The first individual event of the Olympics is upon us and so we’re going to break down our top 5 predictions for the Men’s event. Men are always the most chaotic of all the disciplines because the content is high risk, high reward when it comes to quads.
We mostly have similar ideas of which names will be included, with our podium being an assortment of two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu, three-time World Champion Nathan Chen, and last year’s Worlds silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama. It’s hard to get a grasp on where Hanyu is at this point in his training, as he only just arrived and we have no practice intel. But if he’s healthy, and if he lands that elusive quad axel, he could be unstoppable on his way to a third Olympic gold. Chen had his best ever short program score in the team event, just 0.11 off of Hanyu’s World Record. His return to Rocketman was a little rough around the edges at Nationals, but if he’s sorted out the kinks and delivers his planned content, he’s for sure a favourite for the title. Kagiyama entered the Olympics as someone with the potential to be in the conversation – but after his free skate in the team event, which was the highest score by any man internationally this season, he’s got to be a medal favourite. Especially when after the skate he implied that was only 80% of what he’s capable of bringing.
In our predictions for who will land just off the podium, we have: Shoma Uno, Jason Brown, Junhwan Cha, and Mark Kondratiuk. Uno, like Chen, had a personal best short program in the team event, and one of the most comfortable skates he’s had in ages. There’s nothing quite like already having that Olympic experience to relieve some of those nerves, and he did spectacularly even when his coach hadn’t arrived yet. Brown doesn’t have the quads, but he’s light years ahead of most other competitors when it comes to components. His transitions are truly in a class of their own. He’s landed his quad in practice this week, so if he finally lands it clean on top of everything else? He has to be in the mix. Just one fall drops those components and can be his undoing though. Cha is coming off of his first Championship win at Four Continents and looked to be in his best shape ever. He had a fall there but his programs have the ability to create such a moment if he skates them clean. Kondratiuk, our very own viral Jesus after the team event free skate, is also entering the event as reigning European champion. It remains to be seen how his stamina will stack up with four programs within seven days, but if he performs like he’s been known to do, don’t rule him out if others are to slip up.
| Elli’s predictions | Lois’s predictions | Sarah’s predictions | |
| 1 | Yuzuru Hanyu | Nathan Chen | Yuma Kagiyama |
| 2 | Nathan Chen | Yuzuru Hanyu | Yuzuru Hanyu |
| 3 | Yuma Kagiyama | Yuma Kagiyama | Nathan Chen |
| 4 | Shoma Uno | Junhwan Cha | Shoma Uno |
| 5 | Jason Brown | Shoma Uno | Mark Kondratiuk |
Don’t count out: Andrei Mozalev, Vincent Zhou, Keegan Messing, Daniel Grassl, Evgeni Semenenko, Matteo Rizzo, Deniss Vasiljevs – let’s just say a lot of them, it is men after all.
Note: Since posting this, Vincent Zhou has had to withdraw from the individual event due to testing positive for COVID.
