Nathan Chen, US lead team figure skating at Beijing Olympics

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BEIJING  — It was supposed to be a foregone conclusion that Russia’s powerful stable of figure skaters, including world champions in three of the four disciplines, would run away the team gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.

Nathan Chen and the rest of the Americans must have taken exception.

The three-time world champ’s winning short program set the tone for Team USA on Friday, and everyone else followed suit. Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue won the rhythm dance with a season-best score, and Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier capped the first of three days of team competition with a personal-best short program.

That left the Americans with 28 points, two head of the Russians and seven ahead of third-place China.

Nathan Chen of Team United States skates in the Men's Single Skating Short Program Team Event during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Capital Indoor Stadium on February 04, 2022 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) (Elsa/Getty Images)

"We can walk away with a medal for sure. What color? It’s hard to say," Chen said. "But I have faith in my teammates, and I know they’re going to do the best they can do."

In fact, the only discipline they didn’t win was pairs. Knierim and Frazier were third behind China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, who set a world record with their short program, and Russians Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov.

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"I’m so proud of us," said Knierim, who helped the U.S. win team bronze four years ago in Pyeongchang. "I mean, there was a lot of push-down pressure within us. We just tried to ignore it, and