KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Nathan Chen’s fifth quadruple jump came along unexpectedly Sunday, a little past the halfway point of a long program that will go down in figure skating history as one for the ages.
It wasn’t exactly a game-time decision to throw in the fifth quad, but it wasn’t exactly planned either. Chen is a prodigious skating talent, and just 17, so perhaps that explains it. The kid clearly can do what he wants, then with a shy grin call it all “amazing.”
No one in the competitive history of this sport, which stretches back to the late 1800s, had landed more than four quads in one 4-minute 30-second program.