The battle of the last two World champions came down to the quad toe in the short program at the Four Continents Championships. And while neither hit the jump cleanly, it was Patrick Chan’s fully-rotated quad that gave him the edge over Daisuke Takahashi whose quad was underrotated. But it was Takahashi’s teammate, Takahito Mura, who surprised everyone with a clean skate to put himself into second.
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PLAY-BY-PLAY: Men’s short program
Skating in the second-to-last group of skaters, Chan put both hands down and stepped out of his opening quad toe, but the rest of his short program was solid and confident, including a triple axel and a triple lutz-triple toe combination. The judges rewarded him with an 87.95, giving him a comfortable four-point cushion going into the free skate.
Mura was the only one of the top three skaters to hit the quad toe and skate a clean program. He also landed the only clean quad jump in the event out of eight attempts. Mura came into the competition the least heralded out of the three Japanese skaters, but came out on top in the short, scoring a 83.44 to put him just under a point over Takahashi.
Takahashi’s fall on his opening quad toe, which was called underrotated by the judging panel, kept him from challenging Chan. Though he recovered with a strong triple axel and a triple lutz-triple toe combination, his 82.59 puts him five points behind the leader.
WATCH: Takahashi Four Continents short program
Tatsuki Machida made it three Japanese men in the top four with an energetic and clean short program that did not include a quad. But his component scores were strong, and he is in fourth with a 82.37, less than a quarter-point behind Takahashi.
American Ross Miner is the highest-ranked of the three competitors from the United States. He skated a clean short program to put himself in sixth with a 76.89. U.S. silver medalist Adam Rippon is right behind with a 74.92 after falling on his trademark Rippon triple lutz. The third American entry, Richard Dornbush, is currently in 13th after mistakes on all three jumping passes.
WATCH: Miner Four Continents short program
The top 24 men move on to compete in tomorrow's free skate.
MEN (after the short program)
1. Patrick Chan CAN – 87.95
2. Takahito Mura JPN – 83.44
3. Daisuke Takahashi JPN – 82.59
4. Tatsuki Machida JPN – 82.37
5. Denis Ten KAZ – 77.73
6. Ross Miner USA – 76.89
7. Adam Rippon USA – 74.92
8. Nan Song CHN – 69.34
9. Kevin Reynolds CAN – 68.22
10. Jinlin Guan CHN – 66.36
11. Misha Ge UZB – 64.49
12. Jeremy Ten CAN – 61.37
13. Richard Dornbush USA – 61.34
14. Christopher Caluza PHI – 58.02
15. Jialiang Wu CHN – 56.19
16. Alex Kang Chan Kam KOR – 52.12
17. Abzal Rakimgaliev KAZ – 52.10
18. Mark Webster AUS – 50.84
19. Luiz Manella BRA – 50.17
20. Jordan Ju TPE – 49.49
21. Min-Seok Kim KOR – 49.39
22. Kevin Alves BRA – 47.96
23. Brendan Kerry AUS – 47.01
24. Nicholas Fernandez AUS – 44.58
25. Harry Hau Yin Lee HKG – 42.00
26. Maverick Eguia PHI – 41.63
27. Wun-Chang Shih TPE – 37.27
28. Hwan-Jin Kim KOR – 36.95
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