By the (likely) final performance, Nathan Chen became a mirror for Glass music
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An exultant Nathan Chen after winning the World Team Trophy free skate (Screenshot from Peacock TV.)
My observations from Day 2 of 3 at the World Team Trophy in Osaka, Japan, where Nathan Chen was Same As He Ever Was in winning the free skate after winning the short program on Day 1.
(Wait…maybe Talking Heads for him in the Olympic season?)
1. It’s too bad that Friday was most likely the last time Nathan Chen will skate the free program Shae-Lynn Bourne artfully choreographed to selections from the music of the minimalist composer, Philip Glass.
Chen clearly had a physical as well as intellectual understanding of Glass, having studied his music at Yale and having learned how to play part of it on the piano. The skater’s interpretation got more nuanced each time he performed it, with the final half of the four minutes at the World Championships and the opening 30 seconds at World Team Trophy clear evidence of how he “got” the music.
It brought him a third straight world title and fifth straight U.S. title.
This was my favorite free skate of the five Chen has used in his five years as a senior international competitor. He has also used five different short programs.
Chen began his senior career with a pair of classical warhorses, from Le Corsaire and the Polovtsian Dances, but he has been all over the musical landscape since: moody contemporary, upbeat Elton John, Latin, pulsating Stravinsky. And as he has eschewed the comfort of familiarity (and repetition) for the challenges of stretching himself artistically, Chen has also filled those programs with the most stunning array of quadruple jumps in history. He did four more quads Friday, two in combination.
2. Although World Team Trophy is sui generis, an event where individual total scores are not officially kept, it still is worth noting that Chen now has beaten his rival, Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, in five straight free skates. That streak began at the 2018 Olympics and includes the last two World Championships and the most recent Grand Prix Final.
3. Singles party? Who could have imagined both Chen and Hanyu singling a jump in the same event. Hanyu’s single, on a planned quadruple salchow, cost him at least nine points and any chance to beat Chen. Chen’s single, on a planned triple flip to finish a combination, cost him at least four points.
4. Once again, the long-held feeling that a Hanyu with no negative grades of execution (or just one element with a small negative) would beat Chen on component scores has proved outdated.
Neither skater had any negative overall score on an element Friday (Chen did receive a “quarter under-rotated” penalty on the quad toe that opened a combination with a triple toe.) Chen’s PCS score was one point higher than Hanyu’s.
5. Fool me twice: I am going to refrain from predicting immediate greatness for 17-year-old Russian Evgeni Semenenko after the first-year senior’s eye-catching performances at the World Championships and World Team Trophy, having been burned by similar predictions about two other Russian men during their debut seasons as seniors: Artur Gachinski after his 2011 world bronze medal at age 17 and Mikhail Kolyada after his 2016 world fourth place at 21.
Gachinski made it back to worlds just once more, finishing 18th, before retiring in 2015. The wildly inconsistent Kolyada would win a world bronze in 2018 but has yet to really fulfill his stunning potential. He was third in the free skate and fifth in the short program at this World Team Trophy.
6. The scoring system for the World Team Trophy needs to be revised to give more credit for top three finishes.
The current system gives the 12 singles skaters from 12 points to one, with just one point difference between each place. The six pairs and dance entries get scores from 12 to seven, again separated by just one point.
My suggestion: from 20 to 1, with the following gaps: 20-16-13-11-9-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for singles; 20-16-13-11-9-7 for pairs and dance.
I will calculate if that has any effect on medal results after the World Team Trophy ends Saturday with women’s and pairs free skates. (In this case, given the overwhelming strength of Team Russia, it certainly won’t make any difference in the winner.)
