In figure skating’s long, strange trip of a season, Nathan Chen showed the way

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In figure skating’s long, strange trip of a season, Nathan Chen showed the way

What a long, strange trip it has been for figure skating over the past 13 months.

From the cancellation of the 2020 World Championships in Montreal when the first wave of the pandemic hit full force last March through dealing with two more COVID waves since then, the International Skating Union had to:

*Cancel six of the 10 events (and indefinitely postpone two more) in the second-tier Challenger Series of international events.

*Remake the top tier, six-event Grand Prix Series as domestic-only, with no Final and both France and Canada cancelling their GP events. (Canada also cancelled its national championships.)

*Cancel its two regional championships, the European Championships and Four Continents Championships.

For all that, the season came to a satisfying end. The ISU pulled off both the 2021 World Championships last month in a Stockholm, Sweden, bubble with no spectators other than skaters and officials and the 2021 World Team Trophy last week in an Osaka, Japan, bubble with limited spectators – while Osaka prefecture was in a state of emergency due to a surge in COVID cases.

Here are some takeaways from the 2020/21 season (such as it was):

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Once again, World Team Trophy has six countries, but only three medal contenders...and that doesn't add up to much of a competition

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Once again, World Team Trophy has six countries, but only three medal contenders...and that doesn't add up to much of a competition

The big problem with the competitive aspect of the World Team Trophy is having just three countries with a chance to win medals now that Canadian skating has hit a fallow period since its athletes won the team gold medal (and three individual medals) at the 2018 Olympics.

Only Canada, Russia, the United States and Japan ever have won medals at the World Team Trophy, which has a six-country field, two entries per country in each segment of singles and one couple in pairs / dance. Canada’s last WTT medal came five editions ago (2013.)

Only Canada, Russia and the USA have won team medals at the Olympics since the 2014 addition of the event, where the field has 10 countries with only one singles skater and one couple in the short programs, after which the field is cut to five countries for the free skates.

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With comeback drama adding to the moment, Nathan Chen skates into a league of his own

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With comeback drama adding to the moment, Nathan Chen skates into a league of his own

In any sport, a competitor embraces praise from live spectators and other fans but nothing means more than acclamation from his or her athletic peers and decorated predecessors.

So it was that even at a 2021 World Figure Skating Championships where no spectators were allowed because of COVID-19 safety precautions, Nathan Chen still could hear and see the tribute he deserved.

The few people allowed in the Stockholm stands, who were accredited skaters, coaches and officials, gave Chen a standing ovation Saturday after the free skate of surpassing brilliance that would give him a third straight world title.

“There truly aren’t enough eloquent words I could use that would describe what Nathan just did,” his U.S. teammate, Jason Brown, said in a text message. “I watched in absolute awe.”

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Shocking U.S. failures and awesome Japanese successes in men’s short program at figure skating worlds

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Shocking U.S. failures and awesome Japanese successes in men’s short program at figure skating worlds

Shock.

Nathan Chen of the United States opened his short program at the World Figure Skating Championships Thursday by falling on a jump in an individual competition for the first time after having stayed upright on 120 straight dating to 2018. That meant he lost a program after winning 19 straight live individual competitions since the 2018 French Grand Prix short. Now in third place, 8.13 points behind the leader, Chen will be hard pressed to win a third straight world title.

Vincent Zhou of the United States, the reigning world bronze medalist, made an utter hash of all three short program jumping passes and finished 25th, one place below what was needed to advance to Saturday’s free skate. That complicates U.S. hopes for three men’s spots at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

And awe.

Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan may not have been fully content with his skating, but the two-time Olympic champion finished first after making no mistakes in an electric performance that fulfilled the title of his music, “Let Me Entertain You,” by Robbie Williams.

Yuma Kagiyama of Japan, a 17-year-old in his senior worlds debut, skated fearlessly at Mach 2, collected the highest combined scores of the day for two jumping passes with quads and a huge personal best score (100.96) while finishing second to his countryman, Hanyu (106.98).

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At Beijing Winter Games, now just a year away, figure skating will be a morning and evening affair (as you read here last March)

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At Beijing Winter Games, now just a year away, figure skating will be a morning and evening affair (as you read here last March)

Under usual circumstances, the day marking one year to go until the next Olympics directs a substantial amount of attention toward the upcoming Games.

But there is nothing usual about the current circumstances of a world turned inside out by the Covid-19 pandemic. So the next Olympics is not the 2022 Winter Games in China, where competition begins with curling Feb. 2, 2022, which is one year from today (the Opening Ceremony is a year from Friday).

Next up is the postponed 2020 Tokyo Summer Games. Beijing 2022 seems much further off than it is.

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