SOCHI, Russia (AP) - Another Olympics, another Canadian man not on the top of the medals stand.
A curse? Perhaps. But certainly a habit.
Three-time world champion Patrick Chan won silver on Friday night at the Sochi Games. He skated directly after winner Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan and had plenty of room to grab the gold.
But like Donald Jackson, Brian Orser, Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko before him - world champions all with a total of nine titles among them - Chan didn’t win at the Olympics.
“Just because one event doesn’t turn out with a gold medal, we tend to quickly forget that Canada and myself have been very successful athletes,” Chan said. “We’ve changed the sport of figure skating.”
Chan came into the games as a favorite. Orser did, as well, in 1988 and lost in the Battle of the Brians to American Brian Boitano. Browning also was the top choice in 1992 and 1994, but was beaten by Victor Petrenko, then by Alexei Urmanov. Stojko went to three games and came away with two silvers.
And now there is Chan.
“Figure skating’s our sport,” said Orser, who coached Hanyu to the gold medal. “Male skating, when you think of all of our great skaters, not one of them has won, me being one of them.
“The list goes on and on. You hate when they say it’s a curse. It’s not a curse. But it’s just not happening.”
Orser met up with Chan after his marks didn’t pass Hanyu’s.
“It’s bittersweet for me,” Orser said. “I got more emotional giving Patrick a hug than I did my own skater.”
- By Barry Wilner - Twitter https://twitter.com/wilner88
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Associated Press reporters are filing dispatches about happenings in and around Sochi during the 2014 Winter Games. Follow AP journalists covering the Olympics on Twitter: https://apne.ws/1c3WMiu
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