BEIJING, China — Nathan Chen has set the world record during his short program at the Beijing Olympics, scoring 113.97 points to break the previous mark set by longtime rival Yuzuru Hanyu and putting himself in position to win his long-sought gold medal.
The third skater from the end, Chen opened with a perfect quad flip, breezed through the triple axel that sometimes gives him problems and drilled a quad lutz-triple toe loop that by itself scored more than 21 points.
His total was more than five points ahead of Yuma Kagiyama, who sits in second place, and nearly 20 points ahead of Hanyu, the two-time Olympic champion who bailed on his opening quad attempt during a calamitous short program.
All that’s left for Chen, whose poor short program four years ago cost him a medal opportunity in Pyeongchang, is to hold onto his lead through Thursday’s free skate at historical Capital Indoor Stadium.
The showdown between Chen and Hanyu was one of the marquee events of the Winter Olympics, so much so that their programs started around 10 a.m. in Beijing so that they could be broadcast in prime time in the eastern U.S. Many of the other events in which the American contingent is not expected to medal will take place in the evening in Beijing.
That’s the kind of attention that the 22-year-old Chen has generated ever since leaving South Korea.
Rather than sit back and rest, Chen drilled even harder into his programs with his longtime coach, Rafael Arutyunyan, even while he juggled his studies at Yale. And the results came through on the ice, where Chen has won three consecutive world championships, pushed his national championship streak to six and has been generally unbeatable.
His only loss since Pyeongchang? To his teammate Zhou at Skate America last fall.
The reason he’s been so dominant has been his array of quads, the jump that was once cutting edge but now has become standard fare. Most of the skaters in the field can land them but few do so with the degree of elevation, difficulty and, well, panache — not to mention the remarkable consistency that sees Chen rarely hit the ice.
“If I wake up on the right side of the bed they are effortless,” he joked, “and if not, they are not so effortless. I try my best; sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad. As with anything, you learn any time you make a mistake, and you try to make it better the next time.”
Val Lick contributed to this report.