Nam Nguyen's 'aggressive' skate pays off at figure skating worlds
An aggressive approach by Nam Nguyen delivered positive results on Saturday, but didn’t result in a podium finish for the Toronto figure skater.
The 16-year-old landed his quadruple jump to climb from ninth place to finish fifth after the men’s free skate at the world championships in Shanghai, China.
“In the long program I needed to be more aggressive,” Nguyen, the former world junior champion, told reporters. “I achieved that today and I’m really happy with myself.”
Fellow Canadian Jeremy Ten of Vancouver placed 22nd.
Spain’s Javier Fernandez cleanly landed two quad jumps to earn the gold medal, while Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan and Denis Ten of Kazakhstan finished second and third, respectively. Fernandez scored 273.90 to beat Hanyu by less than three points.
Both Fernandez and Hanyu train with Nguyen in Toronto under Canadian coach Brian Orser.
Fernandez became the first Spanish men's champion.
"I'm so lucky because I come from Spain and we don't have this history," the 23-year-old Madrid native said. "I'm trying to grow the sport in Spain as I'm trying to grow myself in this sport."
Fernandez said he's not only put in the training time on the ice, he also has a new relationship that has provided him with valuable perspective on competing at the top level — he's dating two-time world champion Miki Ando of Japan.
In the women's event, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva of Russia wrapped up the most successful season of her promising young career by winning the women's gold by more than 15 points over Satoko Miyahara of Japan.
Alaine Chartrand of Prescott, Ont., finished 11th, while Gabrielle Daleman of Newmarket, Ont., was 21st.
"Pretty much every performance I do I feel I could do better," Chartrand said. "But today was not the performance I wanted. It didn't flow as well as in the short and that caused some mistakes."
The Canadian team headed home with two medals — Meagan Duhamel of Lively, Ont., and Eric Radford of Balmertown, Ont., won gold in pairs, while Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., claimed bronze in ice dance.
