Chan blames ice as he finishes out of medals
Three-time champ slides to fifth as Spain’s Fernandez retains crown
BOST O N It wasn’t the figurative rust on the blades that conspired against Canadian Patrick Chan and his pursuit of a medal here Friday night.
Instead, the three-time world champion stumbled on the ice and off of the podium due to what he felt were difficult ice conditions at TD Garden. Sitting in third after Wednesday’s short program and silver a real possibility with a strong, clean free skate, Chan instead slipped to fifth.
“After two groups of men, all long programs and two six-minute warmups, there was a lot of rust (in the ice) and I couldn’t be confident,” a disappointed Chan said, half apologetically. “The minute I stepped on (I knew). I was very distracted by the look of it.
“I felt like I was fighting my skates or my feet all the time.”
First things first: All of the top skaters had to perform on the same surface and two skaters prior to Chan, Spaniard Javier Fernandez was brilliant in his stunning long program, an effort that was good enough to move him into first and repeat as world champion.
Chan also seemed sheepish for complaining about the ice, trying not to let it take away from the positives of a solid comeback year after taking an 18-month hiatus from the sport.
“My skate was not good, that’s pretty obvious,” said Chan, who stumbled on a number of jumps and once collided with the boards as if on the end of a body check from Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara. “It could be a lot better.”
With 2014 Olympic champ Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan blowing his lead with a similarly shoddy long program, the door was open to move up to silver. Chan was never going to catch Fernandez whose program was technically challenging and flawlessly executed — but from the time he stepped on it, the ice conditions were in his head.
“It’s very personal to me,” said the 25-year-old Toronto skater. “I like to use the flex of the ice. It almost rebounds me and gives me speed into my jumps. It’s just hard when your blade just want to go down because it’s skipping and hopping over jumps.
“I know my ice very well. I just knew from the beginning (that there could be trouble.)”
Overall, Chan wasn’t going to let one shoddy performance take away from the whole of a successful comeback campaign that is ultimately designed to take him to the 2018 Winter Olympics.
He made some gains earlier in the season and is well aware of the depth of competition in the men’s game where the routines are dominated by powerful, challenging jumps.
“Maybe immediately in the moment, yes,” Chan said when asked if Friday’s result took some of the shine away from his work. “I think tomorrow I will look back at the entire year and there’s really nothing to be upset about.
“Yeah, it stinks to be in fifth after being third after the short. But it’s good to be here. It’s good to be feeling that pressure again. I will have to look at next season without thinking about today.”
Chan said the disappointment of this week won’t cause him to stray from the game plan of chasing another shot at the Olympics, where he was second to Hanyu in Sochi.
“Back at worlds after two years of not competing there is a big step,” Chan said. “My plan is to go to the Olympics. If everything goes well and I’m healthy and still feel motivated after the summer, I think it would be wise to keep going.”
After scoring a personal best 78.18 points earlier in Friday’s short program, reigning world pairs champs Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford sit in second place behind Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China (80.85).
With that effort, not only did the Canadian duo erase some of the doubts from earlier in the season, they put themselves in position to claim gold in Saturday’s free skate, a spot where their difficult program usually allows them to shine.