Skating rings around his rivals, Nathan Chen's rise to the sport's elite has been meteoric

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Skating rings around his rivals, Nathan Chen's rise to the sport's elite has been meteoric

Perfect symbolic fit:  Five Olympic rings.  Five Nathan Chen free skate quads.  And Chen doing them on the rink where a year from now he will be a strong contender for an Olympic gold medal.

The improbability that I could now confidently make such a bold statement about Chen is, in keeping with the numerical theme, the first of five takeaways from what he did Friday and Sunday in winning the Four Continents Championships in Gangneung, South Korea.

1.  Few U.S. singles skaters have had as meteoric a rise as Nathan Chen.

Last December 8, a day before the free skate at the Grand Prix Final, the 17-year-old from Salt Lake City was a prodigiously talented young skater with no striking international success at the senior level.

Barely three months later, he has become the most striking figure skater in the world, with a real chance to win the title in his debut at the senior World Championships beginning March 28 in Helsinki, Finland.

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Could rush to judgment hurt U.S. women's chances for three Olympic figure skating spots?

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Could rush to judgment hurt U.S. women's chances for three Olympic figure skating spots?

Earlier this season, U.S. Figure Skating changed its senior world team selection rules to deny a guaranteed place for the reigning national champion.

The change was made, according to a USFS document approved in December, “to select the athletes who will have the best chance for success at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships to win the maximum number of medals and future berths for the World and Olympic Team the following season.”

It was made just in case the winner at nationals was a fluke (or, more politely, a surprise), someone whose past international record gave no strong indication of success at the World Championships.

Someone like Karen Chen.

Her performances in both programs at last month’s U.S. Championships in Kansas City were undeniably brilliant – by far the best of her career.

Her performances in this week’s Four Continents Championships on the 2018 Olympic rink in Gangneung, South Korea, were undeniably dismal:  12th in the short program, with a fall and a watered-down combination; 10th in Saturday’s free skate, when she omitted the planned opening combination, did an invalid element and had four sloppy jumping passes (out of seven).

Overall, with a 12th place that matched her finish at last year’s Four Continents, Chen looked like the skater who had been consistently mediocre this season and last – with the exception of the 2017 nationals.

That should get USFS officials thinking of a future change in its world team selection rules so the results of Four Continents can be taken into consideration.  After all, it will be more than two months from the end of nationals to the start of worlds.

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A wondrous Nathan Chen is defying description

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A wondrous Nathan Chen is defying description

I am already running out of ways to describe the wonders of Nathan Chen, so I will let someone else do the heavy lifting this morning.

That would be Mark Hanretty, the Eurosport commentator and former ice dancer who skated for Great Britain in the world and European championships.

Hanretty’s background makes his observations of Chen’s brilliant Four Continents short program more meaningful.  A dancer would have a keen eye for the parts of Chen’s skating that factor into his “second mark,” the PCS, on which the judges still find him significantly below his major rivals.

First, the facts:  With a quad lutz-triple toe combination and a quad flip, Chen won Friday’s short program in Gangneung, South Korea, with a score, 103.12, that topped his previous personal best by nearly 10 points.  Shoma Uno (two quads) was second at 100.28, also a personal best, with Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan (botched second quad) third at 97.04.

The free skate is Sunday.

This is what Hanretty said while waiting for the scores to be announced:

“The jumps are coming from nowhere.  He has the whole package.  He has beautiful posture, wonderfully pointed extension, nice spin positions.”

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For U.S. women figure skaters, Four Continents opens with triple trouble

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For U.S. women figure skaters, Four Continents opens with triple trouble

The reason why I wrote last month after the U.S. Championships that U.S. men had a better chance of getting three 2018 Olympic figure skating spots than U.S. women was clear again Thursday.

And, coincidentally, that clarity came on the rink in Gangneung, South Korea, where the 2018 Olympic figure skating will take place.

I’m not foolhardy enough to suggest that the results of one short program at the Four Continents Championships should be seen as indisputable evidence of big trouble.  Saturday’s free skate could provide a more optimistic indication.

So let’s just say the performances of two of the three U.S. women were troublesome, because either Karen Chen or Mariah Bell (or both) will be critical to the three-spots effort next month at the World Championships in Helsinki.

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Holding your breath as Vonn chases history by skiing right on the edge of crazy (and thoughts on other things Olympic, including 2024, Nathan Chen & Evgenia Medvedeva)

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Holding your breath as Vonn chases history by skiing right on the edge of crazy (and thoughts on other things Olympic, including 2024, Nathan Chen & Evgenia Medvedeva)

1.  Los Angeles has an excellent 2024 Olympic bid.  So does Paris.  So the idea of having the International Olympic Committee vote in September for both 2024 and 2028 rather than just 2024 makes absolute sense.  If both bids get to the day of reckoning in Peru, neither deserves to lose.

No one knows how the mechanics of an unprecedented IOC two-for-one deal might go.  It carries the slight risk of a huge upset if, as expected, the vote for 2028 would occur after that for 2024, because there is a third 2024 finalist, Budapest.

Sure, it is a) highly unlikely that Budapest could beat either Paris or L.A. head-to-head; and b) if Paris gets 2024, marking the centennial of its last Olympics, it is also unlikely that the IOC would choose to put two straight Summer Games in Europe (that hasn’t happened since 1948-52.)

Paris 2024 – LA 2028 is the best scenario, since it assures the Xenophobe-in-Chief will be out of office when Los Angeles is host – even if there is a chance the U.S. president who follows Trump will be equally deplorable.  (Or more deplorable, if that is possible.)

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