Nathan Chen is so far making the most of his fall recess from Yale. The world champion and freshman student passed his first test of the Grand Prix season — the Skate America short program in Everett, Wash., about 3,000 miles from campus.
Chen took it easy Friday night, attempting one quadruple jump rather than two (and stepping out of the landing of the quad flip), but still tallied 90.58 points and leads by 8.49. It doesn’t challenge the top scores in the world this young season, but it was plenty enough against this field lacking any other Olympic or world championships medalists.