Skater Nathan Chen finally gets his gold medal

SCREEN CAPTURE

Nathan Chen finishes his near-perfect routine.

WITH HIS disappointing Olympic performance still fresh in his memory, American Nathan Chen won the World Championship in convincing fashion, almost 50 points above his nearest competitor.

"I felt the pressure, but I used what I learned from the Olympics and tried to bring it here,” Chen said, “’Having that experience will propel me in the future better than if I had done the short program better.”

The 18-year old successfully repeated his Olympic long-program feat of six quads that almost put him with reach of the medals podium but falling short in fifth place. This time, his competitors were the ones making the mistakes: 14 sprawls, splats, and tumbles among five competitors as they attempted the all-mighty quad. There were three falls by silver medalist Shoma Uno of Japan, who matched his Olympic silver, and two by Mikhail Kolyada of Russia, who took bronze.

Skating last, Chen said he knew the others made mistakes and that gave him the confidence to attempt six quads knowing he had a little cushion in case he made an error.

Fellow American Vincent Zhou, the youngest skater on the Olympic team, fell three times in the final skate, tumbling to 14th place after a strong short program put him within striking distance of the podium.

By winning the world championships on Saturday, Chen became the first U.S. male singles skater to do so since Evan Lysacek in 2009 and the youngest man from any nation since Yevgeny Plushenko in 2001.

“I can’t even begin to describe how angry I am at myself for letting such an important FS [free skate] get away from me,” tweeted Zhou.

Even though Olympic gold medal winner Yuzuru Hanyu and bronze medalist Javier Fernandez, did not compete at worlds, Chen said he values this victory no less.

_______________________________________________________________________________