Chan eyes tweaks to outfox rivals in Sochi

Ottawa: Three-time reigning men`s world champion Patrick Chan was fine-tuning his routines for the Sochi Winter Olympics even as he won his seventh title at the Canadian Figure Skating Championships.

"I`m learning from this, not just going out and having a blast," Chan said Sunday. "It`s also a lot of last minute tweaks because my plan is to go to the Olympics and win." Chan was named to the Canadian Olympic squad Sunday, a day after defending his national title. He intends to become the first Canadian male figure skater to take Olympic gold, an accomplishment that eluded his fellow world champions of years past including Brian Orser, Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko. "It`s all about maintaining and staying healthy and keeping my head together for another couple of weeks until the Olympics," Chan said. "I`m going to my second Olympics, taking the experience from Vancouver with me. It`s different. I`ll be staying at the (athletes) village the whole time. I`ll be more comfortable as opposed to being a deer in the headlights like I was in Vancouver." At the 2010 Winter Olympics on home ice, a 19-year-old Chan finished fifth. After landing a superb quad-triple jump combo in Friday`s short program, Chan attributed doubling two planned triple jumps to getting too far head of himself, rather than focusing on the execution of each element as it came. His finale went more smoothly with only one major error, turning one quad into a double. Chan described his Vivaldi Four Seasons program as "good" but "a little bit shaky here and there." His total score 277.42 was well off his best. The miscues, he said, enable him to identify "the last missing pieces I need to slot in before Olympics." Chan believes his greatest challenger in Sochi will be Japanese champion Yuzuru Hanyu, who outskated him at the Grand Prix Final in December in Japan. "He put up some really big scores," Chan said. "Yeah, it`s important to make a statement but, at the end of the day, I already made that statement a couple of months ago." That`s when Chan posted a world record score of 295.27 at the ISU Grand Prix event in Paris. "I can look back at that skate and know I already did that once and I can surely do it again," Chan said. "The Olympic Games is very different and it`s (Hanyu`s) first Olympic Games and it`s not in Japan. He skates well -- so does everyone -- in an environment you`re comfortable in and the Olympics is an even playing ground for all of us. "I`m not counting out anyone." In that context, Chan named another Japanese skater, Daisuke Takahashi, and his fellow 2013 world podium finishers, Spaniard Javier Fernandez and Denis Ten of Kazakhstan, as threats who "can do something special." With the new Olympic team event, featuring the world`s 10 top nations, Chan and other medal hopefuls must adjust competitive strategy. The singles competitors, pairs and ice dancers who compete in the team event ahead of their own must ensure they pace themselves at the Games to deliver strong performances both times. "Just because it`s a team event, it`s not like I`m going to conserve my energy," Chan said. "It`s the Olympic Games, so you`re going to give it your all. It`s important to give yourself enough time to rest before the individual event to be able to re-do that program at 100 percent." Canada is top-ranked in the team event and also qualified the largest Olympic figure skating contingent with 11 of a possible 12 individual entries and 17 competitors. Besides Chan, Canada`s heavy hitters include 2010 Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who won their sixth national crown on Saturday. Competing in their first Olympic Games are 2013 world bronze pair medallists Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, now three-time Canadian champions, and twice Canadian women`s champion Kaetlyn Osmond.