Figure skating star Nathan Chen won his third straight Skate America Grand Prix championship in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Chen, who did three phenomenal quadruple jumps in his free skate to music from the Elton John biopic “Rocket Man,” defeated runner-up Jason Brown by 44 points with a total score of 299.09.
Brown, who had just recovered from a car accident in August, took the silver medal at 255.09 while Russian skater Dmitri Aliev finished with a score of 253.55 to take third.
The 20-year-old two-time world champion held a healthy lead from the short program. He opened with a triple Lutz-triple toe loop combination, which he followed up with a quad flip. He also ended a quad toe loop-Euler-triple flip combination with a double flip, and a quad toe loop near the end of the skate became a double toe loop.
“I’m stepping on the right foot right now,” he tells Olympic Channel after the event. “Of course, things always change as the season goes on but I can use this as a confidence booster for the rest of the season.”
Chen’s third Skate America title win is historic as he is only the second person to complete such a feat in history. The first was 1996 world champion Todd Eldredge, who won four-in-a-row from 1994 to 1997.
Featured Image via Getty
