Defending champion Hanyu leads in men' s figure skating short program, China's Jin finishes 4th

PYEONGCHANG, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's medal hopeful Jin Boyang finished fourth in men's figure skating short program at the PyeongChang Olympics on Friday after posting a personal best of 103.32 points, while defending champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan dominated the ice rink with 111.68 points.

Multiple world champion Javier Fernandez of Spain won the second place at 107.58, followed by another Japanese star skater Shoma Uno 104.17.

Jin, who won the Four Continents Championships last month, is hopeful to become the first Chinese figure skater to win an Olympic medal in the men's singles. His teammate Yan Han set the best ranking for China in this event as the 7th finisher in Sochi.

All in black, Jin, presented a powerful routine in the music of Oscar winner Crouch Tiger, Hidden Dragon in his Olympic debut, featuring with precise jumps of quad lutz plus triple toeloop, quad toeloop and triple axel.

The 20-year-old missed Grand Prix final 2017 for injuries on both feet, but gathered confidence later in recovery and proper training.

"I was the last to skate today and all the skaters of my group skated so well that I kind of took the mounting pressure as winning motivation and I made it," he said.

"The movie Crouch Tiger, Hidden Dragon is about stories of bravery Chinese swordsmen and swordswomen with great integrity in ancient times. I chose this music. It's sad but so powerful and beautiful, and most important of all, so China. I wanna show a real China at Olympics," he said.

The sensation of the game is Hanyu with no doubt, who came back to the rink three months after ankle injury. He made the fully-packed Gangneung Ice Arena a home ground before screaming Japanese fans, waving Japanese national flags, with a complete flawless routine.

Skating into Ballade No. 1, his airy quad loop and triple axel jumps, plus a fancy combination of quad toeloop and triple toeloop jumps, earned him 111.68 points and an ice-rink-full of his favorite yellow Pooh bear toys, of different size.

"I am very satisfied with my performance today but I still have tomorrow, so I will do my best tomorrow," he said.

As the only man who have defeated Hanyu since the start of 2017, the American Nathan Chen, however, experienced a quite tumbling start in the individual game to finish the 17th with 82.27 points, after he failed in all three jump moves. He won a bronze medal in team event on Monday.

Team gold medallist Patrick Chan of Canada, also Sochi silver medallist of the event, might have his gold dream in PyeongChang shattered because of a fatal falling-down onto the rink after a triple axel jump to finish with 90.01 points.

China's Yan, who also entered the free skating scheduled on Saturday, veered into sloppiness because of injuries, and fell onto the ice after a quad toeloop jump, which cost him one technical point, and then stepped out of a triple toeloop in the following combination with triple lutz jump, to finish the 19th.

Twenty four out of 30 skaters are qualified into the free skating event. Enditem