Keegan Messing passes the optimism test at Beijing 2022 on a surprising day in men’s figure skating

Opinion

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This article was published 08/02/2022 (1332 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEIJING—In an unfreakish world, there would be rejoicing at Keegan Messing and Yuzuru Hanyu bunched cheek to cheek in the figure skating standings.

At least from the Canadian contingent, with less than two points separating the country’s national champion, Messing, from the two-time and defending Olympic champion, Hanyu, after Tuesday’s short program spooled out.

Messing should get some kind of prize — maybe one of those panda mascot thingies (figure skating does love its stuffed animals) — for merely arriving in China. Not a moment too soon, either, for the start of the men’s individual competition. He came the long way: Vancouver to Montreal to Milan to Beijing, following a weeklong holdup under COVID travel protocols.

At the Canadians last month, Messing alit in Ottawa after a 33-hour pilgrimage across the skies and a flurry of changed flights from his starting point in Anchorage. His skates didn’t make it with him, necessitating a quick shopping expedition and the purchase of women’s figure skates, best option available, for his first practice session.

So Messing has learned to roll with the punches, his ebullient nature a buffer against unexpected complications and waylaid plans. Though testing positive on his way to joining Team Canada for their chartered flight to the Winter Games — infected somewhere between Alaska and Vancouver — was a hurdle too far.

“I’m an optimistic guy but this definitely took the cake for putting my optimism to the test. It was a struggle. The mental health side of things for this journey was huge.”

That was the first we’d heard from Messing on the heels of an epic odyssey to his second Olympics, which required four negative COVID-test results before he was permitted to point himself toward Beijing. He’d spent the week running up and down the stairs in his hotel, and was finally able to train privately on ice arranged for him by the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Messing could barely bring himself to look at social media postings of his Canadian compatriots aboard their charter, everybody jolly and excited to be Beijing-bound.

“To pop a positive (COVID-19 test) at the finish line is devastating, and then to be thrown into quarantine at the peak of training … to be sitting there in a room all by yourself, being bored out of your mind, open your phone and then see all of your friends on the plane that you’re supposed to be on, it was a journey just to keep the happy-go-lucky attitude.”

Jet lag be damned, Messing was on the practice ice five hours after landing on Monday and hitting his segment spot Tuesday with aplomb, closing his eyes to feel the first few beats of his short program music, “Never Tear Us Apart,” a sigh and a peaceful smile on his face moments before executing a fine quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop opening combination and cleanly laying down the rest of the program, including a gorgeous triple axel.

When the 29 competitors were done — one less than the 30 expected, with American Vincent Zhou withdrawing because of a positive COVID test — Messing’s score of 93.24 had him in ninth place, around what might be expected for the 30-year-old, who finished 12th in Pyeongchang four years ago.

Totally unexpected was the cock-up from Hanyu — he just never messes a jump — who popped his opening quad salchow to gasps from the limited crowd at the Capital Indoor Stadium. Big fat zero points and a score of 95.15, landing him in eighth place, which Hanyu has surely never seen before. He blamed a divot in the ice.

As exceptionally gifted as Hanyu is, it’s a long way up from there into medal-sniffing territory for the Japanese superstar. Although it should be noted that Hanyu suffered a severe ankle sprain last autumn and missed the entire Grand Prix season, returning only in time for the Japan national championships in December. That was where he attempted to become the first skater to land a quadruple axel — very nearly succeeding but it was landed on two feet and didn’t count.

In his short here, a new routine performed to “Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso,” Hanyu, who trains in Toronto under Brian Orser, typically achieved four Level 4s for the quality of his elements but that couldn’t significantly narrow the gap. His chief rival in Beijing, three-time world champion Nathan Chen of the U.S., put up his second international best score of the Games (the first was in the team event), 113.97, the highest short program score in figure skating history, a record Hanyu had held.

The 22-year-old Yale University student — majoring in statistics and diet science — came a cropper in Pyeongchang because of his disastrous short program. The blunders were not to be repeated in this “La Boheme’’ mastery. “I’d say it’s pretty close to my best,’’ Chen agreed afterward, talking with reporters in the mixed zone.

Hanyu has twin objectives in Beijing: to land the first quad axel and, with a third Olympic title, to equal the record set by Sweden’s Gilles Grafstrom 94 years ago.

Being out of the medal hunt might actually free Hanyu from the anxiety of blowing the quad axel, with which he has become obsessed. In a video message posted to the Japanese Skating Federation’s Twitter feed, Hanyu has promised to attempt the jump.

It will likely still be a Battle of the Quad Kings, between the 27-year-old Hanyu and Chen, when the free skate is contested Thursday, though Hanyu’s teammates, teenage sensation Yuma Kagiyama and veteran Shoma Uno — second and third respectively — would appear the only skaters with any reasonable hope of overtaking the American, who enjoys a five-point lead. Did we mention that Chen has an arsenal of five quad jumps? And that he’s executed them all in a single gobsmacking program?

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Messing’s not in that league. Frankly, no skater other than Hanyu is, although young Kagiyama is showing promise of getting there one day.

A quad axel. Who could ever even have imagined it?

Canada’s other men’s singles entry, Roman Sadovsky, a 22-year-old from Toronto, piled on top of team event misery — last place in the free skate portion — with a 29th out of 29 placement Tuesday, popping two jumps. He did not advance to Thursday’s free program (Wednesday night ET).

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. “Just something didn’t click.”

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno