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Third time's a charm for
Nathan Chen.
The ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2021 in Stockholm concluded with the men's and ice dance competitions on Saturday, and for the third time in a row, Chen was in a class of his own.
Chen earned his third consecutive World title, while
Jason Brown placed seventh and
Vincent Zhou finished 25th. In ice dance,
Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue earned their third consecutive World Championship medal, taking silver ahead of
Madison Chock and Evan Bates in fourth and
Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker in ninth.
Previously in Stockholm,
Karen Chen and
Bradie Tennell finished fourth and ninth, respectively, in ladies, while
Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier placed seventh and
Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc finished ninth in pairs.
MEN
His third World title may have been harder to come by than the first two, but Chen still reigns supreme.
Chen's free skate to various songs by Philip Glass earned 222.03 points, giving him 320.88 points overall. Two Japanese skaters rounded out the podium, with Yuma Kagiyama taking silver with 291.77 points and Yuzuru Hanyu bronze with 289.18 points.
"Generally going into competitions I try to remind myself to not worry about results," Chen said. "And even more so now, where it was like, at this point in time, just try to skate as clean as possible. Your goal now is to be able to leave this competition satisfied with how you skated in the free. And I was able to do that, so I'm pretty thrilled."
The 2018 and 2019 World champion won his fifth consecutive U.S. title in January, and has been undefeated since the 2018 event.
Chen had to overcome an 8.13-point deficit after the short program -- and a two-year wait after the 2020 World Championships were canceled -- to earn this third title. He ultimately prevailed by 29.11 points.
"It's been awhile since I've really competed at internationals, and so I kind of forgot what it was like to mentally prep myself for these sort of events," Chen said. "I really tried to remind myself just how fortunate and lucky I am to be here. And I think generally when I think that way, I just am able to be more relaxed, happy, and really appreciative of the moment.
"As an athlete, we train for these moments. We live for these moments."
And what a moment it was. Chen is the first U.S. man to win three consecutive World titles since Scott Hamilton won four in a row from 1981-84, and he did so with a free skate that fell just short of his own world-record score.
"I was in a position where I was like, 'In theory I can come back, but realistically, I know these guys are going to lay it down,'" Chen said. "I wouldn't necessarily say this is my best free program ever, but it's definitely one that I'll remember forever, and cherish being able to skate like that, and skate this piece here in Sweden at Worlds."
Brown, the reigning U.S. bronze medalist, finished seventh. His placement combined with Chen's earned the U.S. men the opportunity three entries for the 2022 Olympic Games. The third entry is provisionally allocated and to be confirmed based on placement at the 2021 Nebelhorn Trophy, set for Sept. 22-25 in Oberstdorf, Germany.
Brown earned 170.92 points for his free skate to "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" by Richard Rodgers & New York Philharmonic, giving him a total of 262.17 points overall.
"It was just this mix of grateful and relieved and proud," Brown said. "I just really, really wanted to pull my weight, and I wanted to do the best that I possibly could for Team USA. And I also wanted to go out there and give it my all and not hold back. I'm proud to say that I did that, and when I got off the ice there was that sense of pride that I was able to accomplish that goal and stay as focused as I possibly could."
Brown also landed a quad Salchow (under-rotated), one of the first quadruple jumps he's ever landed in competition.
"It was a huge goal of mine," Brown said. "It's something that I work towards every single day. I'm working on it as hard as I can. I'm drilling it as much as I can. So today was a great first step."
ICE DANCE
When Hubbell and Donohue were first rising in the world ice dance ranks behind the legendary rivalry between Meryl Davis and Charlie White, and Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, there's one thing they never did.
Look down on the team that finished in second place.
"Looking up, I never thought, 'What a loser that person is for getting second!'" Hubbell said, laughing. "I thought, 'My gosh, how amazing is this competition.'"
It was another amazing competition in Stockholm, and now it was Hubbell and Donohue themselves taking second place.
They scored 128.66 points for their free dance to "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley and k.d. lang for a total of 214.71 points. Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of the Figure Skating Federation of Russia (FSR) won the title with 221.17 points, while Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier earned bronze with 214.35.
Chock and Bates placed fourth with 212.69 points. Their combined finishes earn U.S. ice dance teams three entries at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games.
"We felt really proud of how we handled this week and the stress of an international competition after a year," Hubbell said. "And our performance today felt very present and intentional, and it's really a joy to skate together when it's like that. So we're happy with that. But there's also that little dissatisfaction of not reaching our goal of bringing home the gold medal."
Hubbell and Donohue have now medaled at three World Championships in a row, taking silver in 2018 and bronze in 2019.
They were previously undefeated this season, winning the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships and 2020 Guaranteed Rate Skate America.
"While, yes, we came here for a gold medal and there's definitely a sense of disappointment around that, that is only going to drive us in the future," Donohue said. "We also know that we're progressing, that we're building, that we're getting the skills and the qualities that we want as a team, and we look at this as momentum. It's creating a hunger. I think we know what we're capable of."
Chock and Bates, meanwhile, earned 127.54 points for their "snake charmer" free dance.
"There were certainly a few seconds in the program where I made some technical errors that were obviously costly, and honestly we're quite disappointed about it," Bates said. "But that's kind of what we love about the sport, is that if it was a guaranteed thing every time and we could just show up and win the gold medal, then that'd be just very easy and fun. But the real pleasure comes from working really hard, getting knocked down and coming back stronger.
"We've been through a lot of those moments. I think this is one moment in particular that's quite disappointing for us, but we're certainly going to come back next season stronger, and we still have the same goals in mind."
Hawayek and Baker finished in ninth place. They earned 113.43 points for their free dance to "Heart of Glass" by Philip Glass and Blondie and "First Movement" by Philip Glass, giving them 188.51 points overall.
"We felt like we performed to the best of our ability today," Hawayek said. "We finished the program feeling very happy with the end result. There wasn't a moment where we felt like we held back, and we felt like we performed from beginning to end. We were certainly disappointed with the scores that we received.. But in terms of what we could control, which was our skate, we feel like we performed very well."
Broadcast coverage will continue tonight with a delayed broadcast of the free dance from 4-6 p.m. ET on NBCSN. Additionally, NBC will air a replay of the ladies free skate tonight at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT/7 p.m. MT/6:30 p.m. PT, as well as an event recap on Sunday, April 11, at 3 p.m. ET.
