Patrick Chan completes comeback, takes gold at Four Continents

Patrick Chan stamped himself as a contender for the world figure skating championships next month with a dramatic come-from-behind victory at the Four Continents championships in Taipei City Saturday.

Chan came from fifth place after the short program to win the gold medal with 290.21 points, only .38 points more than 18-year-old Chinese phenomenon Boyang Jin. Han Yan, also of China, finished well back in third with 271.55.

“It’s been such a hard week for me,” Chan admitted, saying he had difficulties with the ice – as did Canadian champion ice dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, who finished third in Taipei. Chan has never been a fan of long travel. It will be an advantage for him that the world championships are in Boston, he said.

Chan, 25, with skating skills that set him apart from the rest, has had to contend with young skaters who have pushed the technical boundaries. Chan had only two quads in his free skate while Jin, 18, had four, including a rare quad Lutz, which, by itself, was worth 15.31 points.

Jin defeated Chan on the technical score – 110.66 to Chan’s 106.85, but Chan overcame him with his powerful edges and speed and presentation,  blasting Jin with 97.14 points to Jin’s 80.72.  

The Four Continents Championship is an important harbinger of what could happen in Boston. However, it is missing European skaters and Japanese star Yuzuru Hanyu, who holds all the world records, including the total score of 330.43. Hanyu skipped the Four Continents to prepare for Boston but his most recent performance was mistake-ridden. He won the Japanese championships in late December with only 286.36 points.

Chan will also have to compete against European champion Javier Fernandez of Spain, who won that event last month with 302.77 points. Fernandez is the reigning world champion.

The Four Continents also showed that Chinese pair skaters Wenjing Sui and Cong Han are threats to win gold, after they won in Taipei; that Americans Maia and Alex Shibutani now have momentum after winning the dance event, and tiny  17-year-old Satoko Miyahara of Japan has not lost a step since winning the world silver medal last year.

The Chinese won the pairs event, even though Sui was recovering from an ankle injury and a flu bug that had swept through the entire Chinese team before Four Continents. A stomach ailment also caused world pair champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada to withdraw from Four Continents before the free program. “It’s unfortunate that Meagan fell ill here because I think we were on track to have a really good skate,” Radford said.

In Taipei, Sui and Han unleashed a quad twist and a throw quadruple Salchow in their free skate. They have done the twist before but the quad throw was new for them. (It’s the signature throw for Duhamel and Radford).

They will all have to meet Olympic pair champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia, who won the European championships last month, but with far less ambitious routines. They don’t do quads. Duhamel and Radford won worlds last year with the most difficult technical list.

Miyahara may be the Four Continents’ best answer to a trio of young Russian women who swept the podium at the European championships, led by Eugenia Medvedeva, who has been unbeatable this year.

In the women’s event, former Canadian champion, Kaetlyn Osmond, finished fourth in the free skate and sixth overall, but she is not on the world team.

Weaver and Poje say that their Four Continents loss –they won the event last year – does not make them nervous about worlds. “In a way, it helps to take the pressure off us for worlds a little bit,” Weaver said.

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