Patrick Chan‘s Olympic season is off to a dominant start.
The three-time reigning world champion dusted off the field to win his fourth Skate Canada, posting 262.03 total points and receiving a standing ovation from a flag-waving crowd in Saint John, New Brunswick, on Saturday.
Chan won by a comfortable 27.23 over second-place Nobunari Oda of Japan.
Earlier, Canadian Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the ice dance competition with 181.03 points. Their total was 7.20 points lower than world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White at Skate America last week.
NBC and NBC Live Extra will have Skate Canada coverage Sunday from 4-6.
Gold gets bronze behind Russian teen
Chan, 22, did not beat Japan’s Tatsuki Machida‘s score at Skate America last week — 265.38.
He landed a quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination to start his program and added another quad jump skating to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.”
“To be honest, I was kind of nervous,” Chan said of his free skate. “The best way to look at it is one element at a time.”
Also, the silver and bronze medalists from March’s World Championships, Kazakhstan’s Denis Ten and Spain’s Javier Fernandez, have yet to skate in the early Grand Prix season.
Americans Jeremy Abbott and Josh Farris fell on their opening jumps. Farris, the reigning world junior champion, recovered and improved from eighth after the short program to fifth with 216.72 points.
Abbott, the three-time U.S. champion, unraveled and dropped from fourth to sixth with 215.95. The other American, Ross Miner, was ninth at 196.89.
All three U.S. men at Skate America last week — Adam Rippon, Max Aaron and Jason Brown — posted higher overall scores.
Two U.S. men will make the Olympic team following the U.S. Championships in Boston in January.
In ice dancing, Virtue and Moir beat fellow Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje by 5.80 points in their Grand Prix season debut.
Virtue and Moir are next scheduled for Trophee Bombard in Paris in three weeks and could go head-to-head with Davis and White at the Grand Prix Final in Fukuoka, Japan, in the first week of December.
The only U.S. couple at Skate Canada, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, placed third with 153.20 points. They scored .22 higher than at Skate America last week, where they were the third best U.S. couple.
The U.S. earned three ice dance spots at the Olympics. Hubbell and Donohue will know how they stack up early in the season when U.S. silver medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates skate at Cup of China next week.
Men
1. Patrick Chan (CAN) 262.03
3. Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN) 234.80
2. Nobunari Oda (JPN) 233.00
4. Michal Brezina (CZE) 218.32
5. Josh Farris (USA) 216.72
6. Jeremy Abbott (USA) 215.95
7. Elladj Balde (CAN) 205.19
8. Andrei Rogozine (CAN) 197.35
9. Ross Miner (USA) 196.89
10. Takahito Mura (JPN) 188.53
Ice Dance
1. Virtue/Moir (CAN) 181.03
2. Weaver/Poje (CAN) 175.23
3. Hubbell/Donohue (USA) 153.20
4. Razanova/Tkachenko (RUS) 145.56
5. Paul/Islam (CAN) 143.77
6. Zhiganshina/Gazsi (GER) 138.16
7. Guignard/Fabbri (ITA) 134.28
8. Stepanova/Bukin (RUS) 133.12