After an epic that landed him in Beijing at the last moment, Canadian Keegan Messing shone during his short program at the Olympic Games on Tuesday.
The very high level of the competition with the performances of the other skaters means that the Canadian comes in 9and rank after this first step. This top-10 is welcome for the Canadian who had not been able to fly with the rest of the team members to China due to a positive result for COVID-19.
Under the notes of Never Tear Us Apart, the Canadian champion began his program with aplomb by landing the first jump combination before executing a perfect triple axel, a maneuver that has played tricks on him in the past.
Due to a few minor misses in the step sequence, Messing received a score of 93.24 which was more than enough to qualify him for the portion of the free skate that was open to the top 24 skaters.
He is also just ahead of the double Olympic champion, the Japanese Yuzuru Hanyu. The latter missed his very first maneuver of the competition, but he rebounded afterwards to receive a score of 95.15 from the judges, which gives him a surprising eighth place.
The short program was dominated by the American Nathan Chen who dazzled the judges in order to offer himself the best score, ie 113.97 which represents a record. He is followed by the Japanese Yuma Kagiyama (108.12) and Shoma Uno (105.90).
After struggling in the team competition, Canadian Roman Sadovsky couldn’t pull himself together in the individual event. He finished last in the short program with a score of 62.77.
The free program will be played in 48 hours.
