Canada's Keegan Messing skates to personal best at world championships
Canada's Keegan Messing skated to a personal best score of 93.00 to sit sixth after Thursday's men's short program at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Milan, Italy.
His previous high was 86.33 set in September 2017 at the Autumn Classic International.
Messing, 26, is coming off a 12th-place finish at his first Olympic Games.
"Going out there [and] nailing the quad toe — calming myself back down — nailing the axel and putting together a great program ... I was going into the last spin and my heart was just exploding. I couldn't contain myself, it all came out," Messing told CBC Sports' Paul Martini.
Chen seeks redemption
American Nathan Chen leads with a score of 101.94 followed closely by Russia's Mikhail Kolyada, who scored 100.08. Vincent Zhou, also of the U.S., is in third after scoring 96.78.
Chen looks for redemption after a disastrous short program in Pyeongchang, South Korea, that saw him fall to 17th, only to win the free skate and finish fifth overall.
"Ultimately, I am glad with what I did," Chen said.
The U.S. champion hit two quads, one in combination, but the landings were a little off and he was marked slightly down. Still, the score was enough to lead the short program and a huge improvement on the 82.27 from the Olympics, though still shy of his personal best.
Zhou hit a clean quad-lutz-triple toe, adding difficulty with two arms overhead on the second jump, and a perfectly executed quad flip, earning additional points for execution. The 17-year-old Zhou, who is the youngest in the field, added more than 10 points to his personal best score.
"I came here to skate a clean program. I did just that," Zhou said. "And finishing in the top three is icing on the cake."
Nguyen fails to advance
Toronto's Nam Nguyen skated to a score of 67.79 to finish 25th and won't qualify for Saturday's free skate (5 a.m. ET), which includes the top 24 skaters from the short program.
"I tried really hard to stay focused, stay in the moment with each element — the [quad] toe and the axel were just silly mistakes ... the spins I thought were strong and I really tried my best to deliver for the whole program," Nguyen said.
"It's a little upsetting. It's always a different ball game when two of your three jumps in the short program are quads. I thought I was ready for it but it didn't go well," he added.
