Nathan Chen goes down but climbs to the top of the podium at Skate Canada International

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There are as many ways to win a skating title as there are to lose it, and American Nathan Chen charted a slightly different route to the top of the podium on Saturday in Vancouver.

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The 22-year-old, who has unleashed as many as seven quad jumps in the past and thus eliminated those who responded with weaker arsenals, focused on Skate Canada International and still swept, winning the men’s title by more than 40 points. .

The tour de force came just a week after he was finally defeated. He came unusually off the mark at Skate America in Las Vegas, fourth in shorts and second in free skating, opening the door for American Vincent Zhou and Japanese Shoma Uno to finish ahead of him. Thus ended Chen’s supernatural streak of 14 consecutive competition victories since the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics.

A week later, there may be another skein going on, given his dominance.

“I definitely had better starts here than at Skate America, so I think this is a good step forward,” Chen said. “Always in competitions I want to push myself a little bit forward, a little bit forward, even if that means removing an element to make it a little cleaner.”

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He was the undisputed class of the field at Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sport Center, posting a whopping 200.46 free skating points and a total score of 307.18 to win by an American mile. And he did it without coach Rafael Arutunian by his side. On Friday, Arutunian inadvertently violated COVID-19 protocols by entering spectator seats. He was allowed into the building, but had to hand over his credentials and was not level with the ice to train Chen in person.

The two communicated by phone, and Chen said that the wrinkle did not affect him negatively. That was obvious when he threw four quad jumps, three of them in combinations, as well as a triple Axel. And in the middle of the compelling four-minute free skating, he shifted emotional gears and combined the art with all that impressive technical proficiency from the first half.

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That combination was too much for anyone else in the 12-man field to match. The closest was fellow American Jason Brown, but with 259.55 points overall he was a distant second.

“Overall, a little disappointed in my free skating today,” Brown said. “Having said that, as I mentioned yesterday, the Grand Prix season is this opportunity to learn and grow and find out what works, what doesn’t and use it as a platform to move forward, especially as we head into the Olympics.”

Evgeni Semenenko from Russia was third. Keegan Messing, the 29-year-old born in Alaska but competing for Canada, was even further out of touch after falling on the ice. He landed a quad combo, but shortly thereafter missed an all things triple loop and landed on his face. He said he felt shaky the entire time and it was pretty obvious something was out of control as he fell back on a triple Lutz and struggled for the landing on a triple flip, triple toe combo. He even missed his music at the end of the show, a sure sign that this wasn’t his night. He had been third in the short program, but finished fifth overall with 238.34 points.

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“Honestly, my right leg felt a little shaky,” Messing said. “I’m not sure if it was my boot, if it was my leg or what. Every time I stepped on my right leg, I didn’t feel very stable. … Actually, it started again at the Axel, the first Axel. I landed and it gave a nice wobble and I couldn’t put the combination there and then on the Lutz it went back down very strange. I’m not sure if it was just nerves or if it was something else. “

He said he will go back to training and work on his stamina, or whatever it takes to make sure it doesn’t fall apart again.

“Pride got hurt a bit today. But I’ve been in the sport for 26 years and I’ve had my pride hurt before, so we’re just recovering, we’re going to dust ourselves off and not forget, but learn, or learn again, and just put our best foot forward. “

Toronto’s Conrad Orzel tried three quads, hit two and finished the competition with 222.75 points, good for ninth place. Roman Sadovsky’s struggles continued as he landed only a quad, fell on a triple Axel and finished 12th and last with 217.73. In tag team action earlier in the night, the new team of Vanessa James and Eric Radford finished fourth, ahead of reigning Canadian champions Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro, who were sixth, and Lori-Ann Matte and Thierry Ferland, which were seventh. The tag team title went to Wenjing Sui and Cong Han from China.