BEIJING--Yuzuru Hanyu, widely regarded as one of the best male figure skaters of all time, found himself wondering if he had fallen out of favor with the ice after a rare mistake on Tuesday.

Far from the dazzling performances that won him gold at the last two Olympics, the Japanese "Ice Prince" landed eighth in the men's short program at the Beijing Games after a missed opening quadruple Salchow jump cost him precious points.

"To be honest, I'm wondering, did I do something wrong? Is it because I did something bad that it turned out like this?" he said, blaming a divot in the ice for making him skip the jump.

Hanyu told reporters he had gone into the Games comfortable with his level of concentration as well as his much-talked-about decision to arrive in Beijing just two days before competition.

"That's especially why ... I can't come to terms with it," he said.

"Nothing was wrong with my skating, so I'm thinking maybe the ice doesn't like me anymore," he said, forcing a laugh.

He will go into the final free skate on Thursday 18.82 points behind American Nathan Chen, who finished top of the table by beating Hanyu's world record with 113.97 points.

‘PRICELESS PRESENCE’

At the last Olympics in Pyeongchang, Chen--also a gold-medal contender then--missed the podium after a disastrous 17th-place finish in the short program.

Hanyu may yet find redemption on Thursday, when he is looking to become the first skater ever to land the quadruple Axel, a 4-1/2-rotation jump considered impossible by most.

With his unrivalled stardom, the 27-year-old has set up the free skate event as one of the Games' highlights with buzz building around the quad Axel or "4A" attempt in his performance to "Ten to Chi to" or "Heaven and Earth."

He confessed a day earlier that he had yet to land it successfully.

"I'm confident with the performance aspect (of the program). The rest, God only knows."

Fellow Japanese Shoma Uno, who has been in the shadows of Hanyu's long-spanning career, commended his compatriot for enduring the pressure of fame and scrutiny.

"'Yuzu' is truly a priceless presence," said Uno, who placed third in the short program. "He carries a weight that none of us can, and overcomes that pressure every single day."

The showdown between Chen and Hanyu had been building toward Tuesday for the past four years, ever since what Chen called a “disastrous” short program in Pyeongchang took him out of medal contention before he felt he had arrived.

Rather than taking a break afterward, Chen doubled down, working tirelessly with longtime coach Rafael Arutyunyan while simultaneously working toward his degree from Yale. He sharpened every aspect of his figure skating, from technical marks to his artistry, and he began to put together programs that nobody else had the nerve to try.

The short program he nailed in Beijing, with a base value of 36.27 points, was the hardest ever tried in competition.

Chen's ferociously steady build toward his second Olympics, a stretch that included three world titles and the most recent of his six national championships, contrasted starkly with the bumpy, injury-filled path that Hanyu took to Beijing.

After becoming the first man to successfully defend an Olympic title since American skater Dick Button in 1952, Hanyu took a break from the sport to rest ligament damage in his right ankle. He skipped the Grand Prix season in 2020 because of the pandemic, then missed this past Grand Prix season because of more issues with his right ankle.

But just when it appeared that Kagiyama and Uno had surpassed him, the 27-year-old Hanyu showed up at the Japanese championships in December and regained his crown, and his long-awaited showdown with Chen was on for Beijing.

It lasted about as long as it takes to lace up skates.

The preternaturally poised Hanyu, skating well before Chen, was seconds into his program when he set up for the first of two planned quads. But something was amiss the moment he took off, and Hanyu bailed out of the salchow to an audible gasp from the carefully separated crowd of a few thousand people.

The quad salchow carries a base value of 9.70 points; Hanyu was given none of them.

“Knowing how it feels to skate — not necessarily to your potential but not what you anticipate skating — it doesn't feel great, especially at an Olympics,” said Chen, who can relate as well as anyone. “But you can never count Yuzu out. He's a two-time Olympic champion, and no matter what he does in the future, he’s always going to be a figure skating icon.”

As if to drive home Hanyu's extraordinary misstep, though, Uno was next on the ice and performed flawlessly. He landed his opening quad flip, then made a quad toe loop-triple toe loop combination look easy. And by the time Uno finished his program, set to a Vivaldi concerto, he had amassed 105.90 points and taken over first place.

“I had a chance to skate the short program for the team,” said Uno, part of the bronze-winning Japanese squad, “and I think the experience helped me on this individual skate. I made some errors on jumps but I performed better.”

Kagiyama gave Japan a second medal contender heading into Thursday when he landed his opening quad salchow and a quad toe loop-triple toe loop, then skated perfectly the rest of the way to “When You're Smiling” by Michael Buble.

Naturally, the performance left Kagiyama smiling as well.

“This is my first Olympic Games and to be honest with you, I thought I would be very nervous from beginning to end,” he said. “I just thought I was having fun skating, and as for the jumps — I can't complain. My legs were giving up on me, a little minus for me if I was to score myself, but everything else was quite good.”