Singles, Men

Since the 2018 Games, American Nathan Chen had won all three World Championships after Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu had struggled with a succession of minor injuries and COVID-19 restrictions. Although Chen was considered the favourite there was still intrigue into how Hanyu would perform in defence of his title especially if he was injury free this time. Sadly the Japanese star suffered an injury in his right ankle ligament during a fall in practice in November 2021 and struggled to recover his fitness in time for Beijing. Hanyu’s defence was doomed from the moment in the short program where he messed up his opening quadruple Salchow jump and his hopes were over when he only finished eighth after the first phase of competition.

In contrast, Chen exceeded expectations with a virtuoso short program and nailed all of his jumps on his way to a world best score that gave him the lead over the Japanese pairing of Yuma Kagiyama and Shoma Uno.

Revisiting the long program he had intended to skate at the cancelled 2020 World Championships, Chen’s execution was not perfect but it was enough to extend his winning margin over Kagiyama and Uno further. Defending champion Hanyu gambled everything on a spectacular performance to move into medal contention but was undone by a couple of falls. Despite this, he moved from eighth to fourth place.

Chen, whose parents had moved from China to the USA a decade before he was born, was the first male Asian-American Olympic champion in the sport. His compatriot, Vincent Zhou, was also a medal contender but was forced to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19 between the team and individual competitions.