Group 1 feat. Michal Brezina and Jin Boyang
With the start order for each discipline in the team event based on world standings, Germany’s Paul Fentz started the competition. The German team is competing without its pairs entry of Minerva Hase and Nolan Seegert after Seegert tested positive for COVID once in Beijing. Their teammates are holding a sign that says, “We Miss You,” in the team box.
Fentz earned 68.84 points in what will be his only Olympic performance here. Germany did not qualify a men’s skater, but was granted a men’s spot for just the team event based on the country’s overall ranking and it having an entry for the remaining three disciplines.
Canadian Roman Sadovsky topped Fentz with 71.06 points. Canada won the 2018 Olympic team event gold medal, but has not factored into medal conversations for these Games due to the retirement of two-time Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, 2014 Olympic silver medalist Patrick Chan and 2018 Olympic pairs bronze medalists Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford.
At his fourth Olympics, 31-year-old Michal Brezina of the Czech Republic moved into first with a score of 76.77 points. Brezina trains at Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena in Irvine, California, with Chen and their coach Rafael Arutunian.
China’s Jin Boyang, who was fourth in men’s singles in PyeongChang, fell on his quad toe but still earned the highest score so far with 82.87 points.
Group 2 feat. Uno and Chen
Final group to come, which includes (in order) Mark Kondratyuk (ROC), Shoma Uno (JPN), Morisi Kvitelashvili (GEO), Chen (USA) and Daniel Grassl (ITA).
ROC’S Kondratyuk was easily into first with a short program that started with a quad toe and ended with a quad salchow for 95.81 points.
Uno, the 2018 Olympic silver medalist, starts the Japanese team’s quest for its first medal in this event with a personal best score of 105.46 points. His clean short program featured an opening quad flip, quad toe-triple toe combo and a triple axel.
The Georgian team is off to a strong start in its first Olympic team event appearance thanks to Kvitelashvili who lands third with 92.37 points, behind Uno and Kondratyuk, in the country’s quest to advance to the free skate/dance portion.
With U.S. teammates Mariah Bell, Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, Karen Chen, and Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker cheering him on in the team box, Chen avenges his 2018 team event performance with a virtually flawless performance to Charles Aznavour’s version of “La Boheme.” The 22-year-old earned an international personal best score of 111.71 points.
“Honestly I’m just here to have fun, so I’m really happy,” Chen told NBC reporter Andrea Joyce.
Grassl then put Italy into fifth with 88.10 points.
Heading into the rhythm dance, the U.S. is ranked first (earning 10 points for the team event), followed by Japan (9), ROC (8), Georgia (7) and Italy (6) rounding out the top five. In jeopardy of being eliminated following the short/rhythm programs is China (5), Czech Republic (4), Canada (3) and Germany (2).
Ukraine is the 10 team in the event but has yet to start as its men’s entry, Ivan Shmuratko, tested positive for COVID.
