Nathan Chen hasn’t been in the position in nearly two years — trailing at a Grand Prix event.
The world champion fell on a quadruple flip in the Internationaux de France short program on Friday, putting him 5.55 points behind surprise leader Jason Brown going into Saturday’s free skate in Grenoble.
Brown, a Sochi Olympian who missed the U.S. team for PyeongChang, skated a clean, quad-less program and totaled 96.41. Chen’s effort, landing one quad, garnered 86.94 for third place behind Brown and Russian Alexander Samarin. Chen attempted one more quad than he did at Skate America last month, where he tallied 90.