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

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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."

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Olympic pairs short program produced superlative skating

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Olympic pairs short program produced superlative skating

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - You could exhaust a dictionary's supply of superlatives to describe what happened in the Olympic pairs short program Wednesday, and it would be a thoroughly justified verbal outpouring.

From the utterly breathtaking brilliance of winners Wenjing Sui and Cong Han of China to the exuberance with which North Koreans Tae Ok Ryom and Ju Sik Kim threw off all the political and historical weight on their shoulders for the performance of a lifetime, there never has been so much relentless excellence at a pairs competition in a global championship.

"The level of skating was a pure joy to watch," said two-time Olympic singles champion Katarina Witt, a commentator for German TV. "The quality of the lifts and throws and jumps was so high.

"It was sport at a high level and entertainment at a high level, particularly with the variety of music used -- from Ed Sheeran to the Beatles to Tchaikovsky."

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Hanyu: 'I want to give a dream performance'

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Hanyu: 'I want to give a dream performance'

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - This was a moment the Japanese press had waited three months for.

It had been agonizing for them to go that long starved of any real contact with Yuzuru Hanyu, the 23-year-old skater their country adores, the skater who also has won fans worldwide with his boyish charm and unsurpassed excellence in the sport since winning the Olympic title four years ago.

So, along with a few foreign colleagues, Japanese media filled the 150 seats in the Gangneung Ice Arena press conference room Tuesday morning. A few dozen others stood. Camera shutters hummed like cicadas on a hot summer afternoon.

The press conference lasted 23 minutes, with nearly half that time taken for translating questions and answers from Japanese to English. But the chance to hear Hanyu say anything more than hello was enough after a virtual radio silence that had lasted since he injured a ligament in his right ankle on a fall at an NHK Trophy practice session Nov. 9.

His hair still flopped into his eyes. He smiled easily.

"He's in great spirits," his coach, Brian Orser, said.

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This girl was on fire: Mirai Nagasu smokes triple axel (and rest of program), blazing her way into history

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This girl was on fire: Mirai Nagasu smokes triple axel (and rest of program), blazing her way into history

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - She had been so down, so utterly devastated at having been left off the 2014 Olympic team in a controversial but justified decision. The day that happened, Mirai Nagasu skated an exhibition program at the U.S. championships gala with teary eyes and a shattered soul.

At that low point in her lengthy career, and for much of the next three years, it was almost impossible to imagine Nagasu blissfully soaring the way she did Monday, reaching a height no U.S. woman had attained in the history of Olympic figure skating: landing a clean triple axel.

And not just any triple axel: a brilliantly executed 3 1/2 revolutions in the air, followed by a totally secure landing.

It began a thoroughly sparkling performance that would lead her teammate, Adam Rippon, to cry for joy while watching Nagasu from the U.S. team box at the Gangneung Ice Arena.

It was a feeling undoubtedly shared by anyone familiar with Nagasu's emotionally charged story.

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Russian (oops, OAR) figure skaters still a name brand at Olympics

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Russian (oops, OAR) figure skaters still a name brand at Olympics

Russia is gone from the Olympics, at least in name and official image, having been censured by the International Olympic Committee for a massive doping scandal that included a nefariously creative scheme for sample tampering at the Sochi Games.

Its athletes are in PyeongChang as OAR, "Olympic Athletes from Russia," competing under the Olympic flag. Their medals will be marked by the raising of that five-ringed flag. Their triumphs will be saluted by the playing of the anodyne Olympic hymn rather than the stirring Russian national anthem. Their team's uniform jackets are a solid color, white or light gray, rather than the country's red, white and blue national colors.

And yet...

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