Nathan Chen Delivers Strong Performance For Team USA In Men's Short Program

Olympic figure skating has officially returned to the Winter Olympics.

It kicked off at the Capital Indoor Stadium with three team events: men's short program, ice dance rhythm dance and pairs short program.

All eyes were on American Nathan Chen, who is on a redemption tour following his performance at the 2018 PyeongChang Games. In Beijing, the 22-year-old showed why he is Team USA's biggest chance to return to the podium in the men’s individual competition next week.

In the short program, Chen scored a personal best 111.71 to put the U.S. in the lead, which was also the highest score of the night. That is just .11 points off of Japan's Hanyu Yuzuru's 111.82 world record for the short program.

The three-time reigning world champion hit all of his jumps, starting with his opening quad flip, a triple Axel and a quad Lutz-triple toe loop combination.

Japan finished in second place as Shoma Uno delivered a score of 105.46, followed by the ROC, which finished in third as Mark Kondratiuk delivered a 95.81 performance.