Japanese men are in first, second and third after the world figure skating championships short program, looking for the first men’s medals sweep since 1956.
Shoma Uno, who owns five silver or bronze medals between the Olympics and worlds, is in position for his first gold going into Saturday’s free skate. Uno hit a quadruple flip and a quad toe loop-triple toe combination for a personal best 109.63 points.
Only Olympic champions Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu, who are missing worlds with injuries, have ever scored higher.
Uno is followed by Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama and Kazuki Tomono, a veteran who was fifth in his previous worlds appearance in 2018. Japan can become the first nation to sweep the men’s medals since Americans Hayes Jenkins, Ronnie Robertson and David Jenkins did so at the 1955 and 1956 Worlds, plus the 1956 Olympics.
Americans Ilia Malinin and Vincent Zhou are fourth and sixth. Each attempted two quads, like the Japanese.
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Malinin, 17 and the youngest U.S. man competing at a worlds since 1966, hit a quad Lutz and quad toe to break the 100-point barrier with a personal best by 18.85 points. He is .96 of a point behind Tomono. Four men broke 100 points in the same short program for the second time in history (2018 Olympics), according to SkatingScores.com.
In January, Malinin was second in his senior nationals debut but was left off the three-man Olympic team for the more experienced Zhou and Jason Brown.
“I definitely think that this [short program] gave everyone, to show, that I definitely was supposed to go to Beijing and that I was meant to be there,” said Malinin, who plans four quads in the free skate.
Zhou, who was forced out of the individual Olympic competition due to a positive COVID test, had one of his quads called under-rotated.
He repeated comments from before worlds, saying the recent weeks since returning from China have been “absolute hell,” that many days he couldn’t bring himself to put on skates to practice, and that when he did take the ice, he instantly felt crushed, helpless and like a failure.
He couldn’t get through a full program in practice last week -- “couldn’t even do a good jump” -- and nearly withdrew two or three days before flying to France.
“Once I made the decision to come, there was a bit of a mental switch,” Zhou said. “Since I got here I’ve been skating pretty well.
“Simply being here is a big win for me.”
Worlds continue later Thursday with the pairs’ free skate. Americans were first and second in the short program, looking to deliver the nation’s first pairs’ title since 1979.
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