Saitama, Japan • Defending champion Nathan Chen upstaged two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu to lead the short program at the figure skating world championships on Thursday.
Skating to "Caravan" by Duke Ellington, Chen performed a lively program that featured a triple axel, a quad lutz, and a quad toeloop-triple toeloop combination for a season-best score of 107.40 points.
American teammate Jason Brown was second with 96.81 points after a routine that included a triple flip, a triple axel, and a triple lutz-triple toeloop.
Coming back from a four-month absence because of injury, Hanyu showed some rustiness in his opening jump, a double salchow instead of a planned quad salchow.