Yuzuru Hanyu wins second figure skating gold medal, with compatriot Shoma Onu taking silver

Japan takes the gold and silver in men’s figure skating, with Spain’s Javier Fernandez taking home the bronze.

Despite a few minor mistakes in the long program, Yuzuru Hanyu — like USA’s Nathen Chen — threw in an extra quad to clinch the gold medal, adding a fourth to his already planned three quad combinations. Combined with his magnificent short program dominance, his commanding finish of 317.85 points left no question who would walk away with the gold.

When Hanyu finished his program, he seemed to know it as well. The Japanese skating star has won back-to-back gold medals, the first to do so in men’s figure skating since Dick Button did it in 1948 and 1952. Hanyu can perhaps be considered the greatest male figure skater of all time.

The silver medalist, Shoma Uno, had two mistakes on his jumps, but also benefited from a short program performance that propelled him into second place with an otherwise well-executed program set to “Turandot.”

But the performance of the night belonged to American Nathan Chen, who landed not only the few quads he had planned, but landed a phenomenal six quads with breathtaking accuracy and grace, only touching down on one. The pressure just seemed to melt off the “quad king” as he relaxed into the program and turned in a gutsy and bold performance. If only he hadn’t had a disastrous short program that landed him in 17^th place the night before.

The phenomenal performance was awarded with the highest score of the night, 215.08. But with the short score, the American placed fifth overall and off the podium. It was a bittersweet conclusion to a night where he gave the performance of his life under immense pressure.

“Having such a rough short program allowed me to just forget about expectations and just allow myself to really enjoy myself,” Chen said after his performance rinkside. “I think six quads was almost a game-time decision, I knew at that point that I had literally nothing to lose.”

His compatriot, Vincent Zhou, almost matched Chen’s bold and graceful delivery with one of his own, completing two quad lutzes — the most difficult of the quads —s coring a lifetime best of 192.16 for the night. The 17-year-old placed right behind Chen and is certainly a future contender for a medal.

The third American, Adam Rippon, also turned in a beautifully artistic performance to Coldplay’s “Arrival of the Birds,” but with no quads, he was never in contention for a medal. He landed all his triples and skated a clean, elegant program that left him in 10^th place.

Another standout was Canada’s Patrick Chan, skating an elegant free skate that contained a few mistakes, but the 2014 silver medalist more than made up for it with artistic mastery.

Israel’s Alexei Bychenko also turned in a memorable performance to “Pagliacci” and landed both his quads while delivering a compelling program that left him overjoyed by the end.

The rest of the standings were as follows: