Chan pulls off short- program win despite fl awed performance — from him and others
OTTAWA — The moment Patrick Chan ripped off a perfect quadruple toe- triple toe combination, perhaps 30 seconds into his short program Friday, the same thought occurred to everyone at the Canadian Tire Centre.
He can walk in from here, and still win.
Trouble is, he was thinking the same thing. So he did.
He doubled a triple Axel. He doubled a triple Lutz. He lost focus, lost marks and only the fact that no one else skated particularly well kept him comfortably ahead of the pack heading into Saturday night’s free skate at the national skating championships.
On a night of flawed skates — including Kevin Reynolds’ literally flawed ones — North Vancouver’s Liam Firus emerged from the chaos to stand second behind Chan, though more than 10 points ( 89.10 to 78.93) in arrears, and just in front of Reynolds, whose fifth- place finish at last year’s world championships guaranteed a third male skater for Canada at the Sochi Olympics.
Now, Reynolds may need to use it for himself.
Chan is in no difficulty there — the three- time and reigning world champ is going regardless — but he had hoped to make a slightly better statement in his last competition before the Olympics than Friday night’s scattered effort.
“I did such a beautiful quad toe- triple toe that my mind starts racing, like, ‘ Oh my God, it’s going to be a great program’ and so my focus becomes very broad instead of being focused more narrowly on ( each element),” said the 23- year- old
from Toronto. “I kind of lost my train of thought.
“I just kind of relaxed because I thought it was over. As opposed to staying really pinpoint on technically what I have to do to do the Axel successfully, and same thing with the Lutz.
“It’s funny how the mind plays tricks like that. I needed to go back to what I think about in practice, which is just holding back the right side until I pick, and my hips start rotating, then I release the right
shoulder, but I didn’t do that. So tomorrow I have to clue into those little hints.”
The 21- year- old Firus, who’s now training in Colorado under Chan’s former coach, Christy Krall, said he had no idea he could be in second place after crashing on his opening triple Axel, messing up a spin and fudging a triple flip with a wrong edge.
“No, especially after how I skated,” he said. “I put my hands on my head and was
disappointed — I wanted to skate clean, of course, being an Olympic year. So I wasn’t expecting anything like that when I came off, and then I saw the marks coming up ... Elladj ( Balde), Kevin ( Reynolds) ... holy cow. I’m forgetting about today. We’re all in the same flight ( Saturday), and it’s going to be a dogfight.”
Reynolds, who’s been battling boot problems since last season’s end and hadn’t competed all season, fell on his opening quad Salchow and barely saved a combination on his second quad, but got some credit for an under- rotated triple Axel and survived in third place, though narrowly, over the 23- year- old, Moscow- born Balde, who trains with Chan in Detroit.
On top of everything else, Reynolds’ music — an AC/ DC medley — stopped a few seconds into his program, and he had to re- start and refocus.
“I think that maybe contributed, along with all the other issues I’ve had this season, to not have the most solid performance here,” Reynolds said. “But all in all, besides the opening jump, I was fairly happy with the performance.”
The fact that it was Reynolds who secured the third berth for Sochi was not lost on Firus — “Exactly, Kevin did great last year, and I’m super- thankful for that,”’ he said — and Reynolds knows it’s a bonus for him right now, too.
“Well, I certainly hope so. It’s a bit of a relief of the pressure to know we do have that third spot, and I don’t have to be perfect,” he said.
“But even so, this is my first and last competition before Sochi, so I want to do as well as I can.”