Nathan Chen lays Olympics marker down with flawless short program skate

Nathan Chen insisted this was not about redemption. The world’s most dominant figure skater over the past 47 months has not spent much time dwelling on his catastrophic Olympic debut in 2018, saying that he is motivated not by the scoreboard but by treating every competition as an opportunity to showcase his hard work while trying to enjoy himself the best that he can.

But results do matter. And from the crisp opening quadruple flip of his short program in the Olympic figure skating team competition on Friday morning, it was clear the American’s struggles on the sport’s biggest stage are firmly in the past and his arc remains firmly on course for a storybook ending in next week’s main event.

The 22-year-old from southern California by way of Salt Lake City put down a flawless skate to open his second Olympics and finished with a personal-best score of 111.71 – the second-highest tally of all time and a scant .11 off the world record held by Yuzuru Hanyu, the Japanese superstar who is Chen’s primary rival in the men’s singles and did not compete on Friday.

The Americans are off to a flying start thanks to Chen in their chase for a third straight medal in the team competition, a lead that held up through the rhythm dance and the pairs’ short program.

“Any time you skate a good program whether it’s in practice or competition, it feels good,” Chen said afterward at the Capital Indoor Stadium. “It feels great to be able to have a short program that I actually skated well at an Olympics. I’ll take as much as I can from this experience and then take it day by day here.”

Chen, a junior at Yale who has taken a leave of absence from his studies to focus on the Olympics, has gently pushed back on the redemption narrative throughout