get both of them to South Korea if Zhou struggles Saturday in the free skate.
Another veteran, Max Aaron, didn’t fare aswell. His mistake-filled program ended an Olympic quest.
“After that I knew, my Olympic shot was over,” the 2013 U.S. champion said of missing on his first jump. “I could feel the tears rolling down my eyes. I gave it everything I had.”
Piedmont’s Kevin Shum, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology junior, finished last out of 21 skaters.