Two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu would almost have been the first skater to land a quadruple Axel, while edging out Shoma Uno and Yumi Kagayami slightly to win the Japanese national championship on Sunday.
Hanyu tried the jump, which, unlike other Quads, includes an additional half turn, at the beginning of his free skate at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan. He eventually made the two-foot landing and the jump was downgraded to a three-axle, but it still paved the way for a program that included three more Quads and left him with 322.36 points.
“I’m honestly relieved,” Hanyu told Kyodo News. “I felt like I was crying even before the six-minute warm-up.”
Uno packed five Quads into his free skate, but barely hung on to his Flip Quad and Quad Toe and fell on another Quad Toe, earning him 295.82 points and the silver medal. Kagiyami came on 292.41 Points.
The Trio of Japanese skaters is expected to be the toughest competition for American Star Nathan Chen at the Beijing Winter Olympics, which are scheduled to start in just under six weeks. Chen joins the U.S. Nationals in two weeks.
“It’s nice to be able to skate. Even if I wasn’t participating, I would still want to watch,” Chen said last week, when asked about Hanyu’s return from an eight-month absence from competition, largely due to an ankle injury.
“It will be exciting to see how everyone is doing,” said Chen, who has overcome Hanyu four times since the Pyeongchang Olympics. “Will it really have an impact on how I plan? Probably not. But it is always useful, I think, to understand where everyone is. But most of all, skating is fun.”
In another potential Olympic preview this weekend, Russian Star Kamila Valieva brought back her status as overwhelming favorite in Beijing with a record-breaking performance at her national championship.
The winner of Skate Canada and the Rostelecom Cup scored 193.10 points in her Free Skate, surpassing her record of 185.29 points set earlier this year, and finished it with 283.48 points. She was ahead of Alexandra Trusova, who came to the finish with 248.65 points, and Anna Shcherbakova, who won the bronze medal with 239.56 points.
Valieva set the record for a Grand Prix event with 272.71 points at the Rostelecom Cup.
Trusova and Shcherbakova could be Valieva’s closest competitors at the Beijing Games. And if so, the Trio could allow Russian skaters to become the first to sweep the Olympic Podium for a single Nation.
In other results from the weekend, Kaori Sakamoto won the Japanese championship with a score of 234.06 points, making her one of the few skaters in the world who scored high enough to challenge the Russians.
Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin won the Russian ice dance title with 223.37 points. This score surpassed the world’s best performance of Olympic favorites Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France at the French International.
Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov won the Russian pair title with 243.74 points, ahead of silver medalists Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii, as well as the third-place team of Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov.
Tarasova and Morozov, who finished fourth at the Pyeongchang Games, had their highest Grand Prix score of the season, with 228.49 points.
