'There Was Nothing I Could Lose.' Nathan Chen Redeems His Dismal Olympics and Makes Skating History
You can say what you want about the new figure skating system, but its rigid by-the-numbers scoring means even vaunted medal favorites can fall to 17th. And climb back up to fifth.
Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu repeated his Olympic feat from 2014 by skating to another men’s figure skating title at the 2018 Winter Olympics, while his teammate Shoma Uno earned silver and Spain’s Javier Fernandez won bronze, the first medal in figure skating for his country.
But another skater pulled off something miraculous, too. Known as the “Quad King” for being the first skater to land five quadruple jumps in a single program, Nathan Chen raised the bar again by attempting six quadruples in his go-for-broke free program at the Olympic figure skating men’s event in Gangneung Ice Arena on Saturday.
Chen, who was in 17th place after the short program, said he “literally had nothing to lose” going into the long program, so he made the decision to try six quad jumps — without even telling his coach. “It was me,” he said of the decision to try six of the most challenging jumps male skaters perform. “I didn’t even tell [coach Rafael Arutunian] I was doing that.”
Chen’s monster long program score, added to his short program marks, gave him 297.35, which kept him in first place until the fifth to last skater took the ice. Even then, China’s Jin Boyang only surpassed Chen by 0.42 points.
“I definitely did want to redeem myself after the two short programs,” says Chen. “And I definitely did that here. Honestly I am human, I make mistakes. Unfortunately it happened at a really bad time.”
Chen admitted that while he said he would talk to his coach and training team after his dismal short program on Friday, he actually didn’t. “I just went straight back to my bed and just laid there,” he says. “I just fell asleep and think that helped a lot.”
Chen’s mother also talked to him, advising him to attack and fight for everything in the long program, and to remember that this performance in the short programs wasn’t who he was.
Chen received credit for five of the six quad jumps, but stumbled on landing the quad flip and received some deductions for putting his hands on the ice. “It was risky,” he says of attempting the record-breaking number of quad jumps, “It was hard, but there was nothing I could lose at that point. I just wanted to put them out there and see what happened.”
He wouldn’t admit it after the short program, but Chen says the pressure of competing at his first Olympics might have gotten to him. “As much as I tried to deny it, I think I did feel the pressure a lot before the short program, especially thinking about medals and placement and things that are completely out of my control. That tightened me up, and I was really cautious out on the ice which is not the right way to skate. Being in such a low placement going into the long program, I allowed myself to completely forget about expectations, and allowed myself to be myself.” Which turns out to be a pretty good comeback artist.
