Quad revolution Chan helped start swept away his medal hopes, but not his legacy

/
Quad revolution Chan helped start swept away his medal hopes, but not his legacy

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - In his 12 years at the senior level of figure skating, Canada's Patrick Chan has been a transformative athlete.

"I am never going to look at Patrick as anything but a three-time world champion who was the first man to do beautiful skating and multiple quads," said four-time world champion and fellow Canadian Kurt Browning. "He was alpha dog for a long time."

What Browning could not include in that encomium is the one thing missing from Chan's much-decorated career: an individual Olympic gold medal. He let it slip from his grasp in 2014, and it seems out of his reach in the men's competition that begins with the short program Friday morning.

When Chan got his first Olympic gold medal Monday, it was for the team event, in which he had two mistake-riddled performances. That could have made it seem a bittersweet prize, but he refused to see it that way.

"At the end of the day, a medal is a medal," Chan insisted. "I'm going to hold this medal tight to me. That's how I am going to see it. That's how I am going to enjoy it."

Read More

He said, he said: Chen, Arutunian dissect methods

/
He said, he said: Chen, Arutunian dissect methods

Prior to their departing for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, last week, I asked Nathan Chen's coach, Rafael Arutunian, questions on three topics about both himself and his prized student.

A few days later, without telling the skater at first what his coach had said, I asked Chen the same questions.

The topics were dealing with bad practices, changing jumps before - or during - a program and whether the coach is too mean for some skaters.

For their answers, click "Read More"

Read More

Nathan Chen's much-anticipated Olympic debut becomes a flop

/
Nathan Chen's much-anticipated Olympic debut becomes a flop

GANGNEUNG, South Korea -- When he stopped skating, Nathan Chen lowered his head and quickly ran a hand through his hair. His face was blank. If something was churning inside him, Chen kept it bottled up.

"It wasn't shock," Chen said of his reaction. "It was more disappointment, the fact I didn't do what I want to do. I'm not going to show that I'm happy and kind of fake it if I'm genuinely not."

Chen truly had nothing to be happy about when it came to his performance. His highly anticipated Olympic debut Friday morning in the short program of the team event was a flop.

It was Chen's lowest-scored short program, by some five points, in two years as an international senior skater. None of his three jumping passes went either clean or as planned. He fell on a triple axel. He also turned a planned second quadruple jump into a double, giving him no points on that element because at least a solo triple jump is required.

Read More

An Olympic figure skating fab five, U.S. gold medalists all, reflect on Nathan Chen

/
An Olympic figure skating fab five, U.S. gold medalists all, reflect on Nathan Chen

Five of the six U.S. men's Olympic gold medalists were in attendance at the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, California. In the days following the competition, icenetwork asked them their overall impressions of Nathan Chen, one of the favorites for the gold medal at next month's Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

The respondents were:

- Brian Boitano, the 1988 Olympic champion and a two-time world champion, who has followed Chen closely for years.

- Evan Lysacek, the 2010 Olympic champion and 2009 world champion, who trained briefly on the same ice as Chen when the younger skater began working with Rafael Arutunian in California seven years ago. The 2018 U.S. Championships were the first time Lysacek had been in an arena to watch Chen compete.

- Scott Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic champion, four-time U.S. champion and four-time world champion, who has watched Chen compete at various levels.

- Dick Button, the 1948 and 1952 Olympic champion, who got his first chance to see Chen -- 70 years his junior -- in person at the 2018 U.S. Championships.

- Hayes Jenkins, the 1956 Olympic champion, who first saw Chen in person at the 2014 U.S. Championships in Boston, where Chen, then 14, won his second U.S. junior title.

Read More

A sure bet, a long shot and some new math: my takeaways from U.S. figure skating championships

/
A sure bet, a long shot and some new math: my takeaways from U.S. figure skating championships

1. Bradie Tennell backers would be very rich today if they could have found anyone in Las Vegas willing to make book before this season on her winning the U.S. championships and/or making the Olympic team and then put down a couple hundred dollars on that bet.

Because the odds would have been about 1,000-to-1.

And even Tennell, ninth at the U.S. championships last year, would have had a hard time disputing that probability.

Read More