Beijing: American Nathan Chen achieved a spectacular redemption when he claimed the men’s figure skating title in dazzling fashion at the Beijing Olympics, completing a four-year journey to the exhilarating tunes of Elton John on Thursday.
The 22-year-old, who left empty-handed after a meltdown in Pyeongchang in 2018, stood by the edge of the rink to soak up the atmosphere during warm-up and then skated carefreely to “Rocket Man” to add to his world record in the short programme for a total of 332.60.
Wearing an orange and purple top decorated with stars in space in a nod to his medley of Elton John songs, Chen displayed power, grace and precision, effortlessly landing his quadruple jumps as he triggered some rare cheering from a usually near-silent crowd.
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Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (310.05) was a distant second and fellow Japanese Shoma Uno (293.00) ended up third, ending up with no possible regrets after ‘Rocket Chen’ landed his fourth quadruple jump.
Yuzuru Hanyu, who was hoping to win the event for the third time in a row, finished fourth on 283.21 after the Japanese great dropped out of title contention in the short programme.
All the attention was on the Japanese at his long-awaited, delayed arrival in Beijing but the 27-year-old fell out of contention after a disastrous short programme.
He was also looking to become the first skater to land the quadruple Axel in competition but failed to deliver, also falling on a quadruple Salchow.
Chen, coming into the Olympics having been defeated only once since his Pyeongchang setback, at last year’s Skate America, delivered a masterclass to become the first American to win the men’s title since Evan Lysacek in Vancouver in 2010.
Kagiyama, Uno and Hanyu watched in awe as Japan’s double Olympic champion knew he would have to make way for Chen, who exited the ice showing unusual signs of jubilation.
Chen’s smile and gesture brought a welcome respite in an otherwise tense atmosphere at the Capital Indoor Stadium where the buzz was centred on day-old reports - still unconfirmed - that Russian Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old gold medal favourite in the women’s competition - had tested positive for a banned drug.
Valieva was part of the six-person Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team that won gold on Monday. Medals from that event have yet to be awarded with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) citing unspecified legal reasons for the indefinite delay.
She turned up for practice on an adjacent rink, before Chen’s performance grabbed the attention, at least for a memorable four and a half minutes, and signalled the end of Hanyu’s domination.
