Patrick Chan chasing Yuzuru Hanyu at Grand Prix Final skating event

By Beverley Smith

Instead of being rattled by the world-record breaking performances of Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu in Japan last week, three-time world champion Patrick Chan says he feels at ease and calm.

Hanyu’s unprecedented score of 322.40 was 27.13 points better than Chan’s best effort (295.13) at a Grand Prix in France in 2013. No skater had ever broken the 300-point threshold before Hanyu won the NHK Trophy last week.

Chan will hook up with Hanyu at the Grand Prix Final next week in Barcelona, Spain, and he plans no changes at all to his programs. Chan defeated Hanyu soundly the last time they met, at Skate Canada International in Lethbridge, Alta., in October.

At the NHK Trophy last week, Hanyu redoubled his efforts, landed two quadruple jumps in his short program for the first time, and then three more in the free skate. Chan plans only one quad in the short, and two in the long.

“There was always talk about if he did do everything and did a clean competition, what kind of marks would he get?” Chan said Wednesday on a conference call. “Now we know … it’s less of a mystery. For me, it kind of calms me down.”

Now he has something tangible to reach for, Chan said. His new goal is to aim for Hanyu’s score – or surpass it. But that doesn’t mean he will add more quads to his repertoire before next week.

“I’m very much not a person who panics and changes things at the last moment,” Chan said. “I’m going to stick to the plan. I almost feel a little more relieved that Hanyu skated two great programs….I feel like everything is much clearer now.”

The atmosphere surrounding skaters and judges is always much different when all of the top skaters compete against each other at the same time, like at the Grand Prix Final, Chan said. When all of the top men are on the ice at the same time, “it changes the vibe, it changes the dynamic between everyone on the ice, and who knows maybe even the dynamic between judges.”

Chan feels it will be exciting to go to the Grand Prix final as an underdog. All eyes will be on Hanyu and people will expect him to skate at a high level all the time. But that is a challenging task, Chan said.

“He probably won’t every single time, although I’m sure he will come very close.”

It’s too late to add more difficult jumps at this point, Chan added. Depending on what happens in Barcelona next week, Chan won’t try to increase his technical content until he has more time after the event, which comes six weeks before the Canadian championships.

Chan will regard the Grand Prix Final as a practice event – learning how to approach tough competitions mentally, his greatest challenge – but his focus will be on the national championships in Halifax and the world championships in March in Boston. Beyond that, he’s looking at the 2018 Olympics, and he has plenty of time to add technical content in the years ahead. Chan skipped all of last season to focus on a show career. He’s still getting his competitive legs back.