Winter Olympics 2022 Figure Skating Recap: An historical debut for the Men's SP

At the Olympics, no matter where you come from around the world, this event brings so much joy, emotions, talents, hope and real-life superheroes that everyone can feel the pleasure to wake up or stay the late at night to watch it. It is definitely worth the Jetlag! Indeed, I personally woke up at 2 am french time (or let's say I did not sleep till 5 am) in order to witness the return of the two times Olympics champion Yuzuru Hanyu and another world record of Nathan Chen during the Men's short program events. But away more than that happened it it was a way beyond my expectation! So I did watch the entire competition from the top, 29 skaters ready to go and give their best. Unfortunately, this figure skating individual event debut was also made by the withdrawal of the US national bronze medalist Vincent Zhou, who tested positive at Covid-19 and announced it a few previous hours on his social media account. A very heartbroken news considering how much ready he was by watching his consistency and his performances this season.

Overall and to resume, I never saw in my life or in my entire career either as a figure skater myself, such a level of performances, and that for every single skater. We can definitely say that a few decades ago they all would be close to being Olympics champions. So I am pretty sure we can use the term figure skating inflation. A program full of triples and a triple axel is already pretty impressive. But two! In fact yesterday, except for 3 skaters who did counter performances out of their regular level, the other performed brilliantly. If it wasn’t 100% cleaned program, the level of jumps, quadruples, step difficulties, choreographies or interpretations, program qualities were always balancing little mistakes. There was indeed no major disaster as it can happen with the pressure of such an event of course ! But once again every skater gives their best, their fire, and their soul into this competition.

On the highlight of a few performances. I would like to start with Donovan Carrillo Suazo Already the first Mexican figure skater to compete in the Olympics in 30 years, he became the first Mexican skater ever to qualify for the long program. In his program "Black Magic Woman" he looks like a pure diamond shining with a beautiful quadruple toe he reached his personal best in the short program, 79.69 points. Nikolaj Majorov of Sweden also beats his personal best with a total 78.54 and an amazing triple axel. We could also discover the Estonian skater Aleksandr Selevko who performed like no one with what I call a « Je ne sais quoi » that makes him skate with such a groove and a classiness that you just enjoy the program whatever the technical content! China's Jin Boyang, who was fourth at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, was in 1st place for a long time. He leads with a score of 90.98 points with a program that included two quadruple jumps: an incredibly high quad lutz and quad toe loop. The two french boys did very smooth, and intense performances as you could also feel the happiness thru their smiles at the end of their program. In the meantime, Shoma Uno of Japan, Junhwan Cha of Korea with their clean program content with two perfect quadruples succeeded to take the lead of the competition with respectively a total score of 105.90 points and 99.51. The competition was concluded by an impressive performance of the king quads, the current world champion Nathan Chen who showed what the true definition of power and consistency means. A quad flip, triple axel, quad lutz-triple toe loop combo, for a world record in the short program: 113.97 points. Jason Brown skated last and was the personification of pure Art with his self-made choreography, his speed into each element, and incredible musicality. The only surprising disappointment of the night was for the two times Olympics champion Yuzuru Hanyu. After «popping » his first quadruple Salchow he succeeds to bring back his fire with an incredible quadruple toe in Combo and as usual a delightful triple Axel.
To conclude, what a competition! I have never witnessed such a high level of performance in one category from each of the athletes for figure skating. A 100 times with the Jet Lag week mode! There is also so many others skaters I did not talk about, there is so much to say and just few lines but lets not write a book here and instead I really suggest you to watch, once again very worth it !

Next is coming to the Men's Free program tomorrow, stay tuned !