MOSCOW — Patrick Chan played it cool, starting his short program with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
He couldn’t contain his enthusiasm a few minutes later when he saw his marks and realized he had set a world record.
The Canadian scored 93.02 points Wednesday at the world figure skating championships, giving the two-time silver medalist a wide lead as he seeks his first world title. His nearest challenger, Japan’s Nobunari Oda, was almost a dozen points behind and defending champion Daisuke Takahashi of Japan was another 1.6 further back.
No U.S. men were in the top 10. Richard Dornbush, who won the junior Grand Prix final in December, was 11th with 70.54 points. U.S. champion Ryan Bradley of Colorado Springs was next at 70.45, and Ross Miner was 13th at 70.40.
“It was a relief,” Bradley said. “The last few times I’ve come to the world championships, it’s been a disaster in the short. That was weighing down on me all week. I’m happy I stayed on my feet and in the game.”
Despite his numerical advantage going into today’s free skate, Chan, whose score topped the previous record of 91.30 set by Evgeni Plushenko at the 2010 European championships, doesn’t plan to coast.
“I’ve been training the program with two quads in it, so I believe it would be a disadvantage if I decided to swap everything and change everything and change the rhythm of my program,” he said. “I’m going to keep everything the same, and pretend as if (today) is another short program where there’s no results and we’re all skating a new program, skating for new positions.”
In pairs, defending champions Pang Qing and Tong Jian of China were in the lead after the short program, followed by last year’s runners-up, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany.
The U.S. champions — Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin of Colorado Springs — were eighth after he had a fluke stumble, tripping as the pair tried to get back in sync after their side-by-side triple toes.
“I’m the captain of my team, so that’s on me. Live and learn. . . . I hate to say learning experience, but we are sitting in a pretty good spot for our first worlds,” Coughlin said.
