Nathan Chen dominates men's skating; AAPI skaters on worlds' team

SCREEN CAPTURE / YOUTUBE

Nathan Chen skating his short program.

Watch out! Nathan Chen is on a mission with a vengeance. Since he finished in the 2018 Olympics with a disappointing performance, winning a bronze medal instead of the predicted gold, he hasn't lost a single competition.

The Yale sophomore continued his unbeaten streak Sunday (Jan. 26) by winning the US men's figures skating championship in dominating fashion.  It was the fourth straight year he won that title. Though it wasn't his cleanest skate (Chen is recovering from the flu), he still scored an impressive 216.04 points.

Combined with his record-setting short program, Chen finished with a total score of 330.17, a whopping 37.29 points above the second-place finisher Jason Brown.

During his long performance, perhaps because of his illness, Chen appeared to hold back even though he easily landed a pair of quad toe loops, a quad flip and a quad Salchow.

He’s undefeated since placing fifth at the PyeongChang Olympics with a disastrous 17th-place short program. Only a stupendous free skate in which he performed six quadruple jumps vaulted him to third place.

There was a bit of minor controversy between the third and fourth place competitors.

Tomoki Hiwatashi, the world junior champion, jumped from fifth to third after landing a pair of quads in a clean free skate. Usually that would be enough to be named to the three-man world championships team.

But that spot was instead given by a U.S. Figure Skating committee to fourth-place finisher Vincent Zhou, who has more international experience.

Olympian Zhou finished fourth with one quad in his free skate. Zhou had minor errors on some of his jump landings. As a freshman at Brown Universitiy, Zhou skipped training for the entire autumn. He only had a month of training before the nationals after moving to Toronto in late December and had a change in coaches.

The same kind of reasoning went into the decision to drop silver medalist Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson from representing the US at the worlds. The committee awarded the second pairs spot to the more experienced team of Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, who finished fourth.

Dance team consisting of first-place finisher Hawaiian Chinese American Madison Chock and her partner Evan Bates will compete in the ice dance competition at world's.

Calalang and Johnson will still be able to represent the US at the Four Continents Championships next month.

WIKI COMMONS

US champion Alysa Liu at 13 years of age, is too young for international competition.

Alysa Liu, who won the women's title, will not be in the US team for world's because she is too young for international competition. It is expected that the Oakland, Calif. skater will compete in the world junior championship.

2018 Olympian Karen Chen, who finished fourth in the women's competition, won't be on the world's team but will skate for the US at the Four Continents Championships.

AAPI skaters will continue to have a strong presence in US figure skating for the foreseeable future to at least the 2011 Olympics. In the 2018 Olympics, seven of the 14 figure skaters, seven were AAPI athletes.

The world championships are set for March 16-22 in Montreal. The Four Continents Championships will run Feb. 3-9 in Seoul. 

Nathan Chen threepeats at U.S. Figure Skating Champiionship

US. FIGURE SKATING

NNATHAN CHEN

By Louis Chan
ASAM NEWS

Nathan Chen is so dominating his sport the commentators are running out of superlatives to describe it.

The Utah native scored 342 points to dominate the U.S. Figure Skating Championships winning his third straight U.S. Championship.

“All hail Nathan, the great. He took me to another world, said Johnny Weir, the last U.S. skater to win three straight championships. “There is a dreamy quality to the music selection. He’s taken skating to an entirely new world.”

Tara Lipinsky, who won Olympic gold in 1998, went over-the-top in her praise.

“He is a god. He is not human,” she proclaimed. “This is it, guys. This is what skating is about. He’s pushing the boundaries."

Chen so dominated with his multiple quad jumps that the only suspense going into Sunday’s free skate was which skater would take second place -- Vincent Zhou of San Jose or Jason Brown of Los Angeles. Brown held a narrow lead over Zhou after the short program. In the end, Zhou finished second, about 58 points behind Chen after Brown fell while attempting a quad in the long program.

“I’m so happy right now,” Chen said about his victory. “That program went exactly as I wanted it to.”

Chen will skip next month's Four Continents Championship in California in order to concentrate on his Yale studies. Although he is a heavy favorite going into the Worlds March 18-24 in Japan, Chen isn’t taking anything for granted.

“Worlds is a whole another ballgame,” he cautioned.

After the competition, the top three men, Chen, Zhou and Brown were chosen to represent the U.S. at the World's Championship. Waiting in the wings if any of thte top three could not compete is the No. 1 alternate, Tomoki Hiwatashi.

Views From the Edge contributed to this report.
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