How Olympic gold medal favorite Nathan Chen skated his way to 17th place

On Thursday night, in about the time it takes to reheat a slice of leftover pizza, American figure skater Nathan Chen, the gold medal frontrunner heading into the 2018 Winter Olympics, skated his way — barring some unforeseen magic or heaps of mistakes from his competitors during the upcoming men’s free skate — out of contention for a spot on the Olympic podium.

Chen, who has become extremely dominant in the sport of figure skating over the last year or so, came out of the men’s short programs in 17th place. That puts him around 30 points behind the current leader, reigning Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, going into the free skate. In skating, where the most skilled competitors’ scores are often separated by only a fraction of a point, that kind of gap is insurmountable.

Chen fell once during his short program, and the judges penalized him accordingly. But there’s more to Chen’s unexpectedly poor standing than the fact that he fell — there were several other skaters ranked higher than him who had more falls or who skated more sloppily than Chen, including the sixth and eighth place finishers.

It has to do with the complicated way that figure skating is scored.

Under the current system, it’s possible for a skater to fall during a routine and still get on the podium, or even win, if their program reaches a high-enough level of difficulty. The technical elements of a skater’s program — spins, jumps, footwork — all carry a base value, and they’re all subject to a Grade of Execution (GOE) score that measures how well judges think a skater performed each element. High GOE scores translate to bonus points, and low GOE scores translate to deductions.

On top of all this, a complete men’s short program requires skaters to execute three specific jumping elements: one combination jumping sequence, one quadruple or triple jump, and one double or triple axel. Skaters are only allowed to attempt each requirement once during the program. In Pyeongchang, it was Chen’s combination jumping sequence that got him into trouble.

Chen’s major mistake was falling on what was expected to be a quadruple lutz–triple toe loop combination sequence:

As seen in the GIF above, the jump itself doesn’t look that bad. Chen completes a full four rotations and his air position — the height of the jump and the tightness of his revolutions — isn’t awful. Prior to the Olympics, I would have said that Chen could land a quadruple lutz in his sleep, as he’s landed it many times in competition before.

It’s obviously unfortunate that he fell on the landing. But the bigger problem is that Chen’s quadruple lutz was supposed to be followed by a triple jump (he usually does a triple toe loop). Because he fell on the lutz, he couldn’t even attempt the second jump in the combo.

As a result, he lost the opportunity to score a massive number of points for the program’s required combination sequence, because he only performed half of it.

You can see this on his scoresheet, where the first item under “Executed Elements” generically reads “4Lz+COMBO” instead of something more specific, like “4Lz+3T” (the shorthand for a quadruple lutz–triple toe loop combination). It also has a base value of only 13.60 points — the typical base value for a standalone quadruple lutz — rather than the much higher base value that would have come with a combination sequence.

And that’s before accounting for any deductions for the fall.

In the end, Chen ended up with only 9.60 points for his “4Lz+COMBO,” even though his combination jumping sequence could have and should have scored much higher than that. For context, here’s his scoresheet from the 2017 US Figure Skating Championships, where he completed a quadruple lutz–triple toe loop combo (“4Lz+3T”) and hauled in a whopping 19.61 points:

Had he hit the combination he’s capable of doing, he could have earned an additional eight or 10 points.

All was not yet lost. At this point, it was still early enough in his program that Chen could have conceivably tacked on a second jump to the quadruple toe loop (marked on his Olympic scoresheet as “4T”) he was still planning to perform. That would have allowed the quad lutz he fell on to fulfill the requirement of performing one quadruple or triple jump, while still satisfying the requirement to also perform a combination jumping sequence. But when it came time for the quadruple toe loop, he bobbled the landing of that jump as well.

That meant he didn’t have a combination score in his program, and he left a lot of potential points on the ice.

It was a disappointing outcome for Chen, the most talented US men’s figure skater to compete in the sport in recent memory. The pressure of being a favorite for the gold medal in Pyeongchang, being a rookie at the Olympics, and having to skate right after a stunning performance from reigning Olympic champion Hanyu likely put him in a challenging situation that would have tested even the most mentally tough athlete.

Chen now has nothing left to lose going into the men’s free skate, which will take place this weekend. Even though the 2018 Olympics haven’t gone as he undoubtedly expected or hoped they would, he’s still one of the top skaters in the world. And fortunately for him, because he’s only 18 years old, he’ll likely have another Olympic shot to prove it.