Beijing: Nathan Chen flipped, whirled and even punched his way to a world-record score in the men’s figure skating short programme at the Beijing Winter Olympics here Tueday. Next up for the Salt Lake City native: an expected and long-awaited coronation as Olympic champion.
Chen made history in a historic venue Tuesday, crushing the world record with a score of 113.97 at Capital Indoor Stadium, site of the 1971 ping pong diplomacy matches between the United States and China.
Chen shined on a day when the US women’s hockey team lost 2-4 to rival Canada in the preliminary round and San Francisco native Eileen Gu brushed aside a torrent of hate on social media and won the gold medal in freeski big air while representing China.
Dressed in his typical, suave black-and-white suit, Chen performed perhaps his favourite programme to ‘La Boheme’, the 1960s standard by the French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour. When it was over, he had confidently made up for his poor short programme four years at the Pyeongchang Games.
Opening with a perfect quad flip, the 22-year-old Chen breezed through his often-vexing triple axel and then drilled his quad flip-triple toe loop combination. He skated to a stop and, in a rare show of emotion, punched the air with his right fist.
“I was just elated,” Chen said. “At the last Olympics, both of the short programmes didn’t go the way I wanted. To finally get an opportunity to skate the programmes I wanted feels really good.,” Chen added.
Chen’s score was nearly two points more than the previous world record set by two-time defending Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu. To win the gold medal, Chen needs to hold off Japanese rivals Yuma Kagiyama and Shoma Uno in Thursday’s free skate. Hanyu finished eighth Tuesday.
FREE-THINKING FREESTYLE SKIER
American-born Eileen struck back at her many critics by winning the gold medal in the debut of freeski big air and then defiantly answering questions about why she spurned Team USA to represent China at the Beijing Games.
The 18-year-old Eileen is an American citizen whose mother is Chinese. Eileen estimates she has spent at least a quarter of her life in China. She sided with China in 2019, saying she wants to encourage girls and women to take up winter sports.
“If people don’t believe me, if people don’t like me, then that’s their loss,” Eileen said. “They’re never going to win the Olympics.”
China does not allow dual citizenship. It’s unclear whether Eileen, who plans to attend Stanford, gave up her US passport.
What is clear is that Eileen stuck the best performance of her life at Big Air Shougang, where the ski hill is set among the imposing cooling towers and smokestacks of a closed steel mill. She landed a double cork 1620 for the first time in her career in her final turn to stun Tess Ledeux of France. It’s a move in which skiers spin 4 1/2 times while rotating twice off-axis while 20-some feet in the air.
“I want all the girls to break their boundaries,” Eileen said in Chinese, via an interpreter. “I want them to think if Eileen can do it, I can do it.”
Tennis player Peng Shuai, who has rarely appeared publicly since accusing a Chinese official of sexual assault, was in the stands.