Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN) Earns Record Score in Men's Short Program

(14 February 2014)  The Men's field got sorted out in the Short Program with Yuzuri Hanyu and Patrick Chan holding the top two spots, followed by six men in numerical contention for the bronze medal.  The most dramatic moment of the night, however, was when Evgeni Plushenko ended his second competitive career by withdrawing from the event prior to his time to skate.

Schedule to skate in the second group, Plushenko skated the warm-up poorly.  On an Axel attempt he opened up and then reached for his back.  Plushenko had said after the Team Event that his back had bothered him during the free skate, in which he doubled several jumps in the second half of the program.

After skating around aimlessly at the end of the warm-up, Plushenko went to the boards and had an animated discussion with his coach Alexei Mishin.  When his name was called he slowly skated to the Referee and withdrew from the competition.  He left the ice waiving to the stunned crowd who where there in force to see the home country favorite,

There was much speculation before the Olympics and during the Team Event whether Plushenko was strong enough to skate four performance in one week and whether he would withdraw before the individual event and allow alternate Maxim Kovtun to compete instead.  Conspiracy theorists now speculate that withdrawing after the start of the individual event, if Plushenko was not prepared to skate, was planned to insure that Kovtun could not skate in the individual event

Jeremy Abbot skated in the second warm-up group, and provided some additional drama by taking a major fall in his opening quad toe loop attempt.  It was a hard fall, and he wallowed on the ice sufficiently long to get a deduction for an interruption to the program in addition to the deduction for a fall.  Eventually he continued his program, and to his credit he fought back with a clean triple Lutz - triple toe loop combination and also landed triple Axel, but with a bit of a weak landing edge.  Also to his credit, Abbott was able to improvise the timing of the rest of the program and finish on time with his music. He ended in 15th place, with no chance for a medal and only a remote chance to move up into the top 10.

Describing the fall he said, "When I stood up I could hear the crowd screaming for me and I knew I had to finish.  In my mind, I was thinking 'Do I go to the referee?  Do I keep going? Am I done?' ... I was confused and in a lot of pain, but I heard the crowd and I knew I had to do it for them."

In the third warm-up group, Jason Brown skated a cleanly executed program for a season best score of 86.00 points.  His performance placed him within numerical range of the bronze medal, even without a quad in his program.  For jump elements he execute clean triple Axel, triple flip - triple toe loop, and triple Lutz.  In the free skate, however, the lack of a quad will be more telling and holding his current sixth place position may prove difficult.  On his personal best score he said, "I am so excited.  I did a personal best and it's been like that all season.  I went out there and I wanted to skate the way I trained."

Canada Kevin Reynolds also skated in the third warm-up. He made significant errors on all three jump elements, falling twice.  He placed 17th in the short, with 68.76 points.

Much of the cream of the crop was in the fourth warm-up group which had Yuzuro Hanyu, Javier Fernandez and Patrick Chan skating back-to-back.

Hanyu out did his superb team event short program by skating a dynamic lively program that earned a season best and record score of 101.45 points.  All three jump elements were big and clean and strong, and he was again the only man to put two jump elements in the second half fo the routine (the triple Axel and the triple Lutz - triple toe loop combination).

On his record score he said, "I'm over the moon.  I took it one element at a time.  I can't thank the fans enough who came all the wa't y here from Japan to support me, as well as the ones watching back home. ... I wasn't trying to clear 100 points.  I was just trying to turn in the best performances I possibly could - and I did. ... I was very, very surprised by the score."

Hanyu was followed by Fernandez who scored 86.98 points, leading a group of six skaters who ended the night with 85-87 points.  He stepped out of the landing of both quad Salchow and triple Lutz - triple toe loop.  His components averaged 8.62, fourth best of the group.  Fernandez was not satisfied with his performance saying, "It wasn't my day.  I was stumbling a lot.  The only thing you can do is fight until the end, that's what I did.  I'm still in the game.  I will do 100% tomorrow to get a higher score in my free skating."

Patrick Chan gave a significantly better performance than in the Team short program, and earned 97.52 for his effort.  He sits 3.93 points behind Hanyu.  Hde nailed the quad toe loop - triple toe loop combination, but had a minor step out of the landing of his triple Axel.  His component scores, averaging 9.44 were the best of the group.  On second viewing this week, his program still seems pretentious, and clichéd, and completely unengaging, with hackneyed choreography trying to express the sadness of Rachmaninov's "Elergy"  -- not that any of that will stop him from winning the gold medal with a great skate in the free.

On his position after the short he said, "Four points I made up in the long program.  I have done it before and I have an arsenal for the long program.  I am relying on that and relying on my training from the whole year.  It's going to be a whole new day tomorrow and a whole new competition."

2013 World silver medalist Denis Ten led off the last warm-up group, which also included the reaming two Japanese skaters, Daisuke Takahashi and Tatsuki Machida.

Ten has had a tough season with illness and injury, and has had to play catch up this season with the leaders.  He fell on quad toe loop, after which he skated a clean program, though his combination was only a triple-double.  He finished the short program in ninth place with 84.06 points and average component scores of 8.31.  His leveled elements all achieved level 4.  After his skate he said, "You know, it could have been better. This year has been quite tough, so I'm happy that I overcame those obstacles and now I'm here.  Tomorrow I will start fresh."

For Daisuke Takahashi, the nail in his coffin was the opening quad toe loop that was downgraded and two-footed -- easily a ten point error that takes him out of the running for gold or silver, and second in line for contending for the bronze.  The remainder of theprogram was well skated and his components were third best of the group.

"I blew the quad," he said, "I've got to have a perfect skate tomorrow.  I couldn't skate to the best of my ability today, but I did what I could. ... Tonight, I was very nervous.  I thought too much about my quad.  I've got to focus on myself tomorrow.  I just couldn't hold  my nerves from start to finish."

Last to skate, Tatsuki Machida also had a devastating error which thrust him from potentially contending for a medal. to 11th place.  For the required triple he executed a double Lutz, which resulted in a loss of six or more points compared to a well executed triple.  His components weere fifth best of the group.

"It's killing me.  I didn't perform teh way I'm capable of performing.  But I'm in a position if I skate well enough in the free program, I still have a shot at a medal."