Chen wins men’s skate easily despite mistakes
Nathan Chen had landed some of the most difficult jumps in figure skating, soaring through the air with a dizzying array of quads and flawlessly stringing together combinations that left the crowd wanting more.
Figures that he would faceplant on a simple step sequence. It didn’t matter, though. Nor did a mistake on one of his four quadruple jumps. Chen was that much better than everyone else at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Sunday in Nashville, winning the free skate with 212.63 points and scoring 328.01 in all — good for his sixth consecutive title by nearly 26 points over 17-year-old Ilia Malinin.
Vincent Zhou followed an exceptional short program with a calamitous free skate, edging Jason Brown for third. Both wound up making the Olympic team ahead of Malinin when the selection committee chose the experience of Zhou and Brown over the youngster’s soaring ability and bright future.
⏩ A committee finalized the U.S. Olympic figure-skating squad. The rest of the roster has Alysa Liu of Richmond, U.S. champion Mariah Bell and Karen Chen in the women’s competition; gold medalists Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc along with Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier in pairs; titlists Madison Chock and Evan Bates, plus Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue and Kaitlin Hawayek and JeanLuc Baker in ice dance.
Speedskater gives Games berth to pal
Speedskater Erin Jackson is heading to the Beijing Olympics, thanks to Brittany Bowe.
Bowe has given up her spot in the 500 meters, allowing Jackson — ranked No. 1 in the world in the 500 — to make the U.S. team, according to a report on USA Network. Jackson slipped in her race Friday at the U.S. trials in Milwaukee and finished third in the event she has dominated this season.
Jackson won four of eight 500 races on the World Cup circuit, with a second and third.
Bowe and Jackson are friends from the same hometown of Ocala, Fla.
Baseball: The Athletic reported that Rachel Balkovec, who joined the Yankees’ organization as a minor-league hitting coach in 2019, will serve as the manager for the Low-A Tampa Tarpons next season.
Golf: Cameron Smith shot an 8-under-par 65 and set a record by finishing at 34-under 258 to capture the winners-only Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui, and he needed every stroke to edge Jon Rahm for a one-stroke victory.
Smith broke Ernie Els’ tournament record of 31-under in 2003, which was the PGA Tour record for shots under par.
NHL: Jordan Kyrou and Ryan O’Reilly scored power-play goals in the final minute, rallying the host St. Louis Blues over the Dallas Stars 2-1. Kyrou won it with 29 seconds left. O’Reilly tied it at 1-1 with 47 seconds to go while the Blues had a 6-on-4 advantage.
Skiing: In Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Petra Vlhova cemented her status as the leading female slalom skier of the season with her fifth win in six races with just a month to go before the Olympic race in Beijing. American Mikaela Shiffrin was third after the opening run and skied out in a blistering-fast second run until she straddled a gate.
⏩ Johannes Strolz was the shocking winner of a World Cup slalom in Abelboden, Switzerland. The Austrian, 29, had a career-best finish of 10th in more than eight years of World Cup racing.