Olympics Updates: Rivals to Face Off in Men’s Figure Skating

This is the moment that Nathan Chen has been waiting for.

At the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, he was the gold medal favorite on the cusp of becoming the next great American Olympian. But after a disastrous short program, he fell to 17th in the standings, with barely any hope of winning a medal. In a comeback that stunned everyone except him, Chen rebounded for the free skate to perform a knockout program, landing a monstrous six quadruple jumps when he had planned five.

“I knew at that point that I had literally nothing to lose, so I decided just to try it,” he said afterward.

Now, Chen, 22, is back and set to skate in the men’s short program on Tuesday. The event takes on new urgency for the Americans after his teammate Vincent Zhou, 21, withdrew from the men’s singles competition on Monday, a day after testing positive for the coronavirus.

For Chen, it will be an exercise in redemption.

He is partly there, after a nearly flawless short program in the team event last week. But there is a hitch: His Olympic rival, Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, is back, too.

Chen is a three-time world champion who has lost only once in three and a half years. Hanyu is a two-time defending Olympic champion who has been working on a quadruple axel, the hardest of the quad jumps and one that has yet to be successfully landed in competition.

If Hanyu wins, it will be the first time a man has won three consecutive gold medals in the men’s single skating event in nearly 100 years. If Chen wins, he would do what he was expected to four years ago.

The short program on Tuesday will provide a hint to the outcome. On Thursday, after the men’s free skate, we will know the result for sure.

The Winter Olympics are heating up — and not always in the best of ways.

Despite the great lengths officials went to in order to protect athletes within the Olympic bubble, Vincent Zhou, the American figure skating hopeful, tested positive for the coronavirus and missed the end of the team competition. He will not compete in the men’s individual competition that begins Tuesday.

“It seems pretty unreal that of all the people it would happen to myself,” he said. “I’ve taken all the precautions I can. I’ve isolated myself so much that the loneliness that I felt in the last month or two has been crushing at times.”

Mikaela Schiffrin, who is trying to become the first American skier to win three Alpine Olympic gold medals, started off too fast in the giant slalom and fell in her first run, disqualifying her from the competition. She wasn’t the only one to take a big spill. (Shiffrin has four races remaining in the Olympics, including her best event, the slalom, on Wednesday.)

And in hockey, misgivings over coronavirus testing for the Russian women’s team led to a 65-minute delay of a game against Canada. When the puck finally dropped, everyone was wearing a mask, including the referees.

But even amid the drama, there were moments of awe.

Russian skaters won the team competition behind the performance of the 15-year-old phenom Kamila Valieva, whose history-making free skate on Monday included the first two quadruple jumps landed by a woman at an Olympics. Ireen Wüst of the Netherlands became the first person to win an individual gold medal at five Olympics and, at age 35, the oldest speedskating gold medalist ever.

And Casey Dawson, a 21-year-old American speedskater, is on his way to Beijing after testing requirements kept him in Salt Lake City last week as the Games began.

Now, as the Beijing Games head into the first full week of competition, all eyes will be on marquee events, including men’s figure skating, freestyle skiing and cross-country skiing.

In the absence of Zhou, Nathan Chen will try to lead the United States to gold in men’s figure skating, beginning with the short program. He had a flawless performance in the team event last week, but his Olympic rival, Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, is back, too. Chen, a three-time world champion, is the defending Olympic champion.

The U.S. broadcast coverage of the 2022 Winter Games continues on Monday with men’s figuring skating, women’s hockey and big air skiing. All times are Eastern.

SPEEDSKATING At 8 p.m. on NBC, Arianna Fontana of Italy looks to defend her title in the women’s 500-meter short track and bring her medal count to 10 to become the most decorated short-track speedskater in the history of the Winter Games.

SKIING At 9 p.m. on NBC, catch Darian Stevens of the United States as she competes in the women’s freestyle big air final at Shougang Industrial Park. Skiing coverage continues at 10:05 p.m. with the final of the men’s Alpine super-G competition, featuring Travis Ganong, Ryan Cochrane-Siegle, Bryce Bennett and River Radamus of the United States.

FIGURE SKATING The Olympic rivals Nathan Chen of the United States and Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan will meet again in the men’s short program starting at 8:15 p.m. on the NBC Olympic Channel and on USA Network. Chen’s teammate Vincent Zhou, who missed the end of the team competition at the Beijing Olympics after testing positive for the coronavirus, will not be competing.

SNOWBOARDING Starting at 9:40 p.m., the NBC Olympic Channel will broadcast live coverage of the women’s and men’s parallel super-G competitions. Robby Burns and Cody Winters of the United States will be competing in the men’s event at 10:07 p.m.

HOCKEY The United States women’s team takes on Canada beginning with a pregame show at 10:45 p.m. on USA Network. The game starts at 11:10 p.m.

Vincent Zhou, the U.S. figure skating hopeful who missed the end of the team competition at the Beijing Olympics after testing positive for the coronavirus, said on Monday night that he would not compete in the men’s singles competition that begins Tuesday.

In an emotional video posted to his Instagram account, he said he had withdrawn from the event. Because of the Olympics’ strict virus protocols, Zhou, 21, also will not be allowed to join his teammates when they accept their silver medals on Tuesday.

His positive test, and his sudden absence from the rink on Monday night hours after he had entered isolation, surprised even his teammates.

“Where’s Vincent? Where’s Vincent?” the women’s skater Karen Chen said she had asked herself. She assumed he was off to the side, lacing up his skates, and would join the United States’ silver medal-winning team on the ice when the final results were confirmed.

“We just feel bad for him not being able to share this moment with us,” said Brandon Frazier, who, with his partner, Alexa Knierim, was also part of the silver medal winning team. “When you get held back from doing what you’ve been training to do your whole life, it’s a really tough pill to swallow.”

In Zhou’s video, filmed in his hotel room, he fought back tears as he addressed comments “to the future Vincent watching this,” professing pride in his accomplishments and in his long path to Beijing and declaring his continued love for skating and the people and teammates who had supported him.

“It seems pretty unreal that of all the people it would happen to myself,” he said. “And that’s not just because I’m still processing this turn of events, but also because I have been doing everything in my power to stay free of Covid since the start of the pandemic. I’ve taken all the precautions I can. I’ve isolated myself so much that the loneliness that I felt in the last month or two has been crushing at times.”

Several of Zhou’s teammates said they were just as surprised as he was that he had tested positive. Zhou often ate alone, they said, wore N95 masks and sanitized his hands frequently. He did not socialize with others in the common room in the Olympic Village.

Many of the American skaters wore two masks after the team finals on Monday, but most eat in the cafeteria in the Olympic Village, with hundreds of other athletes. Nathan Chen, the three-time world champion who is the gold medal favorite in men’s singles skating, said that the Americans eat in a walled-off area and that he pulls his mask down each time he takes a bite and quickly pulls it back up when he chews because “better safe than sorry.”

“Obviously, everything now is just speculation: When did he get it? Who did he get it from? Who has he been around?” Chen said. “I personally have not really been around him, and anytime I’ve been around, I’ve been wearing a mask.”

Zhou’s disappointment was palpable; at one point in his video he said, “I really have lost count of the number of times I’ve cried today.” Still, one of those moments, he said, included “happy tears,” when he learned he had become a silver medalist.

“I am more than just another positive Covid test,” he added.

An alternate will not be able to take Zhou’s place in the men’s singles event because he had already competed on Olympic ice, the U.S. skating federation said.