Image: dpa
With five quadruple jumps
Three-time world champion Beijing Winter Olympics are finally opening | SPREAD”>Nathan Chen was crowned Olympic champion with a brilliant freestyle. With 332.60 points, the 22-year-old figure skater from the USA won the Winter Games in Beijing on Thursday ahead of Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (310.05) and Shoma Uno (293.00). Chen dethroned Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan with a freestyle routine in which he presented five quadruple jumps. The Olympic champion from 2014 and 2018 only ended up in disappointing fourth place with 283.21 points. Based in Irvine, California, Chen had shown his class and peak form before. With 113.97 points, he set a world record for a short program. Japan’s figure skating king Hanyu could not make up for a botched short freestyle. The 27-year-old exceptional talent took a lot of risks after finishing eighth in the short freestyle. But it wasn’t just the world premiere of being the first runner to stand the quadruple axel cleanly on the ice that failed. When Hanyu then fell while doing four times Salchow, the bitter end was sealed for him at the Beijing games. (dpa)
