KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Hyped as the future of men’s skating, Nathan Chen put the sport on notice that his time is now.
Chen dazzled and dominated as he stamped himself as a future Olympic medalist contender, connecting on a pair of quads and slaying the competition with a short program record score of 106.39 at the U.S. figure skating championships on Friday night.
The 17-year-old Chen delivered a stunning performance that seemed to defy gravity and had the Sprint Center crowd clapping along with his routine and earned him the only standing ovation of the night.
“This is the performance I’ve been looking for all season,” Chen said. “I finally put on a good short program. I hit all the elements I was setting out to do.”
Chen scored nearly 20 points higher than his closest competitor, Ross Miner, and would need a complete collapse Sunday not to walk out of Kansas City with a gold medal.