Yuzuru Hanyu
Nathan Chen
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Dead even across the measured categories. Our all-time ranking places Yuzuru Hanyu at #1 and Nathan Chen at #9.
The case for Yuzuru Hanyu
The most complete skater of the quadruple era, and the first man in 66 years to defend an Olympic title. Hanyu won gold at Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018, the first back-to-back men's champion since Dick Button in 1952, and did it in the deepest and most technically inflated field the sport has ever staged. He set 19 world records under the ISU Judging System, more than any skater in any discipline: the first short program over 100 points, 101.45 at Sochi; the first free skate over 200 and first total over 300, 322.40 at the 2015 NHK Trophy; then 330.43 at the 2015 Grand Prix Final. Four consecutive Grand Prix Final titles from 2013 to 2016, two world championships and six Japanese national titles sit alongside a 2020 Four Continents win that completed the Super Slam, every major junior and senior title, a first for a male single skater. He turned professional in 2022 and immediately sold out solo productions at the Tokyo Dome.
The case for Nathan Chen
The skater who solved the quadruple era arithmetically. Chen won Olympic gold at Beijing 2022 with a world-record short program of 113.97, took three world titles in 2018, 2019 and 2021, six consecutive United States championships from 2017, and three straight Grand Prix Finals. He did not lose a completed competition between the 2018 World Championships and his Olympic title, a four-year run through the deepest men's field ever assembled. His signature was volume and repeatability rather than a single trick: after a disastrous short program at Pyeongchang 2018 he answered with a free skate carrying six quadruple attempts, the most technically loaded program skated to that point, and climbed from seventeenth to fifth. His 335.30 at the 2019 Grand Prix Final in Turin, built on 110.38 and a free skate of 224.92, set the world-record total under the ISU Judging System. He did much of it while enrolled at Yale, commuting between New Haven and California to train.