Nathan Chen shattered the world record during his short program at the Beijing Olympics—scoring 113.97 Tuesday to beat the previous mark of his nemesis Yuzuru Hanyu and put himself in a position to win his elusive gold medal.
The 22-year-old Chen avenged his poor performance from the last Olympics and opened with a perfect quad flip, made short work of a tricky triple axel, and then landed his quad flip-triple toe loop combo in an awe-inspiring performance.
Chen’s total was nearly six points ahead of second-place Yuma Kagiyama and nearly 20 ahead of two-time Olympic champion Hanyu.
“I was just elated,” said Chen. “At the last Olympics, both of the short programs didn’t go the way I wanted. To finally get an opportunity to skate the programs I wanted feels really good.”
A free skate Thursday is the only thing standing between Chen and his dream to become an Olympic champ.
“There’s a lot of preparation that goes into it and a lot of things that you learn from year to year,” he said. “So I definitely picked up a lot of experience over the past couple of years, and certainly you learn the most from your mistakes.”
Kagiyama nailed a pair of quads and a triple axel during his program to finish with 108.12 points, while fellow Japanese skater and reigning Olympic silver medalist Shoma Uno came in third with 105.90 points.
“I feel really shocked today, but I have one more chance,” said Hanyu, who believes his skate hit a hole early in his short program which led to him finishing in eighth place at 95.15.
The showdown between Chen and Hanyu has been building since the last Olympics when Chen had what he called a “disastrous” short program in Pyeongchang that took him out of medal contention.
