Follow the rest of the action on day eight, while here is Bryan Graham’s report on Yuzuru Hanyu’s title.
So Nathan Chen had the highest score in the free skate with a 215.08. Hanyu was second at 206.17.
You could spin that as a negative and say he should’ve done better in the short program. Or you could say he redeemed his first Olympics with a brilliant skate that beat not only some of the best skaters here but the best skaters ever.
Yuzuru Hanyu has a pretty case to be the GOAT now. That’s back-to-back gold medals. Shoma Uno is 20 and may have many more battles with Chen to come.
And Javier Fernandez, who came into these Olympics with world titles and European titles but a 14th-place finish in 2010 and an agonizing fourth in 2014, caps his career with Olympic bronze.
You could quibble about the judges putting Jin Boyang ahead of Chen by such a narrow margin. But Chen still jumped -- quite literally -- from 17th to fifth. Can’t argue with that.
And the other Americans had stellar evenings. Vincent Zhou was sixth in the free skate to move from 12th to sixth overall. Adam Rippon doesn’t have the leaping ability of the others but maximized his talent for a 10th-place finish after missing out on the Olympics for so long in his career.
Beautiful stuff. Thanks for enjoying with me tonight.
Final standings
Uno gets a 202.73 in the free skate.
- Hanyu (Japan) 317.85
- Uno (Japan) 306.90
- Fernandez (Spain) 305.24
- Jin (China) 297.77
- Chen (USA) 297.35
- Zhou (USA) 276.69
- Aliev (OAR) 267.51
- Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
- Chan (Canada) 263.43
- Rippon (USA) 259.36
After struggling on a quad-double combo, he lands a smooth quad. Then a triple axel-single-triple. Then a triple-triple ... OK, fine. He’s great. He’ll get a medal. Maybe second for a Japanese 1-2 finish.
To be fair, the last minute was nice. And the judges certainly loved the triple axel-single-triple combo.
Uno’s program is kind of a downer to end the night. But I’m a music snob who never cared for opera. He lands a triple axel, blah blah blah, can I see Rippon and Fernandez again?
Shoma Uno falls on his first quad attempt. The second is much better.
@duresport I am thoroughly in love with you & your skating commentary. I don’t know if you’re wearing sparkles, but you’re stunning.
— Dona (@sixthstevens) February 17, 2018
I’m wearing a college sweatshirt and wondering if I just wore a hole in the only jeans that still fit me.
Standings:
Hanyu (Japan) 317.85
Fernandez (Spain) 305.24
Jin (China) 297.77
Chen (USA) 297.35
Zhou (USA) 276.69
Aliev (OAR) 267.51
Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
Chan (Canada) 263.43
Rippon (USA) 259.36
Skaters remaining: 1
Chen bumped off podium
Fernandez’s scores: 197.66, 305.24.
And lest we forget to enjoy all this -- that was fun. Weir says it’s the best he’s done all season.
You may be rooting for Nathan Chen, but you have to admire that skate.
Sing together: “Dreeeeam the impossible dreeeeeam ...”
And we’re starting to see how impossible Nathan Chen’s dream was coming into tonight. Fernandez won’t match Chen’s free skate. But he had a 25-point lead after the short program.
Spain’s Javier Fernandez is a two-time world champion. He’s skating to music from Man of La Mancha, a musical in which I played drums in college. I’m having flashbacks.
Meanwhile, he gets nearly 40 points on his first three elements -- a quad, a quad-double and a triple axel-triple. Not quite at Chen’s level, but after the short program, he has a lot of points to play with.
But a potentially costly mistake -- a planned quad becomes a double.
Hanyu’s scores ... 206.17 free, 317.85 overall. Yeah, but it’s nearly 13 points off his personal best. (Which is the best of all time, of course.)
If you need a little more Yuzuru Hanyu, AND YOU DO, watch him skate to Prince in my favorite skating program ever ever ever. https://t.co/DMaPNKJW0M
— Maggie Hendricks (@maggiehendricks) February 17, 2018
Standings:
Hanyu (Japan) 317.85
Jin (China) 297.77
Chen (USA) 297.35
Zhou (USA) 276.69
Aliev (OAR) 267.51
Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
Chan (Canada) 263.43
Rippon (USA) 259.36
Skaters remaining: 2
Hanyu has another wobble. He kicks up a bit of ice on a landing. Maybe this won’t be a personal best. But his quad-triple combo is 18.85 points right now. His triple-single-triple is 17.03.
And a ton of Winnie the Pooh dolls are tossed on the ice.
He might have left the door open for Fernandez or Uno. But he’ll pass Chen, who’ll have to hope the last two falter.
Second half of the program. Here’s where he expects to rack up the points.
Quad-triple combo ... oh my, that just looks easy.
Quad-single-triple scheduled, and ... no. Just the quad with a shaky landing. So he’s human. He’s probably still winning.
And another quad. He’s saving the quad combinations for later in the program.
He just has a certain swagger that others don’t. This is supreme confidence.
Yuzuru Hanyu's free skate ...
That first quad was emphatic ...
Terry Gannon: “Higher than Chen here?”
Tara Lipinski: “Nathan Chen? No.”
Chan’s scores ... 173.42 free, 263.43 overall.
Standings:
Jin (China) 297.77
Chen (USA) 297.35
Zhou (USA) 276.69
Aliev (OAR) 267.51
Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
Chan (Canada) 263.43
Rippon (USA) 259.36
Skaters remaining: 3
Now the Big Three take their shot, starting with the world and Olympic champion ...
Chan’s skate isn’t bad by any means. He didn’t fall. He landed a quad-double combination. He had three elements for double-digit scores, and his spins rival Rippon’s. The choreography was very nice.
Just too many errors on the jumps and not enough rotations.
Canada’s Patrick Chan has three world championships and a silver medal from 2014. He has a personal best of 203.99 in the free skate.
But he hasn’t hit those heights in a while, and he only has two quads planned. One was supposed to be a quad-triple, and it was a quad-double. The other was shaky from takeoff and became a triple.
Hate to be so picky here. This is pretty skating to Hallelujah, but he doesn’t seem likely to medal with this. He was sixth after the short program.
Jin bumps Chen to second by 0.42 points ...
Jin’s scores:194.45 free, 297.77 overall
Standings:
Jin (China) 297.77
Chen (USA) 297.35
Zhou (USA) 276.69
Aliev (OAR) 267.51
Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
Rippon (USA) 259.36
Skaters remaining: 4
His triple axel looks good. His triple-triple looks good. Chen’s perch on the podium is looking shaky.
That said, the technical score still isn’t quite in the Chen range. He finishes around 106, about 21 points behind Chen. He had a 20-point lead after the short program.
This is going to be close ...
The segue to the Cantina Band music is charming. He suddenly starts dancing like ... maybe an Ewok? I guess they were never in the Cantina.
Then it gets serious again as he goes for a quad-double combo ... and he falls. Another attempt ... good.
Jin rides the ragged edge of disaster with his quad lutz, going awfully close to the boards. But he lands it cleanly. The quad salchow is almost clean. Then a triple axel-single-triple combo. That’s about 41 points already.
China’s Jin Boyang is up, which means things are getting serious. His personal best free skate is 204.94, 10 points more than he needs to best Chen.
But not all serious. We’re about to hear the Cantina Band music.
Aliev is only 18. Of course, so is Chen.
His scores: 168.53 free, 267.51
Standings:
Chen (USA) 297.35
Zhou (USA) 276.69
Aliev (OAR) 267.51
Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
Rippon (USA) 259.36
Skaters remaining: 5
Aliev needs to smash his personal best to beat Chen. That didn’t do it. It probably doesn’t even pass Zhou. The crowd seems underwhelmed.
OAR’s Dmitri Aliev is up, and I guess the figure skating has switched to NBC proper. Fortunately, I have the enhanced feed up, so I’m able to see Aliev nail his quad-triple and then wipe out most painfully on a quad toeloop. And again on a triple axel.
Six skaters to go ...
Ok this warm-up is sloppy. I feel like we're going to see Nathan rising up in the ranks today 💁🏼♀️
— Ashley Wagner (@AshWagner2010) February 17, 2018
Your first of several reminders of where we stand:
Standings:
Chen (USA) 297.35
Zhou (USA) 276.69
Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
Rippon (USA) 259.36
Skaters remaining: 6
Fun typo unrelated to all this ...
Every Olympian got their start somewhere. #TeamUSA
— USA Hockey (@usahockey) February 17, 2018
Members of the U.S. Men's Tea describe the rinks they played in growing up. 🏒 pic.twitter.com/qS17srAfLE
Coincidentally, I heard the late, great Mitch Hedberg’s comedy bit today about putting tea bags in a lake and going “tea skiing.”
Scores with one group remaining ...
Free skate, Group 3
Zhou (USA) 192.16
Kolyada (OAR) 177.56
Rippon (USA) 171.41
Messing (Canada) 170.32
Hendrickx (Belgium) 164.21
Brezina (Czech Republic) 160.92
Overall standings
Chen (USA) 297.35
Zhou (USA) 276.69
Kolyada (OAR) 264.25
Rippon (USA) 259.36
Bychenko (Israel) 257.01
Messing (Canada) 255.43
Samohin (Israel) 251.44
Hendrickx (Belgium) 248.95
Cha (South Korea) 248.59
Brezina (Czech Republic) 246.07
Ge (Uzbekistan) 244.94
Tanaka (Japan) 244.83
Vasiljevs (Latvia) 234.58
Kerry (Australia) 233.81
Rizzo (Italy) 232.41
Fentz (Germany) 214.55
Yan (China) 213.01
Kvitelashvili (Georgia) 204.57
Six skaters to go.
Rippon’s scores: 171.41 free, 259.36 overall.
All three Americans will finish in the top 10.
Does anyone spin as beautifully as Adam Rippon?
He’s nearly heaving with joy when he finishes, and he wipes away tears. That was simply wonderful.
His technical score ... ah, who cares? That was a joy to watch. (And it’s actually not bad at all.)
Rippon’s triple-double-double combo is slightly shaky. Everything else about this is immaculate. Some of his component scores should get the Nigel Tufnel 11.
Adam Rippon is up ...
He has no quads planned. But his triple-triple is smooth as silk. That’s silk without sequins.
Guess who’s up next?
Brezina gets a 160.92 in the free skate, 246.07 overall. He drops way down.
Brezina’s triple axel is good, as is a triple-double-double combo. Then he botches the landing on a triple salchow, his last jump.
He’s finished 10th in the last two Olympics. That’ll be tough to match. He was ninth after the short program, and Chen and Zhou just flew past him.
Czech skater Michal Brezina is up, and the Human listed on his program is the one by Rag’n’Bone Man, which works quite well for a skating program. Unfortunately, he lands awkwardly on his opening quad, another quad becomes a double, and this is not Ben E. King singing Stand By Me.
Kolyada’s scores: 177.56 free, 264.25 overall.
But Leslie Jones digs it ...
Somebody like Elvis!! Elvis played a Villian once didn’t he? @NBCOlympics @olympics pic.twitter.com/gP287od56b
— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) February 17, 2018
On the other hand ...
I'm not sure Elvis was the greatest choice for Mikhail...I'm not feeling it.
— Gracie Gold (@GraceEGold) February 17, 2018
Kolyada racks up more points with his third quad and a triple-single-triple combination. But a triple axel becomes a single, and he falls again. He won’t catch Zhou, let alone Chen.
Olympic Athletes from Russia’s Mikhail Kolyada is eighth after the short program and could catch Chen. A fall on a quad lutz erases any reasonable chance of that happening. He does land a quad-triple combo for 16.17 points, though, so Zhou might be in reach.
He’s skating to Elvis tunes that I can’t hear because the screen with my audio just froze.
Updated
Zhou’s scores: 192.16 for the free skate, 276.69 overall. Easily in second place for now.
Oh my. His technical score stands at 120. That’s just 7.64 points behind Chen. But he only had a 2.26-point advantage over Chen from the short program.
Still, this will easily move him to second place. Maybe top five overall? Or sixth? Very good performance.
Zhou also landed two triple axels, the first in combination with a double toeloop.
Could he pass Chen?
Zhou’s first combo got 19.19 points. The next two combined for more than 20.
TWO MORE QUADS. That’s five.
Vincent Zhou (USA) lands a quad lutz-triple toeloop like I land my aging rear end into a seat on the couch. But the quad flip has an awkward landing. The quad salchow is good, and David Bowie is singing a tune from Moulin Rouge. Pretty good for a 17-year-old and reigning world junior champion.
Messing gets a 170.32 in the free skate, 255.43 overall. He splits the difference between the two Israeli skaters and lands in third for now.
Here’s Vincent Zhou, who has five quads listed in his program. Until about 45 minutes ago, that was unheard-of.
I almost get this. At times, he’s actually acting like Charlie Chaplin. If Chaplin could do two quads and a triple axel, that is. This really isn’t bad, and his technical score is close to 90. That’s not Chen’s 127.64, but again, no one outside of the Big Four can come close to that.
Canada’s Keegan Messing is skating to what’s called a “Charlie Chaplin medley.” Gotta get that octogenarian demographic.
A quad toeloop looks good, but a single axel to start a combination was supposed to be a triple. He does land a quad-double combination -- supposed to be quad-triple, but that’s not bad, and it’s clean. He jumps so well that Canada’s basketball team will surely offer to bring him to training camp after this.
Naturally, his bio quotes Wayne Gretzky.
The crowd gives Hendrickx a warm ovation. His technical scores are more than 45 points lower than Chen’s, but that was never the goal here. It was an expressive skate.
Judges say: 164.21, total of 248.95.
Meanwhile, in math:
Nathan Chen has a real shot at a medal.
— Paul Carr (@PCarrESPN) February 17, 2018
If each of the 12 remaining men posted his personal-best free-skate score, only three of them would pass Chen (Yuzuru Hanyu, Javier Fernández, Jin Boyang).
Hendrickx has one of those jarring juxtapositions of slow, almost minimalist music with a flurry of spins and gestures on the ice. I would like a word with his choreographer. Or whoever picked his music. It picks up with a bit of flamenco castanets, but only briefly.
He did add to a planned triple-double combo, though, turning it into a triple-double-double. And he does it again a bit later. Maybe he’ll get a career high out of this? That’s not nothing.
Belgium’s Jorit Hendrickx really should be skating to Purple Haze, but he’s not. His career-best free skate is 167.91. If he can add about 50 points to that with no planned quads, he can catch Nathan Chen. He actually needs to match that score just to move into third.
But he can improve upon his 16th from Sochi.
U.S. women’s curlers beat OAR in an extra end. If I go to sleep now, I can wake up in time to see them face Canada, who’s a startling 0-3. And I can see USA-OAR men’s hockey in what should be a mismatch, but they said that in 1980, right?
The introductions for Group 3 are underway. Vincent Zhou will go third. Adam Rippon sixth.
I miss going to the Olympics in person. I don’t miss mixed zones.
Somewhere in there is Nathan Chen, who says he tried to deny it but was nervous here. pic.twitter.com/kYlG1bMbZl
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) February 17, 2018
Scores at the halfway point ...
Free skates, Group 2
Chen (USA) 215.08
Bychenko (Israel) 172.88
Samohin (Israel) 170.75
Cha (South Korea) 165.16
Ge (Uzbekistan) 161.04
Kerry (Australia) 150.75
Overall standings
Chen 297.35
Bychenko 257.01
Samohin 251.44
Cha 248.59
Ge 244.94
Tanaka (Japan) 244.83
Vasiljevs (Latvia) 234.58
Kerry 233.81
Rizzo (Italy) 232.41
Fentz (Germany) 214.55
Yan (China) 213.01
Kvitelashvili (Georgia) 204.57
It’s a slightly awkward transition from Shine On You Crazy Diamond to Money. And frankly, there have been some awkward transitions throughout this program. It actually seems a little worse when you know the music, and the jumps seem like they’re supposed to be synced up to the song but aren’t quite there. He nearly comes to a full stop as he struggles to land a triple.
He won’t be challenging Chen, in other words. Of course, we may not see anyone in the next group challenge Chen.
Kerry is the last skater before they clean the ice, so feel free to go over and watch Lindsey Vonn or some curling. I’ll check out tweets and emails during the break after reporting his score.
Australia’s Brendan Kerry starts moving as Rick Wright’s plaintive keyboards kick in. He is not yet shining on though, changing a quad to a double.
His next quad is nicely timed to some drums, but he only does a triple.
David Gilmour solos through his sequences of spins and other non-jumping moves. It’s quite cool.
Jun-hwan was born in the year 2001. I have never felt older.
— Gracie Gold (@GraceEGold) February 17, 2018
Hey, at my first job, I was the first person hired there who was born in the 70s. Adulthood flies quickly.
Cha’s scores: 165.16 free, 248.59 total.
Cha skates pretty cleanly. That was fine. He’s just stuck between Nathan Chen’s sextuple-quad performance and Australia’s Brendan Kerry, who’s up next skating to Pink Floyd.
Even my roommates who know nothing about skating could appreciate the exquisite quality of Nathan's skating. He's a different caliber of skater than the other men in this warm-up.
— Gracie Gold (@GraceEGold) February 17, 2018
Cha Jung-wan (South Korea) is coached by the legendary Canadian Brian Orser. A triple-triple combo goes well. Then he falls on a quad.
He’s only 16. Has to be thrilled to be here.
Ge gets a 161.04 in the free skate, 244.94 overall. He’s ahead of Tanaka and behind the two Israeli skaters. And more than 50 points behind Chen.
Misha Ge (Uzbekistan) has no quads planned. He’s skating to weepy violin music. He was 17th in Sochi and sixth in the 2015 World Championships.
And he’s not bad at all. He lands a triple axel-single loop-double combo. And a triple-triple. It’s all very elegant, and if you’re into weepy violin music, it’s fine.
Nathan Chen hits back with huge score
Free skate: 215.08, more than 10 points above his personal best. Only two men have ever beaten that. (Granted, they’re here in Pyeongchang, and they had great short programs -- Hanyu and Fernandez.)
Total: 297.35. Only four men have ever done better than that.
First time someone has done five quads at the Olympics, Weir reminds us. And he actually did six. He put his hand down on one landing. Other than that, he did everything he could possibly do.
SIX. QUADS. @nathanwchen MAKES HISTORY. pic.twitter.com/1kSmH0EKrc
— U.S. Figure Skating (@USFigureSkating) February 17, 2018
Updated
Nathan Chen just threw down. He certainly has a lot of points to make up to reach the podium, but this will vault him up the standings.
More importantly ... he just did it. He showed why we’ve all hyped him. Six quads. Technical score is in the high 120s.
MAKE IT SIX! Chen has landed six quads. Then a triple axel. His technical score is spinning upward like the price of oil when the cartels are grumpy.
Chen gets to bonus time. (More points for jumps in the second half of the program.)
Quad-triple! Wow.
And another quad! He has indeed done five quads, and he’s still standing, folks.
Nearly 30 points on his first two elements. Then a quad flip -- he puts down a hand but stays upright.
His spins and steps seem nice as well.
Now the big jumping runs ...
Chen did land a couple of quads in warmups. My guess is he goes for all five he has listed on his program.
Quad lutz -- success. Supposed to be a combo, though. Maybe the next one?
Quad flip/double toe. So far, so good ...
Nathan Chen is up ...
Let’s put this in context: Chen’s career best in the short program, set earlier this season, is 104.12. He scored 82.27 here. He’s one of only five men ever to break the 300-point mark. The other four in the top four places here.
What can he do here to salvage something from these Games?
(Meanwhile, Samohin moves into second behind Bychenko. Both quite solid.)
Samohin lands a triple axel-single-triple combo. That’s nearly 16 points. But he bails on his last quad, turning it into a double. And to my untrained eye, his spins don’t seem totally fluid. (Not just me, apparently, because he gets yellow boxes on his tech score signifying they’re under review.) Hey, nobody’s perfect.
Another Israeli, Daniel Samohin, is only 19 to Bychenko’s 30. And it’s East Coast/West Coast. Bychenko trains in New Jersey; Samohin in California.
Like Bychenko, Samohin starts out with a solid quad-triple (16.17 points). Then a wild but eventually controlled landing on a quad. A triple axel gets 10.17 points for now. We’ll see what happens on the tricky combinations he’s saving for bonus time in the second half of the program.
The triple axels don’t go as well. One nearly turned into a McTwist, but Bychenko managed to remain upright. A triple axel-double toe combination turned into a double-double. But he glides through a triple-single-triple combo for 12.04 points.
This is very good. He was a career-high 10th in the World Championships last year. He was 13th after the free skate. Another top 10?
Long wait for the scores -- 172.88 in the free skate, 257.01 overall.
Israel’s Alexei Bychenko was 21st in Sochi. He previously competed for Ukraine but was Israel’s flag bearer in Pyeongchang.
And hey! Someone is completing quads without falling down? He hits a quad-triple combo, then a quad solo. The provisional technical scores for those elements: 16.46, 12.01. That’s pretty good.
The music is Pagliacci, which fans of The Simpsons cannot hear without thinking, “We are out of Rice Krispies!”
The judges are reviewing his change-foot-combination spin for some reason.
Hello!
— DerekHero (@derekhero0178) February 17, 2018
Re: The question above.
Yes, yes he is.
Re: "Also, Imagine Dragons are boring. (Hey, tweet me or email me if you disagree.)"
I do actually disagree. However, I do like to point out that to have Imagine Dragon as part of anyone's program needs to have more intense energy.
Yeah, I’d be game for seeing someone really emote to Radioactive. But when I hear that song, I always think of Weird Al’s parody, which is much better.
Scores from first group ...
Also known as “people who could pass Nathan Chen for 17th place if he can’t land any of these quads”:
Free skate
Tanaka (Japan) 164.78
Rizzo (Italy) 156.78
Vasiljevs (Latvia) 155.06
Fentz (Germany) 139.82
Yan (China) 132.38
Kvitelashvili (Georgia) 128.01
Totals
Tanaka (Japan) 244.83
Vasiljevs (Latvia) 234.58
Rizzo (Italy) 232.41
Fentz (Germany) 214.55
Yan (China) 213.01
Kvitelashvili (Georgia) 204.57
And his program just ... ends. That really wasn’t good.
Do the guys who have no chance of medaling really have to try jumps? Kvitelashvili hits the ice a couple of times. “Disastrous,” says Johnny Weir. he’s not wrong.
Also, Imagine Dragons are boring. (Hey, tweet me or email me if you disagree.)
Georgia’s Morisi Kvitelashvili is 22. He was Georgia’s flag-bearer.
And yes, it’s an Imagine Dragons medley. He tries quads. He lands on the ice.
Another quad from Tanaka, and while the landing is rough, he stays upright. Can’t say the same for his triple-axel combination. That’s two falls, which will mean two mandatory point deductions. What’s worse, though, is not finishing the combinations. He makes up for it by tacking some seemingly random stuff onto his final jump, turning it into a triple-double-double combination that gives him 10.71 points (for now).
So his technical scores are higher than his predecessors. Even with the two falls, he’ll likely move into first place so far. If all 19 of the remaining skaters should fail ...
Japan’s Keiji Tanaka is skating to music from Fellini films, which seems old-fashioned even to me, and I’m in my late 40s.
His first quad is perfect. His quad-double combo turns into a quad-pick-yourself-up-off-the-ice. But you can’t go wrong with playful spins during a clarinet solo, can you?
Fentz wins the battle for 23rd. Yan’s free skate is scored at 132.38. He did get an 8.36 for skating skills, which must not include the whole “jumping and landing” aspect of things. “Interpretation of the music” is only 8.00, and I will dispute that until my dying day. At least a 9.
Yan finally lands a jump and comes within about an inch of the padding on the boards. A planned combo turned into a single lutz. The point value appears to be 0.66. His triple-double combo was 11.66, and you’ll see plenty of double-digit elements down the road.
The little box showing his technical scores is green and red like a bad Christmas sweater.
He was 19th after the short program and had a considerable cushion over Fentz, who has settled into last place at the moment. Barring an upcoming disaster, that’ll be a battle for 23rd place.
But the music was great. And when he wasn’t jumping, the skating was sublime.
China’s Yan Han has been tailing off in international competition. Seventh in the Olympics and World Championships in 2014, then down to 26th in 2016. He missed the 2017 World Championships with a shoulder fracture.
I don’t know this song -- I’ll Take Care of You, sung by Beth Hart -- but it’s soulful. And his triple-triple combo is smooth -- oops, it turned into a triple-double, which isn’t as good here as it is in basketball.
Then a hand down on the next jump, then an ugly fall on the one after that.
Just enjoy the guitar solo. This is terrific.
A double axel became a single. He’s lagging behind on technical scores, and he sticks out his tongue afterwards. Weir says if he could give a program a color, it would be “oatmealy.” We don’t always have the best in international sports coverage in the USA, but our figure skating commentators are world-class.
Germany’s Paul Fentz is dressed for war as the Game of Thrones music starts. His bio says he serves in the armed forces.
He had a quad in the program but opted for a triple instead. That’ll be costly. And he lands awkwardly on a triple axel. But this is entertaining, even for those of us who barely know anything about Game of Thrones. (Hey, we can’t all afford premium cable.)
Now we’re into a somber piano-and-string rendition of Let It Be, and I’m finding it difficult to get into this. His jumps just seem a little labored, and the transition from Let It Be to Help! is jarring. Then he skates away doing some sort of Walk Like an Egyptian hand movement, as if confusing the Beatles with the Bangles.
156.78 for Rizzo, ahead of Vasiljevs but not by enough to make up the gap from the short program.
Matteo Rizzo (Italy) has been on camera more than the curling teams, skating in both phases of the team event. The Beatles medley starts with Come Together. He looks a little wobbly on his jumps, but the judges don’t seem to mind.
Vasiljevs gets a 155.06 for the free skate, 234.58 total. For sake of comparison, Hanyu got a 223.20 in the free skate alone at last year’s World Championships. (He won, of course.)
Once again, Vasiljevs nails a difficult combination, then falls on something simpler.
He starts to have some fun toward the end, though. He stops suddenly on an abrupt pause in the music, one of the few times the skating seemed to go with Buble’s singing.
Probably a guy to watch in Beijing in four years.
I was told this would begin at 8:08 p.m. ET. It’s 8:09. Come on.
Vasiljevs gets us going. He starts with a “very easy” triple axel-triple toeloop combination in Tara Lipinski’s words. Yeah, like we could do that. It’s clean, but his next triple axel is not, and he tumbles. The quad is up next, and ... he opts for a triple instead.
Here we go ...
I have my toast with Nutella, I have multiple screens going so I can listen to Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, I have printouts with all the planned elements and music ... let’s do this.
First up is Dennis Vasiljev of Latvia. He looks 12 but is actually 18. He took silver in the Youth Olympics in 2016. Michael Buble apparently sings a couple of the tunes in his medley.
What about music? Now that skaters can use music with lyrics (a change since the 2014 Olympics), we have a wider variety of tunes available. It’s also led to some amusing efforts to suggest all sort of new music, such as this routine set to Hank Williams Jr. by the enterprising people at Slate.
Some highlights tonight ...
Italy’s Matteo Rizzo (up second) skates to a Beatles medley.
Germany’s Paul Fentz (third) skates to music from Game of Thrones.
Georgia’s Morisi Kvitelashvili (sixth) has a medley starting with Radioactive. Not sure if that’s Imagine Dragons or The Firm. (Your commentator tonight is old.)
Australia’s Brendan Kerry (12th) lines up some Pink Floyd -- Shine On Your Crazy Diamond and Money.
USA’s Vincent Zhou (15th) has some music from Moulin Rouge.
Russia’s Mikhail Koyada (16th) has an Elvis medley. (Presley, that is. Not Costello, as wonderful as that would be.)
The Czech Republic’s Michal Brezina (17th) has Human (plenty of songs with that title) and Stand By Me, allegedly the Ben E. King version.
USA’s Adam Rippon (18th) brings the Coldplay.
China’s Jin Boyang (20th) will include some music from The Planets and some from Star Wars. Spacey.
Canada’s Patrick Chan (21st) has the haunting strains of Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah.
How many quads will we see tonight? Programs are always subject to change, but here’s how many we have planned per skater:
Vasiljevs (Latvia) 1
Rizzo (Italy) 0
Fentz (Germany) 1
Yan (China) 1
Tanaka (Japan) 3
Kvitelashvili (Georgia) 3
Bychenko (Israel) 2
Samohin (Israel) 3
Chen (USA) 5
Ge (Uzbekistan) 0
Cha (South Korea) 1
Kerry (Australia) 3
Hendrickx (Belgium) 0
Messing (Canada) 2
Zhou (USA) 5
Kolyada (OAR) 3
Brezina (Czech Republic) 2
Rippon (USA) 0
Aliev (OAR) 2
Jin (China) 4
Chan (Canada) 2
Hanyu (Japan) 4
Fernandez (Spain) 3
Uno (Japan) 4
On Nathan Chen ...
From his first coach, Stephanee Grosscup, via Amanda Doyle, who wrote about Chen earlier this month.
You know, the last year I remember him saying that he was afraid he was going to let everybody down because he had so much media attention that they had built him up, and I just said, “Nathan,” I said, “You’re the perfect poster child so just remember that. You know it’s OK. ... And then when it comes time for you to put those blinders on and remember that this is about you and the love of craft and the joy that you get out of there. This your thing.
The schedule, in case you plan on skipping any of this for some reason ...
Nathan Chen is set to skate at 9:22 p.m. ET.
Australia’s Brendan Kerry is scheduled for 9:47:40 p.m. ET. Yes, they give seconds. In Sydney, where Kerry was born, it’ll be 1:47 p.m. And 40 seconds. Can’t forget those.
They’ll resurface the ice halfway through, and then the top 12 start at 10:19 p.m. ET. That’ll include Americans Vincent Zhou (10:35:40) and Adam Rippon (11:00:40).
Finally, the top six start at 11:17 p.m. ET. The last three are the top three after the short program: Yuzuru Hanyu (11:43), Javier Fernandez (11:51:40) and Shoma Uno (midnight and 20 seconds).
Friendly rivals?
⛸🇯🇵 Politeness: Yuzuru Hanyu crawls behind teammate Shoma Uno so he doesn't interrupt interview.
— CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) February 16, 2018
Watch them battle for gold tonight at 8 PM ET on https://t.co/RYczD0ntLu
📸 Asahi Shimbun (@asahi) pic.twitter.com/R3fr9HXSRY
Good evening. They don’t call it figure skating because it involves a lot of math, but they might as well, given the complex scoring system.
And the math doesn’t look good for Nathan Chen. He scored 82.27 points in his short program and stands 17th heading into tonight’s free skate. He could land quad after quad in this competition (and he’ll try), but that’s not likely to land him on the podium.
Fellow American Adam Rippon is closer, standing seventh, but he doesn’t have the heavy-duty quads in his routine that would help him move up. We’re likely looking at a battle between Spain’s Javier Hernandez and the Japanese stars, leader Yuzuru Hanyu and Shoma Uno. China’s Jin Boyang isn’t far behind. Then the scores drop off a bit.
But this is figure skating. Whether you’re watching a medal contender or someone just making the most of five minutes in the global spotlight, it’s always entertaining.
Competition starts in about 55 minutes.
Beau will be here shortly, in the meantime why not read more about Nathan Chen’s remarkable rise:
The best athletes of all time are so awe-inspiring that their greatness can feel predestined. It’s unfathomable to think of Michael Jordan, Serena Williams or Michael Phelps not discovering their transcendent talents, though there is a sense that the discipline that helped them ascend to the top of their sports would have led them to success in some other industry. But whether through happenstance or divine intervention, these phenoms found their calling and fulfilled a seemingly preordained destiny.
The same could be augured about Nathan Chen, a remarkably gifted figure skater from Salt Lake City who is poised to make history at the Winter Olympics this month in Pyeongchang. He is quiet and unassuming, in many ways a typical 18-year-old, whose slight, 5ft 6in frame belies the explosive power contained within – power that’s unleashed each time he completes one of his dizzying quadruple jumps. He wouldn’t warrant a second glance if you passed him on the street, but the moment he skates onto the ice, he is impossible to ignore.
You can read the full article here:
