Internationaux de France 2018 - Men Final - Learning from Difficulties

The winner, after a shaky short programme, was Nathan Chen

The results of the men's short programme left a lot of figure skater fans baffled, particularly those like me, who didn't watch it. The standings at the start of the final had Jason Brown first, Alexander Samarin second, Nathan Chen third, Boyang Jin seventh and Dmitri Aliev ninth. There might be others who surprised you, but these were the names that stood out to me the most. The final therefore started with all possibilities widely open.

We were off to a rocky start with Daniel Samohin's rendition of Once Upon a Time in Mexico. The Israeli fell on a 3Salchow and both 3Axels before losing control of the change combination spin. He couldn't find it in him to mask the disappointment, so the presentation got worse the more errors he made. Score: 133.66 -> 205.99.

Keiji Tanaka followed in Daniel's footsteps - he stepped out of three jumps (4Salchow, 3Axel and 3Lutz) as well as tripled out of the second 4Salchow and doubled out of the 3Toeloop that was supposed to be in combination with it. Score: 136.97 -> 216.32.

Things got even worse for Boyang Jin because what we expected from him was so much better. He doubled out of two quads (the Salchow and the Toeloop), stepped out of the first 3Axel, singled the second 3Axel, had a hand down on the Toeloop combination and over-rotated the 3Lutz. Score: 129.48 -> 208.89.

China's Boyang Jin faced challenges in France
Good quality was restored by Dmitri Aliev, although his skate was not flawless either - he tripled out of a 4Toeloop, fell during the choreographic sequence and generally had a few sketchy landings. His choreography is very expansive, but not that difficult compared to some of the other skaters. Score: 162.67 -> 237.82.

The second group began with Romain Ponsart, who wore a minimalist Carmen costume. His only mistakes were doubling out of the quad and triple Toeloop, then singling out of the 3Axel. This was also a shaky performance in terms of jumps, but an improvement from most of those who had skated before. Score: 144.89 -> 229.86.

Deniss Vasilijevs delighted the French audience with his version of The Last Samurai. He fell on the 4Toeloop, doubled out of the second triple combination and singled out of the second 3Axel, but his transitions were exquisite, peppered with what I call invisible props (a book, the sword, etc.). Score: 138.96 -> 221.26.

Kevin Aymoz had good reasons to smile at the end of his performance and the audience had good reasons to cheer loudly. True, he stepped out of the 4Toeloop, doubled out of a 3Loop and doubled-footed a 3Salchow, but overall the routine was delightful. Score: 150.16 -> 231.16.

Russia's Alexander Samarin stole the costume show
Nathan Chen was the first man to even attempt a triple jump combination here, let alone succeed. More than that though, he was the first skater to have a clean programme. Super choreographic sequence on top of everything; looked like a lot of fun and something taken out of a contemporary dance lesson. Score: 184.64 -> 271.58.

Alexander Samarin won best costume of the competition for me with his accurate depiction of Hugh Jackman's character in The Greatest Showman. He fell on the 4Lutz, and doubled out of a 3Toeloop as well as a 3Salchow. These mistakes almost cost him a medal. Score: 156.23 -> 247.09.

Jason Brown lost the gold medal the second Nathan Chen finished his clean skate, and that's one of the downsides of the sport. Jason is hands-down one of the most artistic skaters out there, his flexibility means his spins were easily the best of the competition, but he doesn't have the difficult jumps to really compete with the likes of Nathan. Score: 159.92 -> 256.33.

By the end, the final had its fair share of mistakes, but Nathan Chen managed to get back to first place, Jason Brown went home with the silver medal and Alexander Samarin fell only by a spot, earning the bronze.

Quote of the competition:


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