Nathan Chen’s Olympic redemption tour is midway full.
The free skate, and the handful of quads that include it, are actually all that stand between the American determine skater and gold.
Chen will get the possibility to complete off his comeback in model Thursday afternoon in Beijing (Wednesday evening stateside), getting into the second half of the boys’s competitors with nearly a six-point lead after crushing the quick program on Tuesday.
“You may by no means really matter out any of those athletes,” Chen advised reporters. “The competitors’s not one program. No matter occurs within the quick program shouldn't be indicative of what is going to occur within the free program.”
However Chen did give himself some respiratory room by placing collectively a record-breaking quick program with 113.97 factors — 4 years after his disastrous quick program in Pyeongchang. He got here again from that to ace the free skate with six quads, profitable this system, however solely ending fifth within the general competitors.
Chen, who will take the ice final within the free skate at round 12:15 a.m. EST, is vying to change into the primary U.S. males’s singles determine skater to win gold (or medal in any respect) since Evan Lysacek in 2010. Earlier than that, no American man had received Olympic gold within the singles competitors since Scott Hamilton and Brian Boitano received back-to-back in 1984 and 1988.
With a purpose to end atop the rostrum, the 22-year-old Chen must fend off the sector, led by a pair of Japanese determine skaters: Yuma Kagiyama (108.12) and Shoma Uno (105.90), who completed second and third, respectively, within the quick program. Uno, who received silver at Pyeongchang, is the one skater within the subject who has crushed Chen since 2018, inserting second to Chen’s third in October’s Skate America. That occasion was received by American Vincent Zhou, who was compelled to withdraw from the Olympics after testing optimistic for COVID-19 earlier this week.
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“I'll add extra sophisticated and tough jumps in my free skating,” Uno advised reporters, per the New York Instances.
The largest menace to Chen getting into the competitors seemed to be his rival, Yuzuru Hanyu, the two-time defending Olympic champ who received gold at Pyeongchang and Sochi. However the Japanese skater had a tough quick program Tuesday, ending eighth with 95.15 factors, all however ending his probabilities of overcoming Chen.
“Figuring out the way it feels to skate — not essentially to your potential however not what you anticipate skating — it doesn’t really feel nice, particularly at an Olympics,” Chen mentioned. “However you'll be able to by no means rely Yuzu out. He’s a two-time Olympic champion, and it doesn't matter what he does sooner or later, he’s at all times going to be a determine skating icon.”
Chen, a scholar at Yale, additionally nailed his quick program within the group occasion earlier within the week, serving to USA seize a silver medal behind the Russian Olympic Committee. Coming into Wednesday in Beijing, it was one in every of 4 silvers Crew USA had collected together with a bronze, but it surely had but to win gold in these Video games.
“I used to be simply elated,” Chen mentioned after his quick program Tuesday. “On the final Olympics, each of the quick applications didn’t go the way in which I wished. To lastly get a chance to skate the applications I wished feels actually good.
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