Adam Rippon competes in his short program at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 on February 16, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea.
Advertisement
Now Rippon sits ahead of Chen after the Olympic figure skating men’s short program. Rippon (87.95) and Zhou (84.53) are seventh and 12th, respectively. “In those three weeks, why do I need to try more than I ever have?”
Despite PyeongChang being her fourth Winter Olympics, 32-year-old Jacobellis has only earned one silver Olympic medal. His scored a personal best 215.08 points in the segment, bringing his overall score up to 297.35 after a disappointing short program.
It was a tough race for Team USA’s Lindsey Jacobellis, who was just barely edged off of the podium. “That just tightened me up, made me really cautious on the ice, and that’s not the way to skate”. He faces tough competition against Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu and OAR’s Mikhail Kolyada.
That was before the short program. Hanyu landed his opening quad salchow, a triple axel, and a quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination – with arms above the head on the back half of the combo. He stumbled out of the landing on both his next quad jump and the triple axel that followed.
Zhou wasn’t the only skater to land the quadruple lutz.
“The only thing I can take away from it is to be prepared for the Pooh-bears to be raining down from the audience”. As he finished, and the crowd came to its feet, stuffed animals were thrown on the ice. It used to be that, if a man had one good quad and a decent program in his repertoire, he was set.
“I just thought to do my best”.
Shoma Uno (Japan): The current Japanese champion has the flexibility and musicality of his idol Daisuke Takahashi, plus some showstopping tricks like his cantilever (essentially leaning all the way back while squatting-and sliding-across the ice).
Hanyu is in prime position to land the goal medal, although there are lingering doubts over the defending champion because of an ankle injury he picked up in training in November.
“I am disappointed in myself mostly”, Chan told reporters after the short program.
Chen was in 13th place with a score of 82.27 after his performance and continued to slide.
American Dick Button was the last man to win back-to-back titles.
Javier Fernández (Spain): He won his sixth consecutive European Championship (tying a record of more than 80 years’ standing) last month.
Chen, one of the most talked about figure skaters of the 2018 Winter Olympics, missed on all his jumps. Today was a hard day.
Nathan Chen is really just like all of us – he has a massive crush on Emma Watson.
Such is Hanyu’s presence that Chen was faced with questions from reporters about whether being drawn to perform after him would have any impact on his own routine.
“I trained here the first time this morning, and the second time (is) in competition”, he said with a grin. “Nathan is dealing with a lot of variables”.
“My narrative is very different”, the Torontonian said in an interview before the Olympics. So he’s thinking, where am I practicing today. “I am not sure exactly what to do”.
Advertisement
Maybe what Chen needs is some of teammate Rippon’s infectious exuberance.
