FIGURE SKATING/ Hanyu, Uno give Japan one-two finish in men’s singles

The music started. Hanyu’s two quads, the Salchow and the toe loop in combination with a triple toe loop, were effortless and clean. By contrast, Hanyu scored 111.68, with an elegant and powerful skate that put to rest any doubts about his recovery from a recent injury. “My tears were from my heart”.

“I’m relieved I was able to skate after receiving support from many people”, he said. “Probably wouldn’t have tried things if I hadn’t had such a rough skate”.

Uno, skating to Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, was in first spot after the short programme. He touched down on a second quad flip but maintained his balance.

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.

His countryman, Shoma Uno, surprised everyone by winning the silver medal.

“Looking back at my performance, there is no disappointment”.

Chen – already the only man to have hit seven quads over two programs in the same event – opened with the quad lutz, the most hard and highest-scoring jump. Hanyu led all skaters coming into the second day of competition.

Spain’s Javier Fernandez, who also performed very well in the strong short program, won the bronze medal.

With so many young skaters like Nathan Chen learning to throw so many different kinds of quads, Hanyu needed to keep up. Sixteen of the 24 skaters on Saturday attempted at least one quad. Everybody was skating really well. The outcome of the match this time will count towards which of the two gets a bye into the quarter-finals of the Olympic tournament. And I finally got it. Unfortunately I had been having a really bad time.

China’s Jin Boyang came in fourth with a score of 297.77, followed by Chen, who had a total score of 297.35. Within 90 minutes of his win, 1.1 million tweets with the hash tag “Hanyu-kun” – an affectionate diminutive – had flooded social media, becoming the top trending hash tag around the world. My legs were shaky. Like I said, legend.

Other former US Olympic skaters took to Twitter to share their congratulations, including Ben Agosto, Scott Hamilton, Meryl Davis, Polina Edmunds, and Dick Button, who compared Chen to Beyoncé. He nearly had six, but had a slight touch down on the quad flip. He finished with a lifetime personal best of 192.16 points in the long program.

Fernandez previously said he planned to retire after the Games. “This whole entire Olympics experience has been more than I could have dreamed of”.

“I’m really happy with what I did here and tomorrow is another day”.

Asked whether he succumbed to the pressure of being the face of U.S. Figure Skating, not to mention ever-present in NBC promos, Chen replied: “It was the same pressure I always put on myself”. The best part? The guys finished with a bang in South Korea, compared to a fall-filled, splat-fest free skate four years ago at the Sochi Games. “I just did my best today”.

It wasn’t Patrick Chan’s night in PyeongChang.

American Vincent Zhou was a surprise sixth place finisher, after he stood up on five quads of his own, though one was called underrotated and another had an edge call.

If Pyeongchang proves to be Adam Rippon’s figure skating swansong then “America’s sweetheart” will look back on the Winter Games without an ounce of regret. I’ve been training clean longs.