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Chan quickly rises to top of men's figure skating

Source: Canadian Press
Date: February 1, 2010
Author: Lori Ewing
In a sport that's infamous for its pecking order, Canadian star Patrick Chan simply decided to jump the queue.

And that came as absolutely no surprise to Kurt Browning.

The two figure skaters became good friends during their years training together at Toronto's swanky Granite Club and Browning watched as the precocious 19-year-old Chan quickly muscled his way to the top of men's skating.

"Before he became a name or had pressures and expectations, he was just this great kid. I would always give him a hard time teasing him... 'Your jumps, you land like a pregnant elephant,' stuff like that," Browning says laughing. "But he would hand it right back.

"I'm thinking, 'My four world titles aren't taking me very far with this kid,' he hands it right back to me."

Indeed, nothing seems to intimidate Chan - a quality he'll need more than ever as he heads into the Vancouver Olympics as one of the team's most recognizable names, in one of the Games' most high profile sports, and on the tail-end of several topsy-turvy months.

The stars seemed perfectly aligned for the likable Chan just a few months ago. He won silver at the world championships last March, announcing his arrival on the sport's biggest stage with the subtlety of a puppy in a puddle, and appeared poised for a sure medal in Vancouver.

But he's since suffered a bad bout of the flu, tore a calf muscle that sidelined him for several weeks, and lost his coach a month out of the Games when Don Laws announced he was dumping the young skater.

It's the kind of adversity that could spell disaster for any athlete, but Chan isn't any athlete. He's more of a bring-it-on kind of kid. As he said at the Canadian championships, through the huge grin that rarely leaves him: "It's all part of the excitement.''

"Athletes are all about whatever happens to you, you have to move forward whether it's falling on a jump and continuing forward and not living in the past, or whatever,'' said his longtime choreographer Lori Nichol, who's acted as Chan's coach since Laws' departure.

Making Chan's challenge all the more daunting is that no Canadian man has ever won Olympic figure skating gold. Brian Orser captured silver in 1984 and '88, and now the pressure is on the young skater to produce in front of the Canadian crowd.

But Chan, Browning believes, can handle the unforgiving glare of the spotlight.

"You're used to seeing skaters go to the competition and the level drops, because it's competition, you're nervous," Browning says. "It doesn't with him, and I'm starting to get used to it now.

"He just has a way of going out there under different and difficult situations and being able to lay down a really high percentage of his planned content... it's rare, really rare."

For inspiration, Chan looks to an unexpected souce - Jamaican sprint star Usain Bolt, whom he calls one of his "favourite athletes."

"We can relate to sprinters, figure skaters are sort of like sprinters, the preparation and just the way he's so easy, when he runs it looks effortless," Chan says. "I try to mimic that and try to make skating look effortless."

Chan's rise in the figure skating ranks has been swift: second at the world junior championships to ninth at the world senior championships to his world silver medal in consecutive seasons. He also won the ISU Four Continents championships last winter.

His stunning silver-medal performance came a couple of days after Chan - whose refreshing candour has made him a favourite with the media - made headlines for his war of words with perennial world medallist Brian Joubert..

The spat was sparked by the Frenchman's comments about the lack of quad jumps in men's skating.

Chan pulled no punches. Then he backed it up by winning silver. Joubert wound up third.

The Canadian skater has proved he doesn't need the quad jump to excel.

He earns major marks for his exquisite spins and impeccable footwork, his graceful ease and the way he can capture the crowd drawing comparisons to Browning.

"I heard a specialist say once that Patrick Chan's step sequences are equal to the complexity or difficulty of the quad, and it needs to be revered," Nicol says.

Some say he's the perfect blend of Browning's grace and showmanship with the athleticism of fellow Canadian Elvis Stojko.

What makes him special is "That he's Patrick," Nichol says. "He's fresh and full of life and he represents freedom and abandonment in skating. He has such mastery of his blades and of all the things blades can do, but he's also incredibly strong and so he can take it to all sorts of levels he's only discovering now."

He'll skate his long program to "Phantom of the Opera," one of his favourite pieces of music, and attending the Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's music to truly capture its essence.

"It had the shades that I thought Patrick could do and he's always loved that piece of music," Nichol says on the choice of music.

Chan, who plays piano, was born in Ottawa and speaks English, French and Cantonese. He's the only child of mom Karen and dad Lewis, both from Hong Kong and both big sports enthusiasts. The two met at a table tennis tournament. They ski, play tennis and golf together as a family.

Chan originally had dreams of playing hockey but took up skating at the age of five at the urging of his mom, who thought some skating lessons might help him on his way to a budding hockey career.

He stuck with skating and quickly rose to the top of the novice and junior ranks. By 16 he was considered among the best in the world for his age, his superior skills honed painstakingly under legendary coach Osborne Colson.

"Mr. Colson," as Chan refers to him, died in the summer of 2006 at the age of 90.

"Everyone says he's looking down on me and just probably smiling," Chan says of his quirky former coach, who was a stickler for perfection.

It was at Colson's funeral that Chan met Laws, who coached American Scott Hamilton to Olympic gold. Chan and Laws had been working together at West Palm Beach, Fla., but their relationship soured when Chan headed to Colorado Springs in November to work with technical specialist Christy Krall.

Laws announced he was quitting as Chan's coach in early January, less than a week before the Canadian championships.

Chan has thrived in his few weeks in Colorado. After training alone with Laws in Florida, he's happy to have some company on the ice in U.S. skaters Rachael Flatt, Ryan Bradley and Brandon Mroz.

"To have (them) around is really, really fun, I can wake up in the morning and see that, 'Oh my gosh, they've got their stuff together, they're doing their programs and they're training hard, so I'd better do the same,'" Chan says. "It kind of picks you up and pushes you along.

"When I'm in Colorado, I wake up every morning and I feel like I have a job to do and I want to do it, and I enjoy doing what I do. They just reinforce that for me."

Chan launched himself onto the senior scene in 2008, when he upset reigning champ Jeffrey Buttle to become Canada's youngest male national champion. Then Buttle suddenly retired the following fall, handing the torch to Chan, who took it and ran.

Buttle knew he was leaving the sport in good hands.

"He skates like he's 10 years older than he actually is," Buttle says. "In terms of maturity, he has skating skills and edges and posture that are head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the competition."

Much of Chan's success, says Browning, comes from a healthy dose of self-confidence that the young skater possessed even back when he was starting out.

"He would say, 'I want to be part of the reason people come back to figure skating. I want to be part of what keeps figure skating in this country great," Browning says.

"Occasionally his quotes come off as a bit full-headed, but I'm sorry, you're in a performer sport, if you don't have self-confidence you look like crap out there. He has a healthy dose of self-confidence, but also has a great sense of humour where he makes fun of himself."

The 43-year-old Browning, who's assumed a mentoring role with the young star, says Chan's ability to flip the switch from goofy kid to serious skater is remarkable. One minute he'll be down in the bowels of the rink doing cartwheels and handstands and joking with passersby. He steps on the ice and the transformation is magical.

"You'll be talking to him backstage, and he's (19), he's a little bit nervous and he's joking and goofy," Browning said. "And then he steps on the ice and you go, 'Woah. . . That's the same kid I was talking to 40 minutes ago?' He's commanding the ice and has amazing presence and this big music, and he can carry it off.

"He's special, he really is."